The 2012 Railroad Prototype Modelers Valley Forge took place this weekend. The show was located in Malvern, PA and was sponsered by the Philadelphia Division NMRA/MER. They had 47 clinicians and 50 clinics, layout tours and operating sessions scheduled over the three days of the event. There was also a couple of rooms for vender sales.

As always, one of the highlights of the event is the model room. A place to share models, both finished and under construction, with follow modelers. The event is usually dominated by HO modelers but there is a growing  number of O scale models being shown in the room. A few years ago, I was one of two O scale modelers in the room, this years event had seven other modelers displaying O scale models.

I gave a presentation on “Modeling Reading Open Hoppers 1948-1956” during the meet. I had a full room in attendance and everything seemed to go rather smoothly. Thank you to all who attended.

One nice thing that grew out of the presentation, while attending another clinic the clinician, who had attended my clinic, turned to me to ask what O scale models would best represent the cars being talked about in his presentation.

As I was headed out on Saturday night an HO modeler that I’ve known for over twenty years mentioned that he really like the O scale displayed in the modeling room, stating that he could at least see all the details. I mentioned that there is an O scale show coming up in a couple of weeks in Strasburg, PA. He asked me to send the information so he could check out the O scale at the show.

A personal highlight for me was being able to sit down again with Bill Schaumberg for lunch again. Back in the 80’s, when I was drawing for RMC on a regular basis, we would get together about once a month when I’d deliver that month’s drawings. We often went out for lunch and great conversations about the hobby, the projects we were working on, or just what was happening in our lives. It was nice to do that again this weekend.