ProRail 2023

 The annual ProRail (Prototype Railroad Operations) event this year was in Kansas City over the weekend just past. And it was in that city for a good historical reason: this is the twenty-fifth year since the second-ever ProRail was held there. This follows last year’s ProRail in Chicago, marking the twenty-fifth year since the very first ProRail event was held there. (For more on the history, you may visit the site: http://www.prorail.org/history.html .)

I attended, along with a group of Bay Area modelers, and as we often do, enjoyed some additional layouts in the MidWest before the event in Kansas City opened. I was especially pleased to have a chance to visit the recently-retired and newly settled Doug Harding in Iowa. He has quite a nice big basement, and has been able to make a permanent set-up of his long-portable layout, which represents the M&StL in, where else, Iowa.

Below you see Doug, making a track repair on a part of very recently laid track, with Jim Providenza doing yard work in the background. I really enjoyed this large layout, with a bunch of interesting and distinctive towns, and I know how pleased Doug is to have a place where the layout doesn’t have to plan on yet another move in the near future.

From Doug’s house, south of Des Moines, we headed west on Iowa Highway 92, avoiding for the moment the heavy traffic on Interstate 80 to our north. This was really delightful driving, little traffic and lovely farm country (though spring was just cautiously poking its nose into the scene). We started seeing signs with directions to covered bridges off the highway, which seemed odd until we passed a sign reading “Madison County.” Aha! Those bridges. 

So we thought we really ought to go see one, and did so in Winterset, Iowa. While there, a helpful passer-by took a photo of our crew in front of our really big Ford “Expedition.” From left, we are Jim Providenza, me, Bryn Ekroot, and Seth Neumann.

We were on our way to Omaha, where several layout visits were scheduled. The first was Steve Rodie’s outstanding layout. It has a lot of fine operating features, though many areas are as yet unscenicked, but the backdrops are as good as you will see anywhere. The double-decks visible below are a good example. 

The locale is Montana, and of course these are photo backdrops. Steve has done a great job of choosing just where the bottom of the backdrop can be blended into future scenery, while keeping great skyline and sky views with real clouds. Seeing these photographed clouds reminds one of the limitations of trying to paint things that look like clouds.

Unfortunately, for me, that was the end of a few days of operating. I came down with a fierce stomach virus in the night, and was basically out of commission until Saturday. Let me interject here that, as I’ve observed on this blog before, I really don’t want there to be a “personal diary” character to these posts. I just mention the health issue because I don’t want to seem to be ignoring the fine layouts at which I was scheduled to operate in those intervening days.

On Saturday, though, I was kind of back in commission, and joined the “Expedition” crowd at Lynn Masoner’s layout depicting the Bay Area car float operations among SP, WP, Santa Fe, and the Alameda Belt Line. It’s basically two layouts, with the landlocked WP and Santa Fe trackage in San Francisco on one layout, and across the Bay, the SP and Alameda Belt. Three of the railroad’s operations feed car floats, and the local industrial switching is proto-freelanced. Here’s a view across the Alameda Belt Line’s car float, toward the WP operation in the distance.

In the photo above, you see a long white structure at right. This is the back of a pretty darn good representation of the distinctive Del Monte cannery in Alameda, which makes a great signature structure for a layout like this.

Set in the 1970s, the switching is intense and quite interesting. I did get to spend a little time with a Proto Throttle, and much enjoyed it, as I have with that throttle in the past. Thanks to Lynn and his co-conspirator in building the layout, Dan Munson, and Lynn’s gracious wife Sue, for hosting us. It made a good wrap-up for ProRail 2023.

Tony Thompson