I have just returned from a fabulous N Scale weekend in Portland Oregon and wanted to share a little of the experience with you. Portland has a vibrant N Scale community and they were wonderful hosts. I have attended this show before and it is not a large one, but there were enough swap tables to take an hour or more to peruse, four modular layouts, and it was all N Scale! The weekend also included visits to three superb N Scale layouts, with an opportunity to run trains or just watch them roll by.
My weekend began with a visit to friend Dave Mac Kinnon to collect my three M-630 locomotives and discuss future DCC/lighting installations including my first sound installation. We also visited The Hobbysmith, Portland's local hobby shop which features a friendly owner and a healthy N Scale stock.
The following photographs are from the various layouts. I decided to travel light as I was flying and left my big camera at home, relying instead on the iPhone. I will keep the photographs to a minimum as this is far from my best photography and some of the layout owners have future articles planned.
On Friday evening we visited Rob Carey's DRGW Tennessee Pass layout, which has been seen in N Scale Railroading. The upper deck represents the Tennessee Pass and the lower deck, which is seen through windows in the valance, depicts the Royal Gorge:
Lowell Smith organized a passenger special which included Rob's Rio Grande car, Lowell's SP&S car, Roy Cutler's Olympia Northern cars, and Grant Eastman's Southern Alberta Railway car:
On Saturday morning we attended the show and I ran into a few fellow Railwire members including Max. Here are two of the N Scale modular layouts:
The second photo shows the Deschutes River modules from the Columbia Gorge NTrak group, which Dave Mac Kinnon built with Keith Schaber. I believe they were seen in very early issues of N Scale Magazine.
Later that afternoon we visited Rick Ernest's SP&S layout which runs through several rooms of a finished basement. The route modeled is along the north bank of the Columbia River from Vancouver, WA to Wishram. The Goldendale branch is modelled too. The passenger special also ran on this layout:
After dinner we went to see Keith Schaber's UP Blue Mountain Division layout, which measures 28' x 35' and is housed in a dedicated building on a rural property. The area modelled is from Hinkle to LaGrande in eastern Oregon. This layout takes approximately 45 minutes to run around and, like Rob's layout, is fully signalled. The trailers in the river are from the westbound trailer hotshot run by Grant Eastman - Keith will have to rename the east hill Grant's Pass!
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It was a great weekend and I must complement all of the layout hosts and their crews who were so welcoming. Their layouts feature some amazing work and really showcase N Scale at its best. I highly recommend taking in this show next year if you are able to.
As Lowell Smith was heard to say throughout the weekend, "too much fun!".
Tim
