NER Albany Convention Update Day #3

This morning I am heading out on the Port of Albany Tour. Two large buses are here, so it looks like more than half of those in attendance will be going on the tour. We arrived in the Port and did an around the area tour by bus narrated by Tony Steele so we would know what we were lookoing at. Nice to see the D&H lightning stripe geep switching cars in the yard.



Next we stopped adjacent to the Cargill grain unloading facility and were able to get off the bus and stretch our legs. We were able to go over and check out the Port of Albany RR SW9 and CP caboose they use. We even got to climb on the equipment and go through the caboose! No one was on hand from the RR and they were not operating today.





Across the street a couple of Cargill employees came out and answered questions while operating their remote controlled switcher. This locomotive works a lot like model railroading with the engineer walking alongside the loco and using a large radio throttle to control movements.

We arrived back at the hotel around 11am, so I had time to grab lunch before going to see Dominic Bourgeois's clinic on D&H modeling. Dominc's clinic was a nice mixture of prototype and model slides and he provided a good deal of information on various paint schemes and uses for the cars. Many of the models seen in the slides were on hand in the next room on his impressive Schenectady layout section. Here are a few pictures of his impressive modeling.






Due to the staggering of clinic start times, I was not able to get in to see the start of a Jim Six presentation on structure building. I think it was interesting to try staggered start times, but the result seems to be too many clinics where people are coming in late off another clinic. Probably best to have uniform start times and provide half hour breaks to allow prep time and social interaction. So I will head in to see an update on Tony Koester's NKP layout at 3:30.

Tony's clinic was crowded so I am glad I arrived with time to spare. As usual it proved to be interesting and thought provoking. I have been to a number of Tony's clinics through the years and his clinics follow a rolling pattern. His ideas and concepts are presented and then through subseuent clinics you get to see the results presented on his layout. As these items are "checked off", he moves onto newer topics. As displayed in the lcinic, he is progressing well on his layout. I enjoyed seeing things he presented as concepts years ago at the Boston convention (2003) now implemented on his NKP layout.

The Happy Hour and Dinner Banquet followed and the food was suprisingly good (better than the usual convention fare). Having Sam Adams on tap doesn't hurt either. The awards presentation went OK, not taking too much time but still getting the recognition out to those who excelled at modeling, which was good. I was real happy to see Dominic get awards for his models and layout section. A real nice turn of events was Dominic winning not only 2 Merit Awards for his structures, but also the Baldwin Award for the best in show, awarded to his Schenectady layout section. The ironic part about this is he was not even going to enter the contest, but instead only display his work. Just goes to show you that it never hurts to put something into the contest. Same could be said for Glenn Glasstetter who did not build his structure of a residential house for contest purposes but still walked away with awards because he decided to bring the model and enter it.

The presentation for next years NER Fall Convention in Syracuse looked really interesting. Nice to see the use of technology in helping present, plan and execute a convention (i.e. an on-site iMac allowing those to vote on choices for rail and non-rail activities, using Mac software to put together photos, video and text to advertise the convention). They have some nice new concepts to try out as well, including a CD packaged with the map book so you can get photos of the layouts with full 360 degree views and turn by turn directions to get from layout to layout. And they have 50 layouts planned so far. Looks like a full slate of events with a group well organized and ready to go. Check out empirejunction.org for more info.

Wrapping up the night (after checking raffle tickets and winning a CP Rail boxcar) is a layout building clinic presented by Jim Six. He touched on a lot of his clinic topics while presenting his overall concepts for building his latest layout. A nice way to end the on-site convention activities.

NER Albany Convention Update Day #2

Friday morning. Breakfast is included in the room price which is better than trying to head out and find a suitable breakfast place on your own. Met lots of other NJ and Philly Division guys here - more of us than the "locals" so far! Things starting at a laid back pace. Registration just getting set up but there are some clinics in progress. Most people here seem to be heading out to the afternoon operating sessions, and most of them seem to have also participated in last nights Op Sessions. That is an activity at Regional Conventions that has really become quite popular.

Looking forward to seeing some good clinics and layouts today. I also am fine tuning my own presentation today between conversations with others. Jim Dalberg has asked that I present my clinic at the Philly RPM Meet next March, so it is good to know that I will get some "mileage" out of what I have put together.

First clinic I am attending is Weathering with Mike Rose. Mike covered topics that have been featured in RMC over the past few years. These include the Dullcote and alcohol fading and using oil paints to do rust and letter streaking effects. It is really great to see these processes in action and be able to ask questions. The effects from start to finish are quite dramatic. Also good to see demonstrated is the ability to reverse many of these effects if you make a mistake. To me this is the essence of a convention, getting really great hands-on information that I can take home and use on my layout.

Headed over to the hospitality room. Of interest is a great display for next year's NER Fall Convention in Syracuse. Go to empirejunction.org for more info. Also on display are DVDs on building stuctures and weathering including one by Mike Rose on the same presentation he just gave. Needless to say, I decided to pick one up! Here is the producer of the tapes, Scott Mason.

A great clinic was followed up by a great layout. Andy Clermont's Rutland is really nice. He has steam in northern New York circa 1950. I really liked the scenery he has in place and trains really looked good running through those areas. I look forward to seeing the layout again, I'm sure in a magazine at some point.





Next up was time to give my clinic, an overview of Northern New England RRs and how I adapted that into my layout. It went well, although it went a little longer than I expected. But I did get a second request to give it again, this time at the Hartford National in 2009, So I guess people enjoyed it!

With not too much time left, I decided to head out for some more layouts. I went north to Lou Sassi's with the plan to make my way back south and see some more layouts on the way to the hotel. Lou's layout always looks great and it was good to see lots of detailing ideas up close so I can take ideas back to my layout.





Leaving Lou's the rain really started to fall and quickly became a torrential downpour. So I decided to skip more layouts considering how wet I would get trying to go from my car to the house. It took me about twice as long to get back to the hotel. With it nearing 10 pm I decided to get to the bar as soon as possible to get some food and drink before "last call" like the previous night. I just made the food cut-off! At the bar was fellow NJ Division members, so we discussed the days activities and upcoming NJ Division events. As people emptied out over the next hour, an early "last call" came again. Probably OK though as the Port of Albany tour leaves early tomorrow.

NER Albany Convention Update Day #1

Well, a good italian dinner was had at Tony and Diane's. I arrived early enough to see all of their recent landscaping first hand while there was still daylight. I also saw where a 50' tree recently fell onto their deck. Nothing like having a major distraction whilst trying to keep the convention planning on track! Looks like both the deck and the convention are on firm footing at this point. Joining me for dinner was Dominic Bourgeois. A few other invited guests got held up at the hotel getting things ready for tomorrow's clinics. Dominic is from Montreal and I only knew of him through published photos and articles in the magazines, so it was nice to meet him in person. Dominic has sections from his D&H layout to set up at the convention hotel. Some interesting discussions took place about getting model railroad sections through customs across the border from Canada into the US.

After dinner we headed down to the basement to view the layout progress. Tony and Diane have quite an ambitious plan underway. Utilizing sections from the past USS D&H and Diane's Rutland layout, they are piecing together a multi deck (like 7 levels!) layout featuring the D&H and the line into Vermont to interchange in Rutland, VT. Right now they are getting key scenes in place and working out how everything will fit together. Very interesting to see the genesis of a new layout like this.


Some scenery is in place and it looks pretty good as the photos show. Tony is explaining the Howe's Cave section of the layout to Dominic above. And below Diane is discussing the scenery on the highest level (both are standing on step stools).



Getting back to the hotel, it is really much more crowded now. I headed to the bar to see if any other model railroaders were about, especially with some arriving back from operating sessions. Unfortunately the bar closed up early and I was getting the last beer for the night. Strange because while I was there many people came in looking for drinks, including a group who just got back from Massachusetts from a session. They were directed to a place down the street. Oh well. But the wireless internet throughout the hotel is real nice. I was able to check e-mail and get news (Flyers beat Devils 4-0!) while at the bar. I'll leave you tonight with a few more layout pictures.

NER Fall 2007 Convention - Albany

I will be posting updates here throughout the weekend as I attend the Northeastern Region NMRA Fall 2007 Convention, the Commodore Vanderbilt, in Albany, NY. This is being hosted by the Hudson-Berkshire Division and is chaired by my friend and past Suth Jersey resident Diane Steele. I'll share some observations and things that I see, along with some photos, from this weekend event.

I really enjoy coming to NMRA Regional Conventions. These usually are attended by 200+ model railroaders and feature lots of great clinics, layouts, some prototype visits and just a good general interaction with other like-minded people. this convention is a return to Albany which last hosted a Regional in 2001. There are some great layouts in the area as you will see in the coming days and they also have a great slate of clinics on tap. I am also giving a clinic here on the railroads of Northern New England and how I used them as the basis for my in-progress layout.

The drive up went very well. It is very warm right now, not like October at all and much warmer than past Fall conventions I have attended. The high while driving hit 79 degrees. I had to stop by the local Best Buy on the way to pick up a special Mini-DVI cable that will allow me to attach my laptop to the digital projector. After that it was relatively easy driving and only took me about 3 1/2 hours. Fall is a little ahead up here vs. back home, so I saw lots of nice foiolage on the drive up - plenty of reds, yellow and oranges like I am trying to duplicate on my layout. Here is a quick camera-phone picture I took:



The hotel is the Best Western right off I-87 near I-90 in western Albany. Nice enough place although just one elevator might be an issue once people start to arrive. Right now it is fairly empty although I did run into another contingent from the NJ Divsion as I arrived, including Carl Corsi, Ken O'Brien and Chris Widmaier who serve on the NJ Division Board with me, and Division member Bob Doan. They were going to scout out a local hobby shop. I have "reservations" with Diane and Tony Steele who graciously invited me to dinner for this first night. I was told that Jim Six will also be in attendance, so I am looking forward to meeting him as well as seeing Diane and Tony's layout progress. I'll post an update later tonight when I get back.