Conclusions

What a wonderful convention. I was a rookie for this convention, but everyone made me feel so welcome, I never felt like a rookie.

Next year’s convention in Scranton should prove to be another highlight for NRHS members.

And thanks to Dan & Dawn for inviting me and then finding me a fun job to do – namely, this blog.

Have you enjoyed this reporting tool? If you have any suggestions, send us your comments.

Dan and Dawn will be sending me a few pictures of Sunday’s trip back to St. Paul which I’ll add when I get them. We’ve so far been unsuccessful at providing you videos of the photo run-bys. If we ever get that tool working, we’ll post a new note here along with the videos. And we know some of the early pictures load slowly because of the the picture size we used. However, the last 3 or 4 days pictures should load much faster. Also, Dawn tells me that a few pictures of Tuesday & Wednesday are mixed up – I’m sorry. However, pending those minor updates, I guess this blog is now closed.

Roger Meyer

Sunday

Up at 5. Pack. Catch train. Drive home. Unpack.

Must’ve left my key chain GPS on a train. Can’t find it anywhere. Oh, well. There’s more where it came from.

Great trip!

Saturday

Now back to the trains. Grand Rapids, here we come.

The train trip to/from Grand Rapids was smooth and uneventful. Had a nice box lunch in Grand Rapids and even found an ice cream store.

After arriving home and having a wonderful dinner at Black Wood’s, it started drizzling. Oh, well…

My one Grand Rapids picture is the photo run-by on our way home. I’ll have more as soon as I get them from Dawn.

Friday

No train trip today… frown… frown…

Quite foggy when I got up at 6 – see pictures below of downtown Duluth taken from my hotel window – couldn’t even see Lake Superior and the Lift Bridge which is normally visible.

This morning, we (Dawn’s feeling better) attended rail seminars at the hotel. In the afternoon, we attended the membership meeting. Then this evening we attended the annual banquet held at D.E.C.C. Hopefully, Dawn got some pictures I can include below.

Wednesday – Night Photos

Below are several pictures taken by Dawn at one of the night photo sessions.

Thursday

A warm day in Duluth. High near 90. Fortunately the cars were air conditioned. This morning I took the 2719 to Two Harbors where the American Legion put on an enjoyable luncheon for us. The trip included 2 photo run-bys (see pictures below).

In the morning, Dan was needed at a shops tour which we’ll cover in a separate post. (Dawn was ill all day.)

Then after I returned to Duluth from the Two Harbors trip, Dan & I both went on a short line L.S. & M. RR down the St. Louis river shore, complete with a photo run-by.

Wednesday – IronWorld

Dawn went on the IronWorld tour while Dan & I went on the Spooner tour. They were needed to help handle the 2 groups as hosts. Below are a sample of Dawn’s pictures.

Wednesday

Today has been another day of fun & enjoyment. Dan & I rode a bus to Spooner, Wisconsin, to the Railroad Memories Museum and the Wisconsin Great Northern railroad. There we visited an informative museum and then boarded a train for several hours, lunch, and several photo run-bys. Finally we returned to Duluth by bus, had a quick supper, chased the 2719 out of Duluth (on its way to Two Harbors), worked on pictures, and then to the Night Photo Session at the Lake Superior Railroad Museum. What a wonderful day.

See the pictures below. And be sure to activate both videos that I shot with my little Canon camera. One of the videos is the steam train heading for Two Harbors. Very cool (if I do say so myself).

Link to video

Tuesday

Tuesday was a wonderful day. The train ride to Duluth went smoothly and we saw lots of interesting farmland & forests of northern Minnesota & Wisconsin. Arrived at the Duluth depot at about 4:30 PM where we were met by a Dixieland band.

Our hotel checkin procedures went very smoothly and our room at the Radisson was very nice.

The evening dinner cruise was most enjoyable. We toured the Duluth-Superior harbor viewing “the lift bridge”, large cargo ships, loading, unloading, huge grain elevators, etc. The onboard dinner was most delicious. Returned to our hotel at about 9.

Will add more pictures from Dawn later.

Tuesday was a wonderful day. The train ride to Duluth went smoothly and we saw lots of interesting farmland & forests of northern Minnesota & Wisconsin. Arrived at the Duluth depot at about 4:30 PM where we were met by a Dixieland band.

Our hotel checkin procedures went very smoothly and our room at the Radisson was very nice.

The evening dinner cruise was most enjoyable & delicous. On the Vista Cruiser, we toured the Duluth-Superior harbor viewing “the lift bridge”, large cargo ships, loading, unloading, huge grain elevators, etc. The onboard dinner was scrumptous. Returned to Radisson about 9.

First Pictures

We got the train loaded and looks like we’ll depart on-time. And here’s the first pictures.