February 9 - 10, 2000

By Paul Diley, as told to Dave Freshwater

The club had its normal penthouse location at the Equestrian Center the weekend of March 9-10.  Thanks to Edd Braithwood, Cotton Bowen, Leonard White, Howard Beall, Matt Guey-Lee, and Jeff Peck who joined Paul in bringing modules out for the layout, and thanks to the other members who came out and helped keep the trains running.  Dave Freshwater made it back from his trip west on Sunday and was taking pictures.  Between those that make the Call Board and the ones that later will be on the web site, you can tell that folks were having fun running trains on Sunday afternoon.

Of course, some people seemed to be having too much fun.  Bobby Richesin was either trying to run long trains or enjoying train wrecks (or drooling on Fresh’s camera with his railfan pictures from New Mexico).  We have the photographic evidence to prove it.  He was having way too much fun with train wrecks.

Both days during the weekend, we did clinics on track laying, scenery and ballasting, and weathering cars.  As usual, they attracted a crowd of people to watch and see how we put things together.  On Sunday, Bill Baldwin was also circulating and talking about Operation Lifesaver with the flip chart display.

Upper Marlboro also represented the last day of the raffle for the donated layout.  As it got closer to 4 p.m., there were more and more people hanging around our area, as well as a last minute flurry of chances being purchased.  We let Leonard draw the winning slip, since he hadn’t purchased any chances and was therefore unbiased.  Our winner was Charles (Dee) Kellett of Reston.  He had purchased his winning chance at the show in Chantilly.  But, he came over to Upper Marlboro to see how the drawing came out and to see more of how we do things.  He was very happy with his new layout (again, we have the pictures to prove it.)  Charles followed up with an enthusiastic e-mail to the club.  We may have a new member before long.