Gordon Garnhart

There were 35 people gathered at the Summer Hill Retirement Facility on Wednesday, November 14th. The program for the evening was a very thorough and interesting digital slide presentation by Al Carter entitled “The Tabooma County Railway: Choosing a Private Roadname – Developing a Plausible History.” He showed many progress pictures of the three model railroads he has built over the years, all called “The Tabooma County Railway.” The railroad has a history – more than just three incarnations in basements/bonus rooms over the past 24 years. It has grown, from a desire way back in the mid-1970’s to create his own model railroad empire with a unique identity, to an evolving, but “complete” idea in the form of a layout with a purpose and life of its own. He explored the concept of creating your own railroad, including:

  • Why a mythical railroad?
  • Geographical setting
  • Time period
  • Choosing a name for the railroad
  • Relationship to real railroads
  • Freight customers
  • Passenger service

He also showed a series of photos of other layouts in the area, and talked about their themes and histories. The presentation included some anecdotes, how-to’s, and some lessons learned. He then showed some highlights of this September’s very successful National Narrow Gauge Convention in Seattle.

Please note that we will not meet in December. Our next meeting will be on January 9th at 7:00 PM in the conference room at the Summer Hill Retirement Facility in Oak Harbor. John Mann and Tom Hawkins will conduct a joint presentation “Locomotive Tune-ups – both Steam and Diesel.” We hope to see you there.