This past weekend. here in Portland OR, we had a Great American Train
Show. Our Rose City Garden Railway Society set up a large display (25' x80')
with over 500 feet of track including yards and sidings. The display had a
ten to twelve foot high mountain with a logging operation on one end, and an
entire town on the other end of the display. The main line was a U shaped
dog bone affair with a number of sidings and a marshalling yard. We laid
down lots of ballast, real grass, barkdust and about a hundred living plants
and trees. It was a very impressive display and our club won first place for
best display.
Now for the good part. The club kindly agreed to set aside a couple of
hours each day for running live steam locomotives (had to disconnect track
power for Ruby). As there are only three of us that own steam locomotives, it
was rather generous of them to let us have the time considering the show was
only open for six hours each day and there are a lot of Sparkey operators in
the club.
My Rosey (Ruby conversion 2-4-4) ran beautifully and everyone got a real
kick out of my Cricket huffing and puffing along pulling a small string of
work cars. The club president impressed all the fans with his, Sandy River &
Rangely Lakes #24 as well. The third guy had trouble trying to operate his
R/C'd Ruby and did not run. He is new to live steam and needs a little
training. I managed to get in at least two runs each day with my Rosey. I
think that we managed to get a number of people interested in live steam.
One club member is considering getting the new C-16 from Accucraft.
It was a goooooood weekend despite all the work we put in setting up and
tearing down this display. ( I really gotta get some track laid in my yard)
Salty CC&BW - Portland OR
