42nd National Narrow Gauge Convention- Tacoma

Mike Engler

I haven't been to a train show for almost 4 years and at the last minute decided to take advantage of being able to fly free (youngest son works for Delta) and hop a flight to Sea-Tac last Friday. If Brett OK's I'll share a few highlights. Elsewhere Ben Popper has talked about his team's fabulous display On3 layout "Hangman Creek Lumber Co". Here are a couple of videos from my shaky walk-around. I think they get the concept across- it was a real show-stopper! Ooops- doesn't look like I can post a video but I am more than low-tech. Maybe my old pal Karl A can tell me if it will work. I do have a photos.

kebmo

can't wait to see whatever you can put up mike. i've seen a couple of videos of the hangman's creek lumber co and it's a fantastic looking layout. i think bryan told me when i tried to upload a video of the forge fire, and it's gonna make your head explode. you need to upload the video to you tube (and that's where he lost me) and then post the link (i think) here; i hope you can figure it out.

Karl.A

Hey buddy, less of the 'old' !... haha

To post videos, first upload it to youtube. Then post the video link here in your thread on the forum. The forum software will automatically embed it for you and make it playable for most browsers. I can adjust the rest for you if anyone has problems viewing it.

I / we would all love to see some pictures too, Ben and Randy did us all proud with their wins and we'd all like to see your view of things. Great that you got to see it all in person.

So good to talk to you yesterday and catch up, if you have any problems just ask here or call me after work tomorrow.

Mike Engler

I hope I figured this out last night late but am so low-tech I won't remember how I did it. This is first-half of my walk around Hangman's. Karl will be very proud of me.

randyp

Mike congratulation on your square footer. Here are some other first place models


The last picture was voted best of show. Randy

Mike Engler

Second-half Hangman's I hope.
Eureka!

Karl.A

Well done Mike, proud of you.
Thx for sharing.

Mike Engler

Thanks Randy. The show started Thursday and I didn't get there until Friday night right before they were closing the contest room. The contest guy told me I was too late to enter and they had been voting for 2 days and voting was over the next morning. I said no problem I'd just display. He then entered it in the 12x12 and it wound up 2nd to the Best of Show winner Randy showed above. The NNGC model contests have always been by popular vote. I did this a couple of years ago and I think there is a thread somewhere here on this forum. This is my version of the Brass and Iron Foundry that I put in a cut-down banker's box and under my free first class seat.

Now I can't post a photo of it. Soon.

Mike Engler

IMG_2575.jpeg

randyp

For those of you who have not heard the 2025 Narrow Gauge convention will now definitely be in St. Louis. I know there was some talk about it being in Reno. That has been laid to rest. So get to work on all those Sierra West models to inter in the contest. I will be the contest chair and am looking forward to seeing your models. Randy

Mike Engler

Here is the foundry. Probably the most fun SWSM I've ever built but over the years I have said that a lot.

Randy it will be good to go back to St. Louis especially since they were COVID'ed out a couple of years ago. The lineup the next few years: 2023 Denver, 2024 Pittsburgh, 2025 St. Louis, and 2026 Twin Cities in Minnesota.

I am chair of the organizing committee that just presented last week the bid that was successful for 2026. Hopefully these locations will be able to attract Brett, Karl, and a lot of you folks in the next few years.

Jerry

Nice video Mike and pictures Randy.

Congratulations on the 2nd place win Mike.

I hope I can make Pittsburg in 2024!

Jerry

CarlLaskey

Mike.
You old bottle of wine this is one of he best for sure.....Carl......

kebmo

i've never made it to a convention, but st. louis and minneapolis are within driving distance. i'm leaning towards 2026. i'd love to go to one, and that seems the most likely.

Mike Engler

Dale Kreutzer has a fabulous model railroad- a star on any layout tour. He has the greatest hand-laid track I have ever seen.

Dale's ties are beautifully detailed and weathered and are of course hand cut. His track spikes are cut by hand in two sizes and the rail is a combination of code 40 and code 55.

And the turnouts he builds in place on the layout- no radius like #4 or #6- are all built custom to the track plan. Scenery, structures, rolling stock are great and the backdrop is from Dale's photos taken in Colorado,

KKarns

What scale is this Mike?

kebmo

that's quite the endorsement!

TomMich

Nice to see these. Thanks for posting Mike.

Mike Engler

Ken, Dale's layout is Sn3 depicting the RGS Second District from Durango to Dolores CO in the 1920's. 42 x 17 ft. with 700 sq. ft. The background from photos he took on location are really spectacular.

Mike Engler

Here are some random photos of Dale's layout.

Mike Engler

I didn't get to spend much time in the contest room (usually I spend a couple of hours at NNGC contests) and there were only a couple of other SWSM entries, one a DC mine. There were not a lot of models in general but some really good ones in the locomotives, rolling stock, and caboose categories.

brownbr

Thanks for posting these and please keep them coming.

Did you by chance get any pics of the pile driver? Saw it on FB but hoping you have some close ups.

Mike Engler

One little rant before I go. There are only four model builders that have won two National Narrow Gauge Convention Best of Show awards in the 42 years there has been a contest. Three are pictured below at the Tacoma convention last week- L to R myself, Ken Ehlers, and Brian Block, and the fourth is the incomparable Dave Revelia. Dave actually has a big part of a third one as he was team leader for the build of the famous Sundance Central RR (Google it to see).

Brian Block won his third B.O.S. in Tacoma for his model shown in Randy's post above. It is a great example of model building. It is similar to one he won with several years ago in Houston, the Gator Hotel. A terrific model that had more votes than one of the best models I have ever seen- also shown below, based on the SWSM engine house that was scratchbuilt in O scale by our own Karl Allison. Sorry the last two images are too small, but you get the idea.

The point is that the NNGC is a popular vote model contest, and the voters are from all aspects of the hobby. Brian's great models are really not RR oriented but IMO somewhat very imaginative caricatures that will have great appeal but are not really apples-to-apples. Playing to the crowd is not only fair but a good strategy. But it is all just rock 'n roll and part of the game.

The moral here is let's all not take ourselves too seriously. This is fun, and nothing is more fun than building Brett's great kits. Perhaps the only thing more fun is inspiring other folks, especially young model builders to try a SWSM kit. What a favor you are doing them!

Brett's kits have won many, many awards at national model shows. I am not aware of any other craftsman kits winning any.

sdrees

That Deer Creek Mine that Mike mentioned was also an award winner. It won third place in the square footer category. It is the one that I have showed progress pictures on the forum.

Karl.A

Mike mentioned that he saw your build Steve to me when we were on the phone the other day. He even got your name right. ha.
Congrats on the award win and the placement. You did a beautiful job on the build and should be very proud of the result.

Mike Engler

This is Ben Popper's Flanger that won the MOW category at the NNGC. Incredible modeling.

KKarns

Once again, beautiful work Ben! Thanks for posting Mike.

SteveF

Thanks Mike for the pictures and the videos. I was sorry to have missed this convention. The Seattle crew always does a great job. Mike, I especially enjoyed the Hangman Creek videos and those of Dale's layout. I was lucky to visit it several times and it is a magnificent work. In addition to the track work, his scenery work with the way he blends it into his photo mural back drops is so realistic.

This hobby of ours is so great with the many different approaches to modeling and railroads. I've bounced through various scales and different types of railroads but the realism I can build around using Brett's amazing kits keeps drawing be back to 1/48 narrow gauge modeling. Thank you all for the fantastic information and support provided by each of you on this forum.

sdrees

Thanks Karl for your comments.

I also want to say that there were some other awesome layouts on the tour. One of them was Roger Nulton's Monon R.R. 4th Sub.Div. in Tacoma. His scale is S gauge.






Another outstanding layout was Mike O'Connell's O Scale Pacific Railway & Navigation Co.





The Washington State Museum Had a great HO scale layout by the Puget Sound Model Railroad Engineers of the Tacoma area in the 1950's





Bill Messecar in Kent, HO scale Santa Fe 3rd District LA Division model railroad had some great structures that he had scratch built.





Bill Busacca in Shelton, RGS Dolores to Rico SN3 layout was another fine layout.







There you have some more highlights from the wonderful layouts in the Seattle area

Barry

Here are a few photos of my layout, which was open during the convention. It features both a loop to loop logging railroad and a fictional branch of the Rio Grande Western narrow gauge.

Thanks to both Mike Engler and Karl Laskey for inspiring me to build the sawmill.

Barry Dupler

Barry

Here are several additional shots: