Sorry, Greg, must have shown up after you left :-(

 

There was wine and pecan pie? 

Jim, the family and I enjoyed the open house. The first thing I saw walking in was the outhouse, and it reminded me of what I had to do. But it was too small for me. So I looked around for a bush in the backyard but couldn't find one. Too many BAGRS members and Youtubers back there anyway. Wow, the turn-out was great, eh? Barely got a word in edgewise with you. Enjoyed seeing the trains again, especially the new additions to the engine and scratch built tank car and worker shack. It's shaping up to be one of the nicest layouts in the East Bay. Daniel does a helluva job.

Missed the wine and the pecan pie, darn it! Maybe next time....

 

 

It has been mentioned ( ~count~ Rooster ~cough~) that I am to post pictures of my open house from yesterday. Though I didn't get to take pix myself (thankfully I was too busy chatting with folks - a not very far along railroad needs a lot of handwaving to fill in the gaps). However, my boss, Su-Lin, did take a few and so I'm posting them here. A lot of the folks you see are people I work with at YouTube.

 

 

 

And there was cake and pie (I'm on leave for a few months, hence the cake caption)! Oh yeah, and wine!

 

 

Cheers!

 

Bummer, Boomer. Been looking for a reason to do a southwest tour.


-Kevin.

after the inital report it sounded like there was a lot of interest in hosting it, too bad that all fizzled into Not me. Would have loved to have had one close by. May try Altanta tnext year or Portland in 2. You did a lot of work Boomer and I am sure it would have been a blast to be there

 

A shame Boomer, I guess you and a couple of others are quite disappointed. 

However. looking on the bright side I believe that Despicable Me guy lives in Albuquerque  - or he said so when asked by Ellen DeGeneres -  so he may have turned up and wrecked it all. 

Well you can't say you didn't try. I'm sure it took a lot,of work just to get this far.

Dang!

Well everyone I will give you the update. There will be no Convention in Albuquerque.  Only three people were willing to work on organizing it and only four were willing to open their layouts for tours.

 

So what would you have seen:

Monday:

• Your choice of a full ride on the Cumbres and Toltec (Antonito to Chama with lunch at Ossier) or a guided walking tour of the shops and facilities at Antonito and Chama

Tuesday:

• Self guided or docent guided tour of the 36 acre APG Award winning Albuquerque Botanical Garden. As featured on the Travel Channel.

• Lunch at Old Town Plaza. The Center of Albuquerque founded in 1706.
• Guided walking tour of the 25 acre DAV Award winning New Mexico Veterans Memorial Garden.

Wednesday:

• East Mountain 1/20.3 Layout Tour featuring: Cibola Lumber Company, Two Dogs and Poles RR, Kuhn live steam layout.
• Clinics: Buildology landscaping, Assorted Technical and Modeling subjects
• Fried Ice Cream Social featuring live entertainment from Folk Band, Breaking Blue

Thursday:

• North Forty Layout Tour featuring the 1/29 Rio-Rancho and Southern Pacific, 1/20.3 Live Steam Zia and Columbine and the 1/20.3 Chili Line (which is actually built in Santa Fe on a section of the old Chili Line ROW)
• Clinics: K&S Service-use and maintenance of power lawn tools, Assorted  Technical and Modeling subjects
• Green Chili Cheese Burger cook out featuring Latin Music Award winning Los Compadres 20 piece Mariachi Band

 

Friday:

• Albuquerque Layout Tour featuring 7 traditional LGB style layouts
• Clinics: Jack-a-lope- southwestern garden design and decoration, Assorted Technical and Modeling subjects

 

Saturday:

Your choice of multi-media morning presentation:

• "Restoration of Locomotive 2926" presented by the 2926 Restoration team"Planting, Growing and Maintaining Dry-land Gardens" presented by the Albuquerque Botanical Garden Education Center
• Mexican Fiesta Buffet featuring the Acoma Pueblo Sky Dancers

 

And of course all the other stuff:

• Vendor Hall
• Model Contest
• Swap Meet
• Local attractions

 

Now wouldn't that have been fun?!

 

....and that is all I am going to say about that.

It would be nice to visit Albuquerque, and get there by train!  I'd like to assist if possible.  SVGRS hasn't done a convention in a long time, but we've worked with BAGRS on their last one, and hosted a West Coast Regional Meet.  Ron Gibson (LGB) may have a suggestion or two as well. 

 

 

Battery powered right?

I agree!

If Shawn and Sean are in I'm in .....Ken's driving !

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

 

Actually winter operations can be lots of fun.  I vote for January

 

 

We try to operate most of the year but will admit that sometimes it is rather hard

 

 

Stan

" Rooster " said:

Dad ...just like Bobby the box cab, most of my scratched up stuff has the option for battery .

I will give you and Ric extra credit for finding the switch on Bobby though ......however it was the Timesaver's filthy track that was the issue and if I remember correctly Nico's boy made Ric clean the track to finish the ops session with Bobby at York 2yrs ago.

This ain't a battery or track power thread either it's a "Look at the awesome pictures from Train Ops 2017 thread"

Old school and ghetto are where it's at. I will forgive you for burning up my college fund on the latest and greatest ....Hopefully 2018 is gonna  be the year of the TOURING Rooster and I'm riding with Ken cause Hollywoods city driving make me sick.

I would like a Shay someday ....for what I don't know?

What did I just Shay?

 

A Shay, eh? I've got one that I would sell for way less than a cool quarter million.

Who has more pictures of this year?

Anyone??

Dad ...just like Bobby the box cab, most of my scratched up stuff has the option for battery .

I will give you and Ric extra credit for finding the switch on Bobby though ......however it was the Timesaver's filthy track that was the issue and if I remember correctly Nico's boy made Ric clean the track to finish the ops session with Bobby at York 2yrs ago.

This ain't a battery or track power thread either it's a "Look at the awesome pictures from Train Ops 2017 thread"

Old school and ghetto are where it's at. I will forgive you for burning up my college fund on the latest and greatest ....Hopefully 2018 is gonna  be the year of the TOURING Rooster and I'm riding with Ken cause Hollywoods city driving make me sick.

I would like a Shay someday ....for what I don't know?

What did I just Shay?

 

Bruce Chandler said:

" Rooster " said:

I GREATLY appreciate the pics guys and would like to attend next year. However I only have roundy round Amtrash stuff in my arsenal. 

Did you guys run at Al's place as well?

For Stan's, you don't need to have ANY locomotives.    He has a zillion and one; all DCC, plenty of controllers.    For Bob's, you can borrow something if you really need a 1:20 locomotive.   On Friday, you can run whatever you like;  your Amtrak stuff would look pretty good there.

Actually, I think all Rooster's Amtrash Loco's are track powered, but at Bob's, we can pull his Superliners with a Shay... 

 

On Stan's, with DCC power, There'd be no stopping them...  

Thank you Bob and Martha, Stan and Debbie!

Doug and I had a great time as always.

Next time we will bring a locomotive that can actually pull a string of those big cars.

The LGB Mallet became a push toy trying to haul a train.

 

 

Ken Brunt said:

You ain't kiddin! I got into Hartford and had a brainfart. Ended up on 91 instead of staying on 84 for some reason. Then in Springfield hopped on the MA TP  to "Wooster" and had another brainfart. Stayed on 290 instead of getting on 190 and ended up on 495 in the middle of a traffic jam. And apparently  I don't have Bobs address entered in the GPS so that didn't help . 

He wasn't the only one that got lost. Doug and I were flapping our yaps and missed the exchange from Highway 93 to 89 North. They should make bigger signs.

I saw references to Concord and it took a while to convince him we were off course until we saw signs for Penacook where Don Sweet lives. He knew that is north of Concord because we were there on Friday. We ended up on highway 4 and 4A which we knew because we took them coming down to Don's. They are twisty two lane rural roads through the woods. It took us an hour and quarter to reach Lebanon on Highway 89 North.