Last week, David and I went out to Roseville to a model railroad exhibit. Now David is a big fan of railroads, and some of you may remember that we took a trip in 2006 up to Clear Lake and stayed at a bed and breakfast called Featherbed Railroad Company.

At that b&b, we discovered 8 cabooses laid out in the property, all of them completely refurbished into little cottages. There were hardwood or carpet floors, beautiful wood inlay ceilings, some had hottubs, others did not, large feather beds and tasteful furnishings.

I had chosen the “Orient Express” themed caboose, and you can see some of the pictures here.

But anyway - David got tickets for the model railroad event in Roseville, we packed up our cameras and headed out. Now I am not a railroad nut like David is, and I warned him not to be disappointed if I didn’t get as excited about the exhibit as he did…but I have to say, I had a really fun time.

As soon as we arrived, we realized that the clientelle for these events was not exactly “our crowd”.

There were some very…interesting people there, but I suppose it takes an interesting person to have the patience to create some of the grand exhibits we saw.

The first stop was at the Sacramento Valley Live Steamers. They had a train set up and were taking people on a little tour around the grassy plot. The train was very cool…but…I don’t know - the people riding it just looked silly.

We passed by the consignment booths, because we weren’t there to buy anything, and went into the first of many display buildings. In the first one, there were four or five model areas set up that completely filled the room.

The detail on the models was absolutely incredible. Little plastic people visited little plastic shoppes and stores, and the train zoomed right on by with little choo-choo sounds.

This model also had a very cool “Amusement Park” portion, with little rides and such.

In the next building, we saw even more wonderful detail, and a lightrail exhibit. The time it must take to create little signs and features like this…I just wouldn’t have the patience.

And people really take this stuff seriously, as can be seen by this $350 engine available for purchase…

But the absolute coolest thing of all were the cemeteries. This is the last picture I will include in the blog post - you can see ALL the pictures from our trip here.

We were just amazed at the incredible detail of the cemeteries, and there were even vendors that specialized in selling “cemetery kits”. I have to say, these were our favourite parts of the models…given how fanatic David (and me a little bit) is about Halloween, it’s not surprising. So here is a shot of the coolest cemetery there…

This sarcastic entry was posted on Monday, November 19th, 2007 at 10:33 am and is filed under Photography, Vehicles. You can follow any responses to this entry through the comments feed. Both comments and pings are currently closed.