First of all, the show went off without a hitch - the hotel (Embassy Suites) was excellent - even the food in the on-site restaurant was pretty good and reasonably priced. The clinic lineup was outstanding - they ran four rooms from 8:00 until 11:00 pm for three days - quite a feat! the weather on the drive down was great, but by Friday the skies had clouded over and it was pretty windy and rainy so I stayed inside most of Friday. Judging from the audience size in the clinic rooms so did most of the other attendees!
Bruce DeYoung gave two excellent clinics - one of slate roofs and the other on "Modeling tricks and tips" - here's Bruce showing one of his tips - a great way to spread ballast:
Danial Fisher is a structural engineer who specializes in steel-framed buildings. He gave an "extra fare" clinic on modeling steel framed structures. For $12 I got a GREAT handout and a small kit to build a steel-frame shed (or addition to an older building. Dan displayed this model, which is a Walther's Car shop with complete framing and bracing added to represent a steel-framed building with brick curtain walls. Sorry for the quality of these photos - I took them with my iPhone in the clinic room! Apparently, Dan's factory manufactures droids!:
I did get out of the hotel for a little while. I had lunch with Mike Brestel and John Roberts on Saturday, and then headed over to check out Bruce Faulkner's N scale CSX layout. To give some sense of this project, Bruce's layout is about the same size as mine but is double-deck in N scale. He has a CTC signaling system installed, but is only now really starting to make progress on the scenery. It looks like a great railroad to operate and I may need to get a few of the locals from this area to make it our next operating road trip.
Here's Bruce:
And here's a view of his main classification yard:
All in an all, an excellent weekend seeing old friends and making new ones!