A week after Trainfest a large group of GRVS modelers headed up to Duluth to do a small show up there. The Duluth show is put on by the Lake Superior and Mississippi Railroad (LS&M) in order to raise funds for converting an RPO car into a handicapped accessible car for the railroad. The show this year was held at the Mariner Mall in Superior. The mall has several empty store fronts and we had two of them available for the show. GRVS, along with Chippewa Valley N-Trak and Far North Rail had one whole store for their layout which came out a 42' x 34' layout. With the new inside or outside corners put together by Ron Brown, Steve Nitti and Chris Russell, we were able to put together an 'L' shaped layout. We ran DCC on one line with trains running in both directions and blocked another line into 4 blocks however each ‘engineer’ was required to walk his/her train around the layout setting the correct speed and making sure correct distance was maintained. This allowed us to run 2 trains on the blocked DC line. We use the Aristo radio throttle on the third line. The folks at LS&M Railroad provided lunch and dinner for the participants along with a break room. The venue was also great with easy access in and out, plenty of lighting and a carpeted floor. Despite the late start in planning the show the LS&M RR raised over $1,000 to support the conversion.
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