Between June 15th and 18th I was able to attend the 2023 N Scale Enthusiast convention in Sparks, Nevada. This was at the Nugget which is between Union Pacific's Sparks yard and Interstate 80. In fact the casino extends under the highway.
My wife and I had a room on the 28th floor with a great view of the yard. Many attending the convention had a similar view. It's a really interesting yard with a small intermodal operation going on nearest to the hotel and a number of rail served industries on the other side. All of the through trains stopped here for crew changes and some manifests had cars to set out or pick up so there was always some action going on. On my layout I call the western SP staging yard Sparks as it is the next western terminal beyond the west end of the layout.
The NSE conventions offer quite a few things and sometimes one has to pick and choose to fit as much in as possible. Besides brings modules for a layout, I also had something in the contest room, a couple of items in the live auction, helped present a clinic, and went to the welcome reception on Wednesday, the Ice Cream Social on Friday, the Banquet on Saturday, and the Manufacturers Breakfast on Sunday. Did not do any of the tours this time.
When attending a convention it's always fun to catch up with people who you've met at other events and for me at this convention there were many. Doug Gary was just one such example. He brought his set of Disneyland Ntrak modules from New Mexico as a stand alone layout. I first met Doug 23 years ago when I was coordinating the Ntrak layout for the 2000 National Train show in San Jose. Over the years he has returned to shows in San Jose several times as a vendor with his custom painting business. It was great to see him and his work again.
Another event I attended on the first evening at this convention was an online modelers meet up hosted by George Johnsen. I was able to meet several people who I have known or followed on various online venues. One of them was Bob who I have known from his YouTube channel "DaBob's N Scale Man Cave." Here's Bob as we were checking out the FreemoN layout.
As mentioned above I brought modules to the convention. In fact, I towed the Peninsula Ntrak club trailer to the event. It was the first time we've been able to put up a layout since before the pandemic. Of course we were a bit out of practice with layout setup but everyone pulled together and we had a great layout. There will be more about ours's and some of the other layouts in an upcoming post.
This shot was taken at the I-80 west bound rest area near Donner Summit on the way home. This is at 7,200 foot elevation and it's the first time in many years that I've seen any snow on the ground in June. We had a wet winter and has been a cool spring and summer so far.
To be continued ....
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