Prairie Rail 2016

I was lucky enough to get another invite to Prairie Rail this year and jumped on the chance to operate in one of my favorite places. Dean Ferris and I traveled together. We started the weekend by having lunch at Union Station, which is a fantastic building. I didn't think to look for bullet holes.

I operated on Mike Borkon's fantastic Union Pacific Wyoming Division layout. Mike models the UP mainline thru southern Wyoming around Green River in the late steam era. His space is amazing and he really captures the feel of Wyoming. I had the west yard job.

Saturday morning I went over to Kevin Leyerle's Katy in Oklahoma layout and was the yard master. Keven has done a fantastic job and his railroad ran great. It was amazing how much detail he has in his scenes even though he hasn't really started scenery yet.

That afternoon I was off to Joe Kasper's to run his giant n-scale BN Kansas City yard. So many cars to switch into dozens of tracks. What a blast. Joe's layout is really something to see.

The last session of the weened Sunday morning was Eric Goodman's Santa Fe Emporia Subdivision in 1995. As you might guess, I took the yard master job completing a perfect weekend. It is always fun seeing big modern cars and big modern trains on a model railroad, although 1995 was 21years ago, is it really modern?

A special treat was a visit to Steve and Cinthia Priest's publishing empire for an early look at the Priest family's new AT&SF St. Louis Division. Wow! I think Dean's expression says it all.