It’s always fun to chat with folks you only see face to face very occasionally and this Springfield report is no different. Whether it’s Ralph Heiss, one of “Uncle” Dave’s regular crew or Shane Wilson the controlling hand at ScaleTrains, the conversations are always fun and always full of interesting tidbits.

We also get a chance to visit with Riley Triggs who heads up the NMRA’s Publication Department, the “Queso Cowboy” has a great chat with Rob Hinkle the president of the Operations SIG. We were introduced to “That Train Couple” Jasmine and her husband Frank you’ve just begun a journey into the world of model railroading utilizing Facebook and YouTube. Finally, we get a chance for a quick chat with Stephen Atwell the owner of Midwest Model Railroad in Independence, Missouri. It’s a great podcast and one we’re sure you’ll enjoy!!

It’s part two pf the forty-seven-part Mike May trilogy and in this episode, we discover how a young boy from the suburbs of Chicago eventually is drawn to the wilds of Alaska and one of the most famous three-foot gauge railroads in the world, the White Pass and Yukon Route. Mike has built a beautiful rendition of this railroad in HOn3 that’s just eighteen inches wide and over twenty feet long.

Today the White Pass is the busiest tourist railroad in America after being shut down in 1982 due to lack of freight traffic and then re-open for tourism few years later. Mike has carefully modeled the railroad and eventually become a Master Model Railroader. We also discover that he enjoys writing, having had several articles published in the Narrow Gauge and Short Line Gazette as well as having the layout featured in the 2022 edition of Great Model Railroads. It’s another great podcast and one we’re sure you’ll enjoy!!

Another Amherst Railway Society Railroad Hobby Show has come and gone and by all reports was a rousing success!! With an attendance of well over twenty-thousand enthusiastic model railroaders, hundreds of vendors and dozens of layouts the Springfield show is back in full swing after a worldwide pandemic in 2021 and the snow storm of the century in 2022.

As always, the AML gang was in attendance and this year, we had four tables featuring Iowa Scaled Engineering and our very own “Uncle” Dave Abeles. We met and interviewed so many fans of the podcast, took a group photo with well over fifty of the finest podcast listeners you’ll find anywhere. This is part one with Andy Zimmerman, David Heyde, Drayton Blackgrove, John Frantz, John Dohring and NMRA president Gordy Robinson. Enjoy!!

We’ve met a lot of interesting people on this podcast but every once and awhile somebody comes along that just makes you sit up and take notice. Mike May’s lifelong love of trains has taken him all sorts of interesting places but if you’re wondering how a guy that studied theatrical lighting ended on a Brightline train in Miami in the month of November you’ve come to the right place.

Whether he’s waxing poetically about his love for the White Pass and Yukon Railroad or telling stories of his journey to become a locomotive engineer on the Durango and Silverton. One thing is abundantly clear Mike’s story is to big for just one episode. Find a comfortable place to sit, grab a big bowl of coal ash, a tall cool glass of melted driver grease and enjoy!!!