I went to the National Model Train Show in Portland with some pals yesterday. It was a long and somewhat stressful trip due to the weather. There was a big storm front raging northward right during the show (hundreds of thousands of people in Washington were without power by nightfall) and caused some white-knuckle steering along I-5 heading right in the front. Thankfully, most of the damages was well north of Olympia, so I didn't get affected other than being pushed left and right along the drive heading down to the show, and being worried that a tree might fall on us. Anyway, the show took the entire Expo Center just south of the Columba River. We were able to hit every hobby shop in Portland, and chase some 1:1 trains in the Vancouver. We also went to the engine house which houses SP 4449 and SP&S 700 and an ALCO PA. It was along but cool day. There was a massive N scale modular layout which looked great along with numerous other module groups. I talked with the Editor of Model Railroader as well as the guy who had a lot to do with On30 at Bachmann. Real nice guys, both. Surprisingly, I didn't buy much at all. I bought a loading dock laser kit in O scale, a White Pass & Yukon pin, a few magazines and a book the entire day. Typical; when I have the money as a show, I can never find anything I can't live without. Here are some totally random shots I took with minor captions. It's not to be considered an overall review of the entire show at all. I hope you liked some of these shots. I didn't take a great deal of photos as I decided experiencing it was more important than recording it.
There was only one On30 display that I could find at the show:
While I'm no big (pun intended) fan of Z scale, I really liked what I saw in the module groups in that scale:
Note the rotors spinning on this scale Chinook helicopter:
Lots of N scale stuff at this show. I'm a big Freedom Train fan and loved seeing these well-done AFT cars!
Woodland Scenics had their pilot models out, including their new O scale rural depot. Such a neat model in person!
Tomy had a neat booth, but nobody manning it could speak English. I wish I could have asked more about this really neat modern Japanese trolley layout:
And I couldn't resist this, as you just had to wonder what this was about, alongside a module of a open pit mine:
In Vancouver, evidence of the weather as the Amtrak Cascades had just hit a tree, breaking out a ditch light and parts of the tree were stuck in the plow..
