This post on the 2018 St. Louis RPM Meet focuses on some of the 3,700+ models brought by attendees for display. Here is a view of the 81 8×2-1/2-foot model tables on Saturday morning before the doors opened.  Most of the tables are filled although it looks like this one UP train took up three tables.  That’s okay though–that’s one reason why we get so many. This selection encompasses only photos I took.  Our photographer, Mark Lewis, took a lot more photos and I’ll post some of those soon. Above.  Dennis Eggert has always been a hero of mine with his … Continue reading No. 97: St. Louis RPM 2018, Part 2

The 2018 St. Louis RPM Meet was held last weekend, 20-21 July 2018, at the Gateway Convention Center in Collinsville, Illinois.  Once again it was a great time and this year’s event was another record-breaker, with 662 prototype modelers in attendance. Photos above and below by Norm Buckhart. This year’s event featured 23 clinics and hands-on presentations, 51 scale model vendors on 128 tables, 17 railroad historical societies on 30 tables, three modular layouts (HO, N and O/Proto-48), six hands-on learning stations and exhibitors, three home layout tours, three evening social events, and the largest attendee model display in the nation, … Continue reading No. 95: St. Louis RPM 2018, Part 1

This weekend I invited myself to a private Freemo event in Winnweiler, Germany, about 40 minutes from my home.  My friend Peter Aue was going to be there so I e-mailed Peter and he arranged for me to visit Friday after work. About 25 guys, most of them from Germany, brought US-theme Freemo modules and set them up in a grade school gym about 125 x 40 feet.  Here’s an overview of the layout, below. Peter and I sat and talked for two hours about a whole lot of things.  Peter is quite a modeler and craftsman.  He makes his … Continue reading No. 90: US-prototype Freemo Event in Winnweiler, Germany

My wife gave me a few hours off from family duty last Saturday—it was my 54th birthday—so I could drive up to Frankfurt to attend the U.S. Model Railroader convention in Rodgau, a town southeast of Frankfurt.  After living here two years it the first time I was able to get away and spend some time at a modeling event. It was a really neat show.  It was something like a U.S. RPM meet, with a lot of vendors and a couple of manufacturers, but unlike U.S. RPM meets there were no clinics, no model displays, and nothing resembling a … Continue reading No. 67: US-Modellbahn Convention Rodgau

Here are some model photos from the 2017 St. Louis RPM Meet last week.  More complete coverage of models is being assembled on our new Flickr site at https://www.flickr.com/photos/35369592@N06/albums. Our official photographer mark Lewis also took a lot of photos and I’ll get them soon and post a Part 3.  The photos below are models that I liked. First, a few photos of the model tables.  We had 56 eight-foot tables set aside for models and they were almost full. I take a lot of crap from people about not extending the tables up to eye-level.  We resist that, believing that … Continue reading No. 54: St. Louis RPM, 2017, Part 2

The 2017 St. Louis RPM Meet was held on Friday, June 23rd and Saturday, June 24th 2017 at the Gateway Convention Center in Collinsville, Illinois…and it was a blast! Above.  An overview of the room on Friday morning.  by Friday evening we already had 445 in attendance. I traveled back to the US on the Sunday before the meet and spent the week seeing friends, doing some railfanning, and prepping for the meet.  It was a good week but it went fast.  The evens started on Thursday evening when we had our usual “social” at Bandana’s BBQ–which about 80-85 guys … Continue reading No. 53: St. Louis RPM, 2017, Part 1