Southern Junction Railfest 2001

For the first show of the month NVNTRAK headed south for Raleigh NC and the Southern Junction Model Train Show. Edd, Noll, Nick and I met at the church at 9:30am. We left a little before 10 and picked up Paul in Lake Ridge. We stopped for lunch just off I-85 and grabbed a quick bite. Paul and I had a little excitement when the exhaust from Nick’s truck randomly chugged out clouds of gray smoke at us. We pulled over and fixed it. Next stop Dorton Arena. We found the arena easily and started to unload. M&K yard was the first to get unloaded and anchored on side of the loop. The other modules that the club brought were Golf Course, Wilderness WV, Manata Gap, Nicksville and County Reservoir. Some of the other modules there were Richmond Train Station, an inside yard and KitcheNtrak. The Layout was a 40x24 loop with a branch going to twin track. The blue and yellow loop ran on Aristos. The red line and branch ran on DCC. We setup the loop and part of the branch by 7pm and after a lot of sweat. Richmond came by later with twin track. By then Mitch found us and we went to go check into our hotel.

Then the next part of our adventure began. El Presidente of NVTRAK led us I-440 outer loop, I-440 inner loop and I-40 west. This was a 35 minute detour. Finally one of us turned on their in-car GPS and we reached our hotel..

On Saturday we got the easy directions to the arena and were there in ten minutes. In the mourning we set in the joiner tracks and hooked up the power supplies. Some of us then went to look at what the dealers had to offer. Some of us also found the tool stand in the flea market outside. That night the whole gang from Raleigh, Richmond and NVNTRAK went out to dinner.

Sunday was full of running trains and some shopping for new stuff. I was there early and set up a seventy car train on the red line. Others ran back and fourth on the green line. Still others ran on the yellow and blue.

Here're a number of pictures that Matt took at the show - click on the thumb-nails to see full-sized images!