Slides, Books and Conversation, a night at Stan's

As the result of a schedule change, Friday night was hosted by myself; where, as most of you know, there is no working layout, although I did manage to clear off all the paper that tends to accumulate on the horizontal surfaces so the backdrop and lighting could be seen to full effect! Sorry no pretty pictures this week

In place of our regular operations the assembled perused my book collection, commented on the layout and its future, made nice comments on the displayed models, and viewed some slides and had chatted, some times even about trains!

Mike M had brought some early Model magazines to show Wally the original ads for a model he had purchased off of eBay, a brass traction motor. The ad ran in a 1948 issue and was from a company in Japan working in the 'American Sector' the kit sold for $10, rtr $18.50. Fred later found a page of reproducible trackside signs in the same issue so it went off to be copied!

Mike M also showed up with a very nice copy of the Boston and Maine book by Hastings that he was able to locate on eBay for a very nice price. The book features gorgeous pictures in a nice big format that really capture the feel and character of the moment.

Slides of the evening were made up of two carousels from my collection and one from Jim. First off was the set of slides I took last summer of my visit to the Hedley mine site, some of you had seen the digital camera shots taken here but these were the 35mm slides I shot at the same time and I 'discovered' when removing the paper from the layout surface.

Next up was Jim's set of shots from a trip through the Rockies aboard via. For a while we where not sure if Jim had actually been on the trip as he had difficulty remembering where some of the shots were from, then there was the shot though the window with the top of Jim's head reflecting in the window as it reflected the window, and we knew Jim had been there! Jim actually managed to get some interesting shots of the train and rail equipment even though at the time he was not a (conscious) railfan, his inner eye knew where to look.

The last set of sides was my SLD presentation of railfanning to Springfield, which as it turned out, no one in the room had seen!

We finished off the evening with hot tea and fresh oatmeal chocolate chip muffins. As always great company and relaxation.

Stan