My favorite model railroad event, the Bay Area Layout Design and Operations meet, will be in Santa Rosa this year on the weekend of Feb 2-4, 2024. If you've got any interest in designing model railroads, railroad history, or operating a model railroad in a realistic manner, you'll find this to be a great event!
As in past years, it'll have an activity on Friday (visit the Northwestern Pacific archives), and dinner on Friday night to meet with other attendees, presentations on Saturday, tours of local layouts on Saturday night, and operating sessions on local layouts on Sunday. The presentations will be in-person at the Finley Community Center, but virtual admission will let folks watch the presentations online.
I love this event for so many reasons. It pulls together a bunch of other modelers interested in recreating realistic historical locations. I'll get chances to share notes with others doing research on railroads. I also love that local layout owners give folks interested in operations a chance to operate on a variety of model railroads. I'll have some great conversations. I also got my introduction to operations at this event, and really appreciate the hosts opening their layouts.
If you'd like to join in, get tickets at EventBrite.
See you in Santa Rosa!