Holiday Displays

[nw-modeling-list at nwhs.org]

Friday, having the good fortune to have another day off from work, I took my nephews to visit the Museum at Crewe while their mom's and my wife went shopping. That was a win-win for everyone! Since we started from my mom's house near Gasburg, Virginia, we traveled via Victoria so that we (ok, so that I) could see some remnants of the Virginian and to visit caboose #342 on display in Victoria.  

At Crewe, the boys spent almost an hour playing engineer on diesel 2185 (obviously not an N&W item, but I can't remember if we have discussed its heritage) while I examined all of the artifacts in the yard, my favorite being the H-10 hopper car.  It is numbered 41822 but the number on the truck is 30967.  Since the car number is correct for an H-10, I suspect that the trucks must have been swapped out for some reason.  
 
The new addition, ex-Army (I think) 2-8-0 number 606, looks spiffy in its new, N&W paint.  Fresh N&W paint will make any old rust bucket look good! It’s too bad its number conflicts with the J’s number series.  That could confuse some folks who have not done their N&W homework.  
 
Inside the museum building (I hesitate to call it a station since it is not an actual station from Crewe, nor does it appear to be an exact replica of the Crewe station from the pictures that I’ve seen) there is a modest, four-loop O-gauge holiday layout.  It is very nicely detailed with tons of buildings and figures, and running on it were trains representative of the N&W, Virginian, and ACL railroads, and there was a Thomas for the kids.
 
After visiting Crewe, we drove to Blackstone to visit the Holiday display in the Ace Hardware store.  If I had to limit myself to one word to describe it, that word would be “huge”! There were at least seven different O-gauge trains running at the same time on a layout that I guestimate to be about 25 by 75 feet long.  Every square inch of the layout was decorated with houses, buildings, cars, and people, many of which were animated.  It was tons of fun.  If you can squeeze a visit to Crewe and/or Blackstone into your holiday schedule, I would highly recommend it.  The Crewe museum is open from 10 – 4 Wednesday through Saturday and from 1 – 4 on Sundays.  The Ace Hardware display is open during normal business hours. Happy Holidays!
 
Jerry Kay
I love the smell of coal smoke in the morning!
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