What's the update for September on ole' SNE? Well, unfortunately not much progress has been made. I started the month feeling confident that with some weekend time, and an hour or so most evenings, the gold spike ceremony could be held sometime in October. Good thing I didn't send out the invitations - work has been insane this last month, working every weekend and most weekends spent in the office until well after 10:00 pm.

It was starting to look like I wouldn't get a column done for Model Railroad Hobbyist, but managed to submit one to Joe just under the wire. Getting a few columns ahead of him has definitely moved up on my "to do" list.

The two huge projects that were causing those excessive work hours were completed just in time (as in the morning of the flight . . .) and I was able to spend a very enjoyable weekend in Kansas City and Tulsa visiting some old friends, making some new ones, and presenting my layout design clinic to a nice crowd in Tulsa.

Here's a brief rundown of the weekend for those who care about such things:

Paul Dolkos and I flew from DC to Kansas City where we met up with Andy Sperandeo from MR. All three of us then headed out to meet some of the KC crowd who were busy working on a MOPAC layout in it's early stages. After touring the layout, we headed out to grab a bite to eat, then stopped by Chuck Hitchcock's house to see his Argentine Industrial District railroad. What struck me about the layout was not only the size of some of the structures, but the way Chuck has cleverly used a combination of kit and scratchbuilt buildings to capture the "look" of the buildings in Kansas City's West Bottoms.

Don Ball and his wife Becky kindly put me up for the night. Before hitting the sack we toured Don's abuilding Stockton & Cooperopolis, which is not a fake railroad. Set in the 1870s, ballon stacks and big cowcatchers abound. But this is no display loop - it's a railroad built for Timetable and Train Order operation with all the necessary trappings. And it runs remarkably well. I need to round up some of the DC crowd to head down there to operate at some point.

The next morning we set off on our journey through the wilds of Kansas - stopping at every cement plant and small town along the way. Lots of good story-telling and kididng around.

Before long we arrived at Jim Senese's house, where we had a wonderful dinner and then adjourned upstairs to operate Jim's KC Terminal railroad - a really fun operation featuring the interaction of four railroads in Kansas City in the early 1980s.

Saturday morning we met the host committee for breakfast (we did a lot of eating . . .) and then headed to the library to do our clinics. Chuck drew the short straw and went first - there was a truly odd problem with the projector and all his wonderful photos had a blue/green cast to them - but he struggled through. After the library technical folks couldn't fix the issues, we used the backup projector to do the remaining talks. Keith discussed his "Patch" switching layout, Andy, with the coveted "after lunch" slot reviewed yard design, I talked about (what else) the CV and my layout, and Paul batted clean up by giving the world premiere presentation on his new HO Baltimore Harbor District.

All in all, a great time.

Now, I need to get back into the basement and see if the railroad is still there.

Marty