After flying in on the Sunday, I woke up bright and early for our day in Scottsdale. Frank Baker (Erieman on the forums) had kindly offered to show us round a few layouts and some sites in Scottsdale for the day.
I was there with fellow NMRA Director – Mike Bartlett – from Australia:
Frank picked us up and took us first to the McCormick-Stillman Railroad Park. This is a city based park with a huge model railroad building with HO, N, O and G scale layouts. The HO guys let us into their layout – it is a beauty and nearly finished. It was great to chat to them about their modelling and see such a large club layout built to such a great standard.
I was really taken with their rock work which was made from foam using Bragdon moulds. It’s some of the best I’ve ever seen:
This gorge cuts across different sections of the layout to give a real sense of perspective:
Frank was our chauffeur and guide for the day:
As the park is aimed at families, it had quite a bit about the different sizes of model railroads. I really liked this railroad globe with all of the different gauges and the 5 Cs of Arizona – no cactus isn’t one of them! You can see the different scale box cars at the bottom.
The railroad park also has a number of full size items of rolling stock:
One feature which I found out about later in the trip from the NMRA Secretary, John Stevens, was Merci Train box car. You can read all about it here. I didn’t take a photo though.
We then went on a little tour around Paradise Valley, known for its large real estate (house) prices before visiting Frank’s friend, Russ Henzel’s layout: Pennsylvania RR / Philly Division.
Mike’s checking it out!
Frank also took us to see his layout. First though, he has a lovely house with a beautiful collection of cacti. Here are a few of my favourites:
Frank’s layout is the fabulous Morristown and Erie and you can see details of its build on several forums such as Modelers Forum or Kit Forums.
Here’s a few photos I took:
I’m afraid that I didn’t do it justice!
Mike got in close to inspect it:
Steve August, the RAC Director, arrived in to join us for our road trip. We finished the day with a wander into Old Scottsdale for an Italian.
Stunning layouts er pikes Kathy, thanks for sharing more than know how. Ron Gager
Thanks Ron. There are some great layouts around and it’s a real privilege to get to see some of them.
Kathy, Thank you for your kind words. It was a pleasure showing you and Mike around. Glad you had the time. After you left, I took all the structures off of the town of Chester to install Trees. I’ll send you a picture of the change when you install trees.