By Russ Segner

The recent Narrow Gauge Convention featured many very interesting things. There were great clinics, many fine layouts and several prototype attractions. There were also several award winners from our area: Greg Wright and Harry Avis of Olympia both won awards as was previously reported.

Mark Allen from Roche Harbor won two 2nd Place awards; one for his module Mystic Mine and one for his Parlor Car “Cascade”

Don Rose of Gig Harbor won 1st Place Motive Power Rod Locomotive a CB&Q Consolidation

I saw several fine layouts

Jeff Reynolds – Mears Madness is a famous HOn3 layout which has been relocated to Nevada City, CA in the hill country northeast of Sacramento. It is in it’s own 30′ x 40′ building. It is one of the largest HOn3 layouts in California.

Aaron Splawn – Nighthawk Branch of the Copper River & Yukon Railroad

Aaron has restored the best parts of Brian Ellerby’s famous Copper River and Yukon Sn3 layout. When we had to dismantle Brian’s layout, we were able to keep the beautiful Nighthawk scenes intact. Jimmy Booth of PBL was able to truck it to California where it is now located. It is possible that this famous layout will ultimately move to the California Railway Museum in the new Model Railroad Section.

California Railway Museum

This is one of the finest railway museums in the world. A major portion is dedicated to the history of the rails through the Sierra’s. Beautiful 4-4-0’s are displayed alongside one of the Southern Pacific cab forwards.

A new section on Model Railroading is open now in October. We got a preview.

I certainly hope many of you will get to Sacramento to visit this fine museum. Plan to spend the day viewing all the exhibits and the nearby historic Old Town.

Next year, the National Narrow Gauge Convention will be in St. Louis and the Convention will be in Seattle in 2022.