15 - 16 March 2003

This was the third time we set up at this show (4th time attending) and each year just gets better! Dale Rinker brought down NVX2 and with the modules supplied by Dale, John Cook, Paul Diley, Nick Sklias, Dave Freshwater (no mean feat, considering how far he had to drive!) and me, we had 64 feet of track plus corners. We started load-out at 7 AM on Saturday and had trains running well in advance of opening time at 10 AM. Trains ran constantly on all three mains until closing time at 5 PM and again all day (9 AM – 5 PM) Sunday. Additional members stopped by to say “Hi”, to run trains, do OL presentations, and to help tear down at weekend’s end (Thanks!).

The primary purpose of this show was to get scouts their Railroading Merit Badge and it was a real success – approximately 150 scouts completed the requirements for the badge this weekend… We had five Operation Lifesaver presenters in attendance and we gave a total of ten presentations during the show. The scouts were very interested in the material we presented and asked more good questions than I’ve ever seen before.

NVNTRAK’s main job at the show was to man our layout and to tell the attending public what we were about – something we do very well! We handed out lots of flyers, made lots of new friends, and with any luck, recruited a new NVNTRAKer or two… Nick’s module “Nicksville” drew a lot of attention because of the grade crossing incident portrayed on it. Many of the scouts had been through the OLI presentation and had ideas about what went wrong at the grade crossing and many of the attendees were fascinated by the background story…

The show staff – all volunteers – did a great job, with food carts making the rounds continuously (good BBQ!) and staff constantly checking to be sure we had all we needed. I was quite impressed with them. They seemed to like us, too, as we’ve already been invited back again for next year – March 13 and 14, 2004, at Saunders Middle School, in Prince William County, so mark it on your calendars!

Thanks are due to all of the NVNTRAK members who made our participation the success that it was. The biggest lesson I drew from this show was the one I always seem to draw – if you get a bunch of NVNTRAKers together, the trains will run!

Click on the thumbnail pictures to see full-sized versions.