Operation OPP - St. Louis (Collinsville, IL) RPM Meet

Last weekend I did a road trip to St Louis via Lexington, KY to attend the St Louis RPM in Collinsville, IL.  The trip started out on a gorgeous Wednesday.

I stopped at the C&O Heritage Center in Clifton Forge to see the displays there. While I was there an eastbound  coal train departed, so I chased it to Iron Gate and got a few shots and video of it.
I took several pictures of the bridge over the James River at JD Cabin, Rainbow Rocks, and Smith Creek Yard for reference for Brian Brendel's layout.

Next stop was in Lexington. KY, where I met my son Chase and his girl friend Mizuki. They had dinner waiting for me. The  next morning, Chase and I played golf, where I had an amazing round, my best of the year!

In the afternoon, Chase and I drove to Collinsville through a nasty rain storm. We knew we arrived at the right hotel when we parked next to a Sprinter van painted in Denver Rio Grande colors.

First thing  Friday morning I presented a clinic on Waterfront Terminals and Operations. Chase and I spent the rest of the day at the meet.

The meet was a great event. The highlight for me was getting to try out the new ISE diesel simulator hand held throttles. I was impressed with it. As it stands right now, I would have to get a laptop with JMRI to use it with my Easy DCC system.  I'll wait for them to do the necessary integration, which they promised was in progress.

We had lunch with the guys from the Modutrak layout. They have a nice N Scale modular layout.

After dinner we visited Eric Brooman's Utah Belt and Tom Visintine's Terminal Railroads.

Back at the hotel we meet Michael Gross and talked trains with him, as well as Scott Thornton, Tony Thompson, Bill Darnaby, and several others.

On Saturday Chase and I visited the Museum of Transportation in St Louis, then departed to arrive back in Lexington to have dinner with Mizuki. The Museum had a great selection of trains, but the automobile display was disappointing. Nonetheless, I took a lot of photos, especially of the early cars and trucks for future reference.

On Sunday, I drove home via I-79 and Corridor H in central West Virginia, going through some beautiful scenery.  For more photos of the overall trip please go to  this link.