Model Train Shows

In the December 1987 O Scale Railroading article below, my beloved pal Gordon Payne briefly recounts our first meeting. I was 13, Dad 54, and together we visited the Baton Rouge model railroad show. Delighted to find there someone running 2-rail O Scale — a rare gauge in the Bayou State — I awkwardly struck up a conversation with the layout's operator by asking if his custom turnouts were by chance made by Sugar Creek Switches (the only brand of custom switches I could recall at the time). One thing led to another, and the next day we returned at his invitation to run 1:48 trains with Gordon. Thus began a long and beautiful modeling and railfan friendship that continues to this day with every fun visit to Gordon's fabulous indoor and outdoor Louisiana Texas & Pacific Railroads. Over the years that followed that first meeting, the three of us displayed and operated Gordon's sectional layout at model and train shows all over the South. Typical weekends meant a Friday evening arrival and layout setup, followed by Saturday and Sunday show days for running trains. A highlight trip was displaying the layout at the '88 O Scale Convention in San Antonio, which included a field trip out to Lorell Joiner's amazing Great Southern layout. Plenty of funny memories remain: Like the time we arrived in Longview, Texas, only to realize the box with all the electrical hookups was back home. My Old Man dashed out to Radio Shack (remember those?), bought every RCA plug they had in stock, and spent the morning soldering up temporary jumpers so we could get the layout running. Or the time in another town when a woman's purse struck the caboose of one of our infamous Mega Trains and the blow tipped over the entire train in a long domino-like sequence. Gordon and I turned in horror at the sound of our locomotives breaking free of their load and shooting around the layout. In San Antonio, I was trying to show off to a man admiring my father's GP7 Lionel conversion by explaining all the virtues of the Chassis System kits. "Oh, I know all about it," he said. "That's my company. I designed the kit." Red faced. These shows were always such fun. Long days running trains. Wendy's burgers and fries for lunch. Railfanning out and about when the show doors closed. Over the years, Dad took over Gordon's first portable layout and made it his own, while Gordon designed a second layout with both 2- and 3- rail loops. They each continued to operate at shows as I went off to college and graduate school.

In the fall of 2009, Dad's funeral was held in Covington, Louisiana, on a Friday morning. As it turned out, Gordon was displaying at a train show down the road in Mandeville the very next day. How fitting, and bittersweet, that all the Hawkins men could bring some Columbus & Greenville equipment and run trains with Gordon on the day after the celebration of JCH's life (photos below). That Baldwin road switcher — probably the pride and joy of Dad's modeling career — never looked so good or ran so well.