I'm in Denver for the week on railroad business. where should I go nscale relate

[draskouasshat]

Who's in Denver? What's the good hobby shops to hit? Any good layouts to see in the evenings?

[Philip H]

All retail therapy should be conducted at Caboose Hobbies. Seriously it's da bomb!. Dave Vollmer is about an hour south of you in Colorado Springs. If you have time during the day the state railroad museum in Golden is worth your time. By my loose count there are at least a half dozen regular TRW posters in the Denver area.  Enjoy.

[Dave V]

Caboose.

I can be available Wednesday to host but that's the only evening I'm free.

[superchief]

Adam, I made Rocky ops a couple of years ago and John Parkers BNSF fall river sub(HO) is HUGE!!(think he has a website for the RR, maybe a contact info there) and the Greely rr museum is a must!!!!! Gordon

[Cajonpassfan]

Not N scale, but the Forney museum downtown has a Big Boy and a handful of interesting RR pieces, also cars, trucks and motorcycles. Worth a stop I'd think. The new Union Station sheds are interesting.... [ Guests cannot view attachments ]
Hang on to your wallet at Caboose...
Otto K.

[basementcalling]

I'll second a drive up to Greeley. Their museum is top notch.

Caboose is a no brainer. Eat lunch across the street in the Mexican place and order a Margarita.

[draskouasshat]

I appreciate the offer Dave but we have a big group dinner Wednesday night. There's about 200 BNSF System signal construction people here. We ask work out of town constantly on weird schedules putting in Ptc and capital expansion projects. They try to give us all a week to get together and get all of our rules and other qualifications out of the way all at the same time. Trying to decide on going to choose though. Had a small issue with them in some shipping of paint to my house. First they didn't wait and send it all at once when the other bottle came in and basically charge me $40 of shipping for 4 bottles of pain in 2 separate packages days apart. They charge extra for the shipping like they should for said flammable items. Only problem is you pay the shipping and they don't ship them marked as paint or flammable so they pocket all the extra money.

I might stop by and have a chat though.

Thanks for the suggestions everyone. Time to figure out what to go see in the evenings!

[squirrelhunter]

If you like western railroad history, or need to do some proto research, hit the Western History Room at the Denver Public Library. They hold the Otto Perry photo collection, which covers a ton of western subjects. I'd call ahead beforehand however- it helps the staff to know what you want to look at.

[draskouasshat]

I completely forgot about the Otto Perry collection! Time to see how late they're open. I can only assume I could be there for days! Lol

[Rossford Yard]

Was there last month, and hit Caboose (always full of good stuff) and did make the drive to the museum at Greeley.  It took over an hour from Parker south of Denver, but was well worth the drive, as one of the best club layouts I have ever seen, even if in HO.

Depending on time, there is always the Georgetown Loop an hour west of Denver, and a 2-4 hour train ride.  Should be pretty this time of year.  Not quite railroad, but I always enjoyed the mine tours along both sides of I 70 out there, too.

[C855B]

Was there last month, ... and did make the drive to the museum at Greeley.  It took over an hour from Parker south of Denver, but was well worth the drive, as one of the best club layouts I have ever seen, even if in HO. ...

Strangely enough, it's not a club. I had a meeting with the director last year, my purpose being to pick her brain on organizing, administering and operating a large layout generally open to the public. We covered a lot of ground, so pardon me if details are scrambled or otherwise misremembered. Anyway...

The whole thing was one person's vision (his name escapes me at the moment... Steve ?*). IIRC he acquired the property, had the building constructed, and at the same time formed the museum corporation. It really is technically a museum, and what we would call "members" in a club setting are volunteers. IMO what makes the layout unique versus normal club fare is the singular vision. Obviously the volunteers' signatures are all over the layout, but design, construction methods and technical details come from the top.

The corporation-volunteer aspect was very enlightening. You deflect all sorts of potential legal headaches this way, especially common-ownership issues that sometimes kill clubs when somebody is offended, etc., and wants to take "his" chunk of the layout home.

* - EDIT: Found him - David Trussel.

[Dave V]

Depending on time, there is always the Georgetown Loop an hour west of Denver, and a 2-4 hour train ride.  Should be pretty this time of year.  Not quite railroad, but I always enjoyed the mine tours along both sides of I 70 out there, too.

It's not running this week.