We head that way Monday, with an overnight in Littleton, MA at the Minuteman Campground and then at the Augusta KOA for the duration of the Convention. Traveling with the Ciazza’s and the Bowdlers. Should be a fun week. Looking forward to seeing everyone.
Ric, you sure do make retirement look mighty appealing! Glad to hear you’ll be there.
Kevin,
I was planning to bring the only 2’ prototype I have, a replica of a Hudswell Clarke sugar cane locomotive (built on a Lady Anne chassis/boiler) albeit gauged to 45mm. I could bring the ballast plowing Shay for old times sake. 
All,
We depart Sunday with two nights at Salisbury Beach in MA before heading to Augusta as Ric has reported. Looking forward to the convention and to our trip afterwards to Acadia National Park. The operative word is LOBSTER. We are new to retirement but so far it is terrific!
Tom
Kevin,
Will be good to see you! It’s been a long time since that last DH you attended.
I’m planning on bringing my, what was to be an EBT mike, aristocraft conversion. As I recall you were the spoiler of my great plan to make an EBT mike out of an Aristocraft live steam mike when you casually informed me that the aristo drivers were way too small!!!VBG!!! Built it anyway and it became a Cuban iron mining loco.
In any case we will see you soon. Have a safe trip.
Mike
Mike McCormack
Hudson, Massachusetts
Deb and I head north on Wednesday and will be at the convention Wed evening through Friday. We look forward to seeing you all there.
On Sunday after the convention we will be hosting an ops session and open house for convention attendees. All are invited, to attend for part or all of the session.
With luck we should have some limited operation on our Phase 7 addition.
On Tuesday we are hosting some guests from Australia and will also be operating. If you are passing through Tuesday and want to drop by let us know.
Stan
Tom, my dialect coach tells me it’s pronounced “LAHB-stah.” (of which I will be partaking with some family friends up in Enfield Tuesday night.) I just arrived in DC to pick up mom, who will be traveling with me. We’ll be leaving Monday AM with a stop in Brattleboro, then up to Enfield, then down to the convention on Wednesday afternoon. Debating on bringing one of dad’s locos for the contest. We’ll see in the morning if I’m in the mood do wrap one up.
Later,
K
I look forward to meeting a bunch of fine folk and learning more about all things narrow gauge! I hope some of you can, ate it to my open house on Saturday! The W&Q will be running steam all afternoon!
Had a nice Meeting with Kevin Strong and his Mom This morning on the RGSNH. Kevin was nice enough to give me a tour of is railroad a couple of years ago when I was in Denver Area, and when I heard he was overnighting in Brattleboro last night I extended a visit Invitation. turns out I was right on his way. Kevin may share some pictures later on. See the rest of you tomorrow in Maine.
Al P.
How’s the Lobstaa!
Delish! The McDonalds out here have lobster rolls, too! (I haven’t tried one yet, but it will be sampled before I leave.)
The convention has been great so far. I spent most of the day at the Wiscassett, Waterville, & Farmington Railway today, ending the day on their photo charter.
There’s some VERY cool 7/8" scale stuff here, which I’ll photograph in better detail tomorrow. That stuff is B-I-G!!! If you think 1:20 is big, huh-uh. Thankfully I have a small yard, or I’d be switching scales.
The only exciting news for us large scale folks is that Bachmann’s re-tooled and re-painted 2-6-0s will be arriving soon. They are gorgeous!
The photos don’t do the paint and lining on these models justice. Also, Bachmann tells me they will have spare pilots like those seen on this loco.
Banta Model Works has some laser-cut 1:24 accessories and buildings. I’d hesitate to consider them suitable for outdoors, but they’re certainly something you can build and bring in and out.
Accucraft has a pre-production sample of their 7/8" scale Forney. I’ll get a better pic than what I took today.
Later,
K
Today, we do Bath and Boothbay. So far the Convention has been great. Coming out of a lecture on Ephiriam(sp?) Shay last night, I realized my get up and go, had got up and went. Sat down and decided I needed to act my age for 5 minutes. Time to roll again.
Spent Wednesday at the WW&F. What a great railroad and a great group of volunteers. If you haven’t seen it, put it on your bucket list. You won’t be disappointed.
I wish I was able to make it but with school just starting this week and having to work the weekend, it just wasn’t meant to be grrrrrrrr.
How did I miss this? I need to pay more attention I guess.
We were just up that way last week on vaction camping, we could have incorporated this into our trip.
Maybe next time.
I did notice no one posted the event in
“Upcoming Events”
on the home page …Hmmmmm Just OP sessions …
I didn’t know about this either because nothing was posted prior to the event. My wife and i were on vacation in Bar harbor on Monday through Wednesday then we went to Boothbay Harbor on Wednesday afternoon. On the way into town we saw the Boothbay Narrow Gauge museum just as it was closing so we stopped back when it opened on Thursday. There was a tour bus unloading, was that any of you???
Sorry to hear you guys missed it, but glad that it sounds like you at least got a taste of what this unique place has to offer. Wow, It has really been a fun time. My wife like Kevin has be devouring the Lobster and the rest of the cuisine is quite tasty too. The Two Footers and their history are amazing, as well as the effort the locals put into keeping all that history alive. I’ll leave you with a video I took at the Sandy River & Rangeley Lakes Railroad photo tour yesterday. I promise to post more pics and video when we get home. I have lots.
A couple of things I noticed seeing these in person, first they wobble a lot with the thin width and second they could only carry one person per side in the passenger cars. I can see why the narrow gauge didn’t survive against the standard gauge.
You are very correct about the wobble Mark I think that would be hard to get used to as an engineer. What really caused the demise of the Two-Footers was the rise of the road and automobile in Maine. The roads (at least good ones) arrived a few years later that far north and bought them a few extra years but after that people drove and didn’t ride the rails. Trucks were easily able to handle the freight needs as well and could even deliver the pulp wood right to the shore to be loaded on ship or or standard gauge lines. Although the EBT didn’t have the same freight competition issues also suffered the same problems with it’s passenger service, prompting the railroad to start it’s own bus service to try and keep some of that passenger revenue. The final nail in the coffin for the EBT was when the brick ovens in Mount Union switched from coal to gas firing.
Here is another video, this one of the Portland Narrow gauge Museum. The have a short section of track that they run trains on every hour. Great Museum too.
Yea, narrow gauge can be like that. When we rode on the Eat Broad Top, my mom asked if the car had square wheels. But it sure was fun.
Cool video, Randy. I got up to Phillips today, just in time to catch a ride on the caboose as the crews ran the freight train back up the line. I watched it couple up to the passenger train and then pull it back down. Shot a few more pics of some of the equipment, then walked back down the line, catching a few more shots of the empty passenger train backing back up again. Tomorrow will be spent at Boothbay, then starting the trek home with a stop at Stan’s on Sunday AM.
BTW, for those who haven’t stopped by the Airwire booth yet, Al showed me a mock-up of a new high-current version of the Convertr, designed to be used with the TCS and Tsunami (and other) large scale decoders. No ETA as yet–keep watching their web site.
And did I mention that 7/8" stuff is BIG???
Later,
K