17th Annual Midwest Narrow Gauge Show

Another Midwest Narrow Gauge Show has come and gone. I'll be posting some pictures here later.
The clinics were excellent, especially The Passenger Cars of the WW&F (Chris McChesney and Gary Kohler), Making the Grassinator (Jeff Schumaker), Seven Simple Structures (Sam Swanson) and HOn30/HOn2 Locomotive Mechanism Equalization and DCC (Chris McChesney).
The contest models were very well done and the competition was heated. The HOn30, Sn2, Sn3, and On30 modular layouts looked and operated well. (In the interest of full disclosure I am a member of the Great Lakes HOn30 Module Group so my assessment is partial!)
Dennis V had a very interesting and impressive micro layout with hand-built switches. The camaraderie was excellent as always.

Barry McClellan, the proprietor of Railway Recollections, gave me some tips on finishing his Forney kit. The trailing truck was lifting the cab deck so that it was not level. His tips were:

File the rear buffer beam flush with the bottom of the cab floor. I'm using a Talgo trailing truck and the additional thickness was pushing up the floor.

Glue the boiler onto the cab. This made the cab assembly more level.

I decided to file a very little off the bottom of the tabs on the inside of the cab walls. These tabs rest on the housing for the slide mechanism of the trailing truck and I suspected that they were pushing down on the floor. Use caution here. It is better to preserve the good fit of the parts than to risk potential issues. (This is not a tip from Barry.)

I ran the loco on the Great Lakes HOn30 Module Group's 38 foot long layout and it ran several loops at a constant speed without stalling. The trailing truck does have electrical pick up and this helps. I'll post more pictures as I have them.

I also pick up a Railway Recollections Billerica & Bedford Box Car A kit. After reading the directions and looking over the pieces this kit will be fun and straight forward to build.