Division 8 Has Left the Pooler Station

The next stop up the A-Line will be in Charleston in early April

On Saturday morning, January 31, 2026, 19 model railroaders gathered at Lovezzola’s Pizza & Sub for the first 2026 meeting of the Atlantic Division (Division 8) of the Southeastern Region of the National Model Railroad Association (NMRA). The weather cooperated with the gathering as a Winter Strom warning had been issued. The snow and sleet held off and allowed the intrepid modelers to enjoy the clinics, a great lunch, and wonderful layout tours.

Division Superintendent Rick Fulkerson welcomed everyone at 10:30. He then introduced Lloyde Bloom, who presented the first clinic of the morning.

After the welcome, Division Director Lloyd Bloom presented an informative talk about his attending the NMRA convention in Novi Michigan in the summer of 2025. This was Lloyd’s first trip to a national convention. Lloyd let everyone know that the getting there can be half of the fun. He presented slides of his visits to the Johnson City Railroad Experience in Johnson City Tennessee. This truly is an experience with both prototype equipment and model layouts. From Johnson City, Lloyd headed North stopping at Fostoria Ohio Iron Triangle Rail Park.Fostoria was a very busy location with the intersection of C&O, B&O, and Nickel Plate main lines, as well as the New York Central and Pennsylvania Railroad in the day. Currently it still is a bury place with the CSX and Norfolk Southern intersection on the lines.

Lloyd went on to talk about his experiences at the show. Novi got its name as it was station number six on the old Pere Marquette Railway. Paragon Steel built auto-rack cars at their plant in Novi that is now the Novi Convention Center. Lloyd pointed out to plan your trip and register early for layout tours, op sessions and other events. He presented images he captured of the Detroit Model Railroad Club, which is located in an old theater in Holly, Michigan. This is an O-gauge layout run by a club that is 90-years old. A side note, the Detroit Model Railroad Club does have open houses, especially in November and December. Check their web site, DMRRC for more details.

Lloyd signed up for the Detroit River Boat cruise. If you are an old school Detroiter, you may have already taken the ride on the BoLo Boat. On the ride down the river, Lloyd captured photos of Zug Island, a man-made island at the mouth of the Rouge River that is occupied by steel miles and has its own railroad. He also captured the view of the new Gordie Howe Bridge that will span the Detroit River from Windsor Canada to the Delray neighborhood of Detroit. The bridge is named after the great right wing of the Detroit Redwings, Gordie Howe, also known as Mr. Hockey.

Lloyd also signed up for the Operations Roadshow. This was an opportunity for Lloyd to experience Time Table and Train Order operations on a large scale. He went on to talk about his trip back home. On the way, he stopped at Thurmond, West Virgina. When coal was king in West Virgina, Thurmond was a booming mining town in the New River Gorge with the C&O running through town. The town was like layout, with mountains rising behind and the river running below. It was a shelf layout in real life. The old depot is now a museum.

Lloyd's Power Point presentation may be downloaded at 2025 NMRA National Convention

Rick Fulkwerson stepped back up to discuss the NMRA’s National Convention for 2026. This will be occurring in Chattanooga Tennessee from July 27 through August 2, 2026. Many of the high lights of what will be available in Chattanooga were presented. Rick mentioned that the world’s largest T-track layout will be put together at the Chattanooga Convention Center during the National Train Show. There will also be the opportunity to travel over 100 miles behind one of the Tennessee Valley Railroad Museum’s Southern Railway steam locomotives. Both Rick and Lloyd recommended signing up early to ensure that you have the opportunity to do the events that you wish such as op sessions or other special events.

Rick went on and presented a short talk concerning how he hand lays his track. Rick attaches the ties to his roadbed and then places his ballast, before he places the tie plates and rails. He pointed out that the ballast is much easier to level with no rails in place. He uses a straight edge versus using a brush between rails. He also pointed out that he does use tie plates and spikes every tie.

Next Rick presented images of how he builds his layout, using modules. Rick. He has found that keeping the modules to a length of six feet makes them easy to work with. He utilizes a closed frame, and then does the under-layout work on the modules with them on their side. He can sit on a chair instead of crawling under the layout. This makes wiring easier and is kinder to his back.

Next up was Assistant Superintendent Rick Scott who presented a talk about the repurposing of old track rail. He presented a number of slides of rail used a fencing and car stops. Local examples can be seen on Bennett’s Point Road where the road crosses the Seaboard Airline Right-of-Way.

There were several home-made under layout turnout devices presented at the show-and-tell session. Also, a small Pacific Fast Mail brass locomotive for the 1970’s was displayed that had been re-motored. The loco was so small that the motor was placed in the tender with a drive shaft to the engine.

During all of the above, everyone enjoyed the wonderful food that was prepared by the staff of Lovezolla’s. The have a back room that is available for groups. Knowing our usual turnout, they had extra staff to get our food out to us. They do a terrific job, and I highly recommend looking into using them for your group meetings in the Savannah area.

After completing our station stop at Lovezolla’s, it was off to layout tours. The first visit for us was to Rich Hyde’s multiple G-scale layouts. Rich has one layout in his bounce room and another whole building with a second layout. The later features a Drive-In Theater with a computer monitor serving as the screen and the Ghost Buster’s Fire House. Rich also has quite a workshop associated with his layouts.

The next layout on the schedule was Tommy Parker’s H.O. scale layout in his bounce room. This is a walk-in layout with a neat track plan. If you get a chance, get over to Tommy’s as he is thinking of a redo for his layout.