Sad News in the Model Railroading World

I heard from a fellow model railroader that the hobby lost one of the greats last week. Hal Carstens passed away peacefully at the age of 84. For those who have subscribed to Model Railroad Craftsman know his work. Hal owned Carstens Publications for many years and was one of the hobbies great originals. I was fortunate to meet and listen to Hal at the LSR convention a few weeks ago. He really told the story about model railroading and its history of from his viewpoint because he was there. My personal thoughts and prayers go out to his family, he will be missed.
His obit is located at the Carstens Web site.

The Blog is one year old

Hey my blog is one year old this month, not exactly a momentous occasion, nor even earth scattering, hell barely even worth mentioning, but its been fun and over 1000 hits so far, not bad...

Image of the Month

Happy Father's Day out there...

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Over the last few months I have been crunching to prepare for the Lone Star Region NMRA convention. I had planned on having a few models placed into the contest. So with only hours remaining I completed "Houligans Alley" to be entered into the display category and readied the HoN3 scratch built flat cars for the freight car category.

So over the last week, I have been totally emerced into railroads, railroads, and more railroads. The Convention this year (co hosted by my Division 3 and Forth Worth's Division 8) held in the Irving area this year was a great success, the banquet hall was packed and the tours, various rooms and over 90 clinics were a buzz for over 5 days. So many thanks to all involved, Jerry, Duane, Paul, Larry, Bob, so many to name made this possible.

Since this was my first contest entries, needless to say I was nervous and this was only magnified when I saw the competition. Texas, Louisiana, Oklahoma, and some from Kansas contain some of the best modelers I have ever seen. Regardless I threw caution to the wind and entered my models.

The first were the two HoN3 flat cars which both fared well, they scored 88 points and both "merited" for my MMR. As a bonus, both placed honorable mentions. The freight car category was quite impressive and best of class were On30 scratch built models built by an MMR here locally. Outstanding craftsmanship was witnessed on all of the models submitted.

My third model, the display "Houligans Alley" faired much better, I was totally shocked when I was told that the display not only Merited, placed third against the Pro's but was awarded Novice Best of Show. It really made my year; I spent 3 months on that model and it absolutely worth every bit of time.

I look forward to placing new models in the 2010 convention being held in San Antonio. I have a few ideas of what I want to do and I have much better insight on what is required for the competition and I should (hopefully) do well, so expect scratch built, various scales and some unique approachs.

The bar has been set now, so stay tuned...