NMRA MidCentral Region Convention 2018

(This article originally appeared in the Division 12, MCR’s newsletter “Builder’s Plate”)

Cincinnati Express MCR 2018 Convention report:

With great excitement and a little trepidation, I (along with our Division 12 superintendent) recently attended the 2018 MidCentral Region convention in Cincinnati, OH May 17-20, 2018. The convention was held in the newly-renovated Cincinnati Marriot North, which was an excellent venue for a convention.
Having never before attended an NMRA convention of any size, I was nearly overwhelmed by the event organized by Division 7.  65 open layouts, 35 of which have been published, 10 in Great Model Railroads; op sessions Thursday and Friday nights, Saturday morning, and Sunday morning; bus tours to said layouts; industry tours; 3 days of clinics; model and photo contests; Saturday evening banquet with Gerry Leone as the speaker; the choices were mind-boggling, and one could literally not see and do everything – hard choices had to be made!

I arrived in Cincinnati Wednesday evening, as things were going to kick off right away Thursday.

Thursday afternoon was a self-guided tour of Larry Bonhaus’ large N-scale layout, and Bob Lawson’s layout which showcased his many award-winning super-detailed structure models.

Bob Lawson’s Southern Railway CNO&TP Division

Being an “ops guy”, I would forgo some evening clinics for the op sessions, of course. Thursday evening I was lucky to run on Gerry Albers’ Virginian Deepwater District (http://www.deepwaterdistrict.com/). This is an amazing railroad that incorporates the Virginian Railway; with interchanges with the C&O, NYC, and Allen McClelland’s V&O. The website does not do it justice. I managed to draw two trains that ran nearly the entire length of the railroad, so I was able to truly get an appreciation for the scope of layout. The third and final run was a V&O work train, so I can check off a “bucket list” item and say I actually ran a train from the famed Virginian & Ohio.

Gerry Albers’ Virginian Deepwater District

Friday morning we did a minibus tour of several layouts, including the Eastern Logger’s modular layout, Ed Swain’s Pennsy layout, and Curt LaRue’s PRR Panhandle railroad. Friday afternoon I hit a few of the clinics presented during the day, including a roundtable discussion with the NMRA leadership including NMRA Pres. Charlie Getz, Board member Mike Brestel, VP for Special Projects Gerry Leone, Treasurer/CFO Frank Koch, and Marketing Consultant Christina Ganzer. Friday evening I returned to Curt Larue’s beautiful layout, and worked the Weirton towerman job for the entire evening. PRR steam and more PRR steam, oh my!

Curt LaRue’s PRR Panhandle Division

Saturday morning I attended a clinic for neophyte contest judges, and then immediately we set to work evaluating the numerous models in the contest room. This process took most of the remaining morning and into Saturday afternoon. I will have more detail about how the contest and judging process works at a future Division meeting or in this newsletter.
Saturday evening was spent at the reception, with string music provided by N-scaler and Cincinnati Civic Orchestra director Larry Bonhaus and his wife; followed by the banquet. The keynote speaker was NMRA VP and Model Railroad Video host Gerry Leone, who regaled the attendees with tales of his prior adventures in the advertising business, including hilarious clips of radio spots for various products, including milk.

The last event was a Sunday morning op session on Bob Bartizek’s O-scale hi-rail PRR layout. Luckily this railroad was on the route home north of Cincinnati, as by this time I was dead-beat from all the activity. It was worth the stop, however, as I had my doubts about how a “toy” 3-rail layout would work in an op session. The answer was “amazingly well”. It helps, of course, that the railroad is huge, befitting the size of the rolling stock; but those O-scale locomotives can conceal some really big speakers, and the sound of double-headed O-scale PRR L1 Mikados pounding upgrade with a long coal drag quickly made one forget there was a third rail running down the middle of the track.

At nearly 370 attendees, this convention was probably rivaled only by the national NMRA convention in scope, and I would guess the “average” regional is much smaller and less overwhelming. Even so, “a lot of fun” is inadequate to describe the experience, and I’m looking forward to attending more such events in the future, large or small. I would encourage any NMRA members to do the same. You won’t regret it!

S&NY Towanda Office

A better title for this post might be, “They look, but do not see.”

Several years ago, I purchased a couple of digital scans of photos from glass-plate negatives in the Bradley-Hahn Collection at the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania. Unfortunately, this collection is not digitized, and I picked the images based on a written description only.

One of the images was a city scene that showed no trains, to my disappointment; or so I thought. Thus the image sat unused in my digital collection for years, until recently while looking for more “Wordless Wednesday” material I looked a little closer…

Bradley-Hahn Collection, RR Museum of PA

The neat thing about these old glass-plate negatives is the fine detail they contain:

Bradley-Hahn Collection, RR Museum of PA

Behold! The S&NY business office at Towanda, located in the Towanda Opera House.

Bradley-Hahn Collection, RR Museum of PA

And around the corner on Washington Street, the LV-S&NY freight house with a Boston & Albany boxcar on the siding.

So, there was railroad content in the photo after all. I just didn’t look close enough. There is a lesson there somewhere…

Same corner in the modern day via Google:

Google Earth

 

(Note: No “WW” or “TT” last week, this week, and possibly next week due to family commitments and the NMRA MidCentral Region Convention in Cincinnati.)

Wordless Wednesday #155

Bill Caloroso – Cal’s Classics

Talky Tuesday #112

Last week’s “WW #154” is a snapshot of a S&NY section crew and their transportation. The “speeder” looks to be a home-built contraption cobbled together from hand-car wheels applied to a Model-T chassis. While probably a pleasant mode of transport to the job site during fair weather, the ride was probably a cold, wet one in inclement weather. On the deck of the trailer we can see a keg of track spikes and a jack of some sort, stacked together with various tools. I cannot identify any of the fellows in the photo; even magnified there is quite a bit a of blur to the faces. The location is also a mystery.

Wordless Wednesday #154

Bill Caloroso – Cal’s Classics

Talky Tuesday #111

Cylinder cocks open, #116 vents her cylinders while pulling slowly away from the Towanda turntable in last week’s “WW #153”. Must be a little dry up in the woods, as the #116 has a spark arrestor placed over the stack.

Wordless Wednesday #153

Bill Caloroso – Cal’s Classics

Talky Tuesday #110

Last week’s “WW #152” shows what may possibly be one of the last trains over the S&NY. Not sure of the locomotive, but in the train we can see one of the S&NY’s 4-wheel cabooses, ancient bunk car #210, a side-dump work gondola, a mixed bag of freight cars, and ditcher #6 bringing up the rear. Perhaps this train was gathering up the last of the revenue freight cars along the line preparatory to abandonment? In any event, the rural nature of the territory served by the S&NY is quite evident. Modelers of the era, myself included, would do well to remember that agriculture was much more widespread (labor being less expensive, for one) and there were consequently many fewer trees along the ROW in the 1920’s and 30’s than today.

Wordless Wednesday #152

Bill Caloroso – Cal’s Classics

Talky Tuesday #109

S&NY 2-8-0 #115 rests at the Towanda turntable in last week’s “WW #151”. Several of the S&NY’s engines sport small tanks in various locations on or near the smokebox. After studying this photo, my best guess is they are likely reservoirs for mechanical lubricators for the valve gear.