Railroading in a land of giants

This weekend I attended Jim Schmidt's invitational Bent Oak & Cripple Creek 10th Annual Fall Meet at his house. It's a hilltop railroad and the loop around his property is perfect for my little crab.

With Tim at the throttle, here's what it looks like:



This dual-gauge layout is homecoming for the 1" scale equipment:

Here is Dick Finn's beautiful Lackawanna Northern:

Plus a 1" Shay of Jim's, and a 0-4-0 1.5" scale switcher from Rick and a boxcab electric from Gale Gish. The giants were the people who attended this meet. These are the names I hear people mention when they talk about the builders of engines and tracks in the 60's, 70's and 80's. Jim Knudsen, Larry Herget, Gale Gish, Paul Smith. They are past officers and members of the St. Louis Live Steamers, names from our newsletter, Model Railroader and the NMRA Bulletin publications. Also attending at Jim Schmidt's house was, Steve Hahn, Rick _?, Dick Finn, Tim, Zach & Bill Mikko and myself.

After several days of rain, it was a beautiful fall day, cool and sunny. After running on the block signal-controlled track, we enjoyed a pork steak dinner from our gracious hosts, Jim and Vickie Schmidt, and then some time around the fire pit swapping stories in the evening.