Page 29 - November December 2011

Extra 2011 West Convention in Sacramento, CA
A Report by Mike Arnold and David Russell
It took over a year for us to plan how we would best enjoy the 2011 NMRA National Convention together with any local rail­ road interests, but it took just over a week to enjoy it. It’s all over and all we can say in summary is that if you did not go, you missed a really good one – in fact I would say an exceptional one. According to NMRA reports, 2041 registered for the con­ vention (21 from the UK), 19,800 attended the train show and 243 new members signed up.
It billed itself as the “Unconventional Convention”, so would that put us off or lead to any disappointment? No, quite the contrary. It was unconventional in that it went about things in a different way – all the tours could be booked on­line; there was an “Advance Section” based around the Bay Area for the three days before the main event started; and you could self­ guide yourself on the layout tours. This latter feature was a clincher for us – we had been very disappointed at the content of the coach trips to visit layouts at the Anaheim convention in 2008 – the quality and the gauges were so disparate that most layouts offered little interest or value. This time we could pick from a menu giving full details of each layout: era, scale, size, access, location etc.
However, the biggest problem was there was so much to choose from, and frankly we could not do all we would have liked, because it either clashed or we were expecting to achieve too much. So we decided on a fair balance of clinics, layout tours, prototype tours and the train show plus some hobby shops thrown in, along with watching and chasing real trains. Non­ rail interest included an evening dinner cruise aboard the USS Potomac on San Francisco Bay, 4th of July fireworks barbecue and wine tasting in Napa. Way more than something for everybody.
Clinics
There are so many real experts in their field in the Northern California area that finding clinicians was never a problem. You could have spent one whole afternoon doing techie subjects (NMRANet; Open LCB; Arduino), whilst there were some rather disappointing sessions such as scenery techniques that entailed the extensive use of taxidermist’s papier mache and another on making signals that looked good on the wrapper but left us a little flat when it was making them cheaply without much regard to scale appearance!
But others were real treasures – Jack Burgess on his beloved Yosemite Valley Railroad (the real one as was); Seth Neuman on where and how to install signals and what their purposes are; layout design techniques by Jim Betz; Joe Shine on SP diesels. In fairness there was something for everyone.
Layout tours
Thank goodness for SatNav/GPS! If we had not been able to borrow one we would never have found some layouts but, boy, were we glad we did. During both the Advance Section and the Main Section we did tours but found it took longer to do each one than we realised – we simply stayed longer at each as they were so good (though just one or two were not that good and we were out in good time). On balance all the ones visited in the Bay Area were excellent – the highlights were Jack Burgess’s Yosemite Valley RR which he has now finished after 31 years; Jim Dias’s Western Pacific featuring the Feather River Canyon; Rick Fortin’s ATSF Valley Division; John LaBarba’s Sonora Pacific and Southern Pacific; Andy Schnur’s C&O Allegheny Division; Kermit Paul’s Lone Pine & Tonopah; and Seth Neu­ mann’s modern era UP in Niles Canyon – all HO. There were some excellent On3 and HOn3 layouts too, all modelling a Colorado theme (that was our choice of a varied selection in all scales and gauges).
The highlights of the Main Section tours were Phil Gulley’s Union Pacific & Summit County RR; Ron Kerekes’s layout in a building in his garden that looks like a depot (!); Walt Schedler’s
SP Black Butte Sub; and Dave Houston’s SP Rocklin Sub. There are more, many more, that have escaped our memories, but all told they were all brilliant and truly inspiring.
Here are links to some of those:
Jim Dias – www.bayrails.com/layouts2.php?m=dias
Jack Burgess – www.yosemitevalleyrr.com/
John LaBarba – http://fjohnlabarba.com/25401.html
Seth Neumann – www.bayrails.com/layouts2.php?m=neumann Rick Fortin – www.bayrails.com/layouts2.php?m=fortin
Peter Borcherds had great fun out on the road attending oper­ ating sessions with the Ops Sig members. Layout design was not forgotten either as they had specialist layout tours too. I believe the Bay Rails event in March each year would be a great event to see layouts at their superlative best (check out those links).
Prototype tours
We indulged in three all told: UP’s Oakland Intermodal facility; UP’s Roseville Yard; and the former SP Shops behind the California State Railroad Museum. All three were very good value and full of interest and scope for close­up photography. That said, the UP officials did raise our expectations way too high in terms of what we would be doing – or rather what we must guard against (eg “no climbing on locos” – we did not even get off the coach!!!).
Oakland Yard was extremely busy as it was the build­up to the 4th of July weekend – very entertaining seeing the loading and unloading of intermodal well cars and the processes used, but a very dangerous place to be!
Roseville Yard gave us an opportunity to watch hump operations at the point where the cars are uncoupled, on the hump. No hard hats needed, but everyone was careful and respectful. It gave us a one­off occasion to take video and photos at very close quarters of inbound trains and the classification of cars – those yard locos sure do work hard, with over 100 cars being hauled back at a time to push over the hump.
The Sacramento back shops gave us access to the work areas behind the public galleries across the tracks approaching the Amtrak depot. Many locos and rolling stock were undergoing repair or restoration, utilising the original equipment left behind by UP when they leased it on to the owners of the Sacramento Northern RR who operate the facility.
Train Show
Well, after spending two weeks in the USA visiting train stores and home layouts could we still find things to buy and exhibits to excite us? In short, we did – we each bought more “stuff” and enjoyed the FreeMo HO (see Harry Wong’s YouTube postings: www.youtube.com/watch?v=1HoHBfuh7Jg) and FreeMoN set­ ups very much. We also had very fruitful chats with Exactrail, Tangent, Fox Valley, BLMA, Intermountain, Soundtraxx and so on.
New products? There were some, for example Fox Valley’s wagontop freight cars and Bowser’s Alco C630s, but on the whole it seemed a very subdued marketplace – only Exactrail sounded buoyant, with promises to launch two new freight cars a month and no more fantasy schemes! The upcoming Athearn U50Bs look exceptionally good too, along with the GP9s – get saving, guys.
Conclusion
Did the trip meet expectations? Yes, absolutely and even beyond. Would you do anything different? Yes, we wish we had spent more time in Washington and Oregon on the way down from Seattle. Oh, isn’t the 2015 Convention in Portland, OR.???????
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