36th annual National Narrow Gauge Convention (U.S.)

[velotrain]

Last week I attended this event in Augusta, Maine.  I have been to two previous conventions - Providence, Rhode Island in 2002, and Portland, Maine in 2007.  Many are held in the western part of the country, as there were (and are) more proto NG railroads there - particularly in Colorado.  Next year's event is in Denver, and I'm considering taking Amtrak there.

 

http://nngc2016.org/wp/

 

There are multiple components of each convention:  pre- and post- convention home layout tours, clinics on both prototype and modeling topics during the morning and evening (some 30 each day), a large vendor room, modular layouts at the convention site (over a dozen this year in over a half-dozen scales - Nn3, HOn30, Sn2, On2, On30, On3, 1:13.7 - AKA 7/8", plus Fn3 live steam outside), a contest room with very high quality entries in over a dozen categories, and prototype tours during the afternoons, as well as additional layout tours - the convention hall closes down during this period.  The above site claims it will have photos of the winning contest entries later this week.

 

I visited a couple of layouts while driving up on Wednesday, and went to a clinic and looked at the modular layouts - many of which were still setting up, in the evening.  As I had seen the Maine 2-footer proto sites in 2007, I didn't sign up for any of those trips this time around, but visited home layouts instead during the afternoons.  I went to one clinic Saturday morning, and then rode my bicycle on the scenic Kennebec River Trail.  I visited one more layout on my way back to Boston, a sprawling club affair in Lewiston.

 

 

 

These conventions usually get a number of European attendees, as well as a few from Japan.  I went to a excellent clinic given by a German visitor on two-foot timber railways (and overhead tramways) built in Turkey in the early part of the 20th century.  Two British guys brought over their On2 module depicting Maine two-footers.  Search for Bob Harper's Franklin module for photos and info.  My last photo is of this module - I decided not to crop out the non-layout elements as I'd lose too much.

 

A clinic on Modeling Maine Seacoast Structures was presented by Sam Swanson, who created the gorgeous HOn30 seaport module - check out those lobster pots and the overall superb level of detail, seen in some of my photos.  He also wrote a series of articles on building these structures - many inspired by proto buildings, published over several years in the Gazette.

 

The layout with the White Pass diesel (and the previous image - given away by the non-functional crossing) is the Nn3 one.  Looking at the photos just now, I found it difficult to distinguish it from those in larger scales.

 

Note the tiny switching layout built on a 7/8" flatcar - parked in front of the Turner Centre Dairying reefer.  The photographer in the background provides some scale contrast with the wagons on that side of the room.

 

The convention site has info and many photos of the modular and home layouts.

 

Here is a link to some photos I took of layouts.  I haven't bothered to label them, but let me know if you have a question about any of them.  The images are each about 2 mb, so may take a few seconds to snap into focus, depending on your connection speed.  No doubt searching for NNGC16 will yield other images.

 

 

https://www.flickr.com/photos/29724621@N03/albums/72157672688083752/with/29545763972/

Edited September 13, 2016 by velotrain