Dayton - NMRA Division 3 Train show

This past weekend was the National Model Railroad Association Midwest Division 3 train show held at Hara Arena in Dayton, Ohio. The Hara show is a large show featuring a number of train club layouts - including the club of which I am a member - the Miami Valley S Gauger's.

The Hara Arena is an older venue, but has the one commodity that train clubs really need - space. This space was split between a large vendor hall and an exhibitor hall full of operating model train layouts and various clubs and businesses.

Vendor hall at the Hara Arena show.

Exhibitor Hall - the MVSG layout is way in the back.

This show is always fun due to the diverse number of exhibitors and vendors in attendance.

Within our own club there were a number of members that brought trains to run on the layout. Saturday featured something of a glut of classic American Flyer trains - Atlantics, Pacifics and Hudsons shared the rails with GP-7 and F-7's.

The main yard on Saturday with GP-7, Pacific's and F-7 raring to go.

Rich brought his customized Franklin locomotive - with a good smoke unit and a LED headlamp, this was something to see hauling a string of Frontier passenger cars and a flat car with a cannon. Of course, I totally failed to take any pictures of his train.

A picture of the Franklin with cars

Another shot of a Franklin

So lots of time to operate trains at this show. I ran my latest acquisition - an Atlantic 4-4-2 (#21160) pulling a mixed string of freight cars. 21160 ran strong for an hour or so. Not bad for a 50 year old locomotive!


Rich also brought my American Flyer 0-8-0 # 343 back from the shop. I got a good price on it, but it needed a fair amount of work to get back to running condition. One nice reward was Rich pairing my 343 with his and 'double heading' the two switchers with the same string of freight cars the Atlantic had been pulling.

Sunday brought a fun annual event - Paul Rinehart running his string of 49 freight cars in S. Paul started pulling this monster with his American Flyer "Big Boy" then swapped it out for the Light Mikado. Both of these locomotives were equipped with Lionel's Train Master Command Control (TMCC) system.

The old yard is empty....except for two Big Boys and a Pacific.

 Joe Greene's cattle yard occupies a prominent corner module and is quite photogenic with its impressive collection of toy cows and stockyards.

Its a busy day at the stockyard, while in the background, Joe (in the hat) and Bob troubleshoot an electrical issue with the accessory computer.

A fun show as always - there were a number of American Flyer / S Gauge vendors in attendance ranging from Art Lofton's parts depot to Dave Blum's Pikeville Models. I managed to confine myself to a few parts and some additional lights from John Gaffney's Lights4models.com store.