Prairie Rail 2018

About 10 days ago, I had the privilege of attending Prairie Rail in the Kansas City area for the first time. This operating weekend dates back some 20 years, and is widely sought after because of the many outstanding layouts in the KC area. By increasing the number of sessions on some layouts, the organizers were able to enlarge attendance this year.
     A number of modelers from the San Francisco Bay Area were at Prairie Rail this year. Some of us traveled early in order to enjoy some “pre-event” sessions, privately organized, prior to the start of Prairie Rail itself. Among these, an outstanding layout was Paul De Luca’s New York Central in Omaha, a large and ambitious project, still being constructed in some parts, but stunning in the areas that are completed. Paul has taken on the challenge of the Central’s four-track main line along the Hudson River, and it is great fun to run trains on that segment, or simply to railfan the passing trains. Everything I saw ran perfectly. One photograph can’t do it justice, but here is a representative view.

I really enjoyed the chance to see and operate on this layout.
     We saw some other layouts in the “pre-event session,” I was assigned four layouts in the main KC program, and there were open-house visits on the last day of the event. I don’t want to take space to discuss and show all of the ten layouts in total that I had the chance to visit, but will show a few highlights.
     One of the most impressive layouts in that area is John Breau’s Great Northern in Montana. In addition to being a very large and beautifully finished layout, it has many superb scenes. I will show just one, representing one of the “elevator towns” in eastern Montana, where the whole economy revolves around grain growing. Switching here is a little complicated!

I found this area, just one of many on the layout, truly stunning.
     My assignment in this session was as one of the yard crew at Great Falls, the major yard on the layout. This was a truly busy and fast-paced job, and it kept me working as steadily and as rapidly as I can remember almost anywhere. This photo conveys a sense of the sheer size of the yard.

At far left is Travers Stavac, who shared the yard duties with me. My yard engine is in the foreground, and it was rarely idle, classifying inbound cars delivered by passing trains, into some twelve tracks.
     Another layout I really enjoyed was Matt Steenwyk’s Milwaukee Beer Line, modeling much of the entire Beer Line branch, not just the short segment familiar from the Model Railroader project layout. One job I did there was the Gibson Yard job, not only sorting cars in the yard but also switching local industries. The most challenging and fun part was the “Snake Track” area, where every move had to be carefully planned. At left below is T.J. Stratton, my conductor, as we worked on this part of the job.

This layout is well planned and much of it is complete, really an excellent operating experience for all who got a chance to work there.
     I also operated on Don Ball’s superb Stockton & Copperopolis layout. What a joy to see the modeling and to operate the equipment. This layout was just featured in Model Railroad Hobbyist (issue for March 2018), so I won’t go into detail here. Some of the layout features, though, were too good not to describe, and probably I will add a second post at some point, so I can say a little more about Don’s fine work.
     There were also layout open houses, excellent opportunities to see the layouts you didn’t get to operate on. One of the most impressive was Michael Borkon’s Union Pacific in Wyoming. One of its fine features is the use of actual photographs of the various areas, serving as realistic backdrops in this dramatic topography. For example, shown below is the engine terminal at Green River, Wyoming, with photos of the actual scenery as backdrop. A great idea and well realized.

     This entire weekend was very well organized and smoothly run, and the layout quality is just off the charts. I really enjoyed the chance to be part of this impressive event.
Tony Thompson