This past Saturday morning Judy and I took Molly and drove up to Oklahoma City to attend the big annual December train show at the state fairgrounds. While Molly slept in the SUV outside, Judy and I roamed the crowded aisles in search of treasures. I found several HO scale locomotives including a long sought after Athearn Apalachicola Northern SW1500 and a new book on steel mill railroads while Judy stocked up on railroad memorabilia. I had a good time speaking to the various manufacturer’s reps about things to come such as Frisco GP15-1’s and KCS SD70ACe’s from Athearn and Great Northern 4-8-4 S2’s at Broadway Limited.
Even better moments came between purchases when I ran into old friends not seen in a while. I had brought along my Canon pocket point-and-shoot, so I was ready when I ran into Eric Berger on the right in this photo.
Eric and I go way back to the late 1960’s in Connecticut when we hung out at Branchville Hobbies. Shop owner Ed Blackman would take teenage railfans Hans Kuring, Eric and myself along on his photo trips to capture the Erie Lackawanna, Delaware & Hudson and Lehigh Valley amongst others. We had a lot of great times together.
My ex-college roommate David Eads in the middle here is co-director of the annual train show.
In the late 1970’s David and I maybe spent too much time railfanning the AT&SF, Frisco, Katy and Rock Island instead of studying, but we had a lot of good times doing so. David and his lovely wife Carol put in a lot of time and effort each year putting this immense and successful train train show together and making sure it runs smoothly.
Last but not least in this series of memories I am the short one in between Marc and Vikkie Montray.
Marc and I met at the University of Oklahoma back in the late 1970’s and spent many hours railfanning in his excellent SP Daylight-painted van. Marc is most fortunate and the envy of many to have found a life-long companion in wife and fellow railfan Vikkie.
I relived old memories with other acquantances, and also enjoyed seeing the many fine display layouts. Here is a photo of a circus car on a G-guage layout.
Further along was this downward view of a N-guage SP loaded coal train crossing a high trestle.
On the other side of this same layout a Santa Fe freight train was seen passing a grain elevator.
Finally on one of the HO-guage layouts another Santa Fe freight with a warbonnet F-unit is seen crossing a bridge over a busy highway.
I stayed until the show closed at 5:00pm, and then Judy and I went out to eat before retiring with Molly our lab to a nice pet-friendly motel room. Sunday morning we started back towards Fort Worth under increasingly cloudy skies. We exited I35 and stopped in Davis for a few minutes when the radio alerted me to the approach of the northbound BNSF ZALTWSP train. The little Canon SD870IS did a good job of freezing the fast moving train as it passed the Davis depot museum.
We arrived back home mid-afternoon after what was in retrospect a great weekend for reliving good memories.
