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.