The first weekend in March I traveled to Phoenix to attend a meet of the Arizona Division of the NMRA. More than one hundred model railroaders were in attendance. These meets are held three times a year in various locations around the state. As with most such events a contest room, swap tables, layout tours and clinics filled out the schedule. I must confess to some doubts when I saw the clinic titles. The evolution of gas stations, modeling eagles from scratch, and measuring prototype structures did not seem to be topics up my alley. But the quality of the presentations was excellent and they managed quite well to keep my attention. The contest entries were a bit sparse, but an aspect of their contest room was something I would like to see more of at NMRA meets. They call it Lenny's Challenge. Members are encouraged to bring a modeling project which they would like to share with group. The projects are not judged or voted on. They do not even have to be finished. The idea is to simply share techniques and perhaps stimulate similar efforts. Too often, in my opinion, NMRA tends to project an elitist image. I think something non-competitive such as Lenny's Challenge says we are just a bunch of guys having fun and enjoying our hobby.
On Sunday I visited an open house at Richard Newkirk's Shasta Division home layout. This a large layout which Richard began work on ten years ago. But he abandoned his initial efforts and is completely rebuilding the layout with higher standards. One of those higher standards is hand-laying all of the track. That is quite an endeavor on a layout this size which will be double decked when complete.
I also visited three club layouts in The McCormick-Stillman Railroad Park. This is the most popular park in Scottsdale's city park system. The land for the park was donated to the city by the McCormick family. Originally the land was part of a ranch owned by the McCormicks of the spice and tea business. A mister Stillman who married into the family had an interest in trains and built a 15" gauge live steam layout. This is now the core of the railroad themed park. Several pieces of prototype equipment and train stations have been moved into the park. The day I visited there were long lines waiting to ride the little steam train.
The old ranch bunkhouse now houses three model railroad club layouts which are in operation each Sunday in exchange for free rent. These are not huge layouts but the N scale, HO/HOn3, and tinplate pikes are well done. The N scale layout is a collection of NTrak modules. A large yard takes up nearly all of one side of the display. Some scenes are composed of more than a single module to create a more cohesive display than a might be typical of an NTrak setup.
