The NWPZS made a 'small' appearance at the WGH Puyallup Train Show Nov 21-22, i.e. small in size and numbers, but large in quality. The show, constituting a regular meeting for the club, was hosted by Tom Gilchrist who showed both days with a couple of suitcase modules and his Noch layout with scratch built/modified buildings and scenery under glass running two trains at a time! Jim and Bertie brought their 2' x 4' combo module/layout and ran Tom's Micro-Trains (MTL) engines with a selection of American rolling stock all day Saturday.

We were joined by Chris Germond and Robin Christle on Saturday who showed two of their scratch built layouts with selections of MTL engines and rolling stock. Robin fielded many questions about her 'blinking' lighthouse: "Where do you buy one?" Of Course, she retrofitted a lighthouse with battery and LED light, not a 'small' feat? Robin and Chris are members of the Cascade Modelers Z club (CZM) from the Portland area.

Sunday, Marc Million from the CZM club in Portland showed his Pro-Z scale modules from Japan and his T Scale layout of 1/400+ trains also from Japan.  The T Scale trains run on a track with motors in the engines and not a belt drive pulling the train.  While the T Scale train is sometimes hard to keep running, it’s hard to see how things could get much smaller and kids sure did like them!

Robin commented: "It was a great opportunity to talk directly with manufacturer representatives and to see their products "in person" that may not be available in stores.  Almost every club layout that I have seen at the Puyallup trains shows over the last few years seemed to be there.  It was an opportunity to see a great number of club layouts all together at one show."