Amarillo stuff?

My work will take me to Amarillo, Texas next week for several days - any good hobby shops, club layouts, or operating sessions to which I could get an invitation? I promise to behave myself...
Jeff Sc. Housetrained, Ga.

On Mon, 30 Jun 2003 20:45:09 -0400, snipped-for-privacy@charter.net wrote:
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If you have time and a rental car you positively must go see Palo Duro Canyon. It is best from horseback if the concession is still there. I spent two days there in '65. Enjoyed it very much.
...........Pullman>

On Tue, 01 Jul 2003 02:11:03 GMT, George Pullman wrote:
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Spent the night there in '89 (1989, not 1889) and thoroughly enjoyed it. Transportation may or may not be limited this trip...
Jeff Sc. Ranger, Ga.

I was there in Dec and Jan a couple years ago. There was an active HO club that had a modular layout set up in an empty shopping mall store for the Christmas season. As I recall, the club was associated with the Amarillo RR Museum which has some equipment (including a helium tank car)on a spur off the ATSF on a former Air Force base east of town. The club had done a nice series of specially painted Intermountain reefers as a fund raiser. For supplies, I felt the best was a general line hobby shop, whose name I don't recall, but which was in a small strip mall about a half mile south of I-40 about 2 miles west of downtown - this may be the same shop that is listed in the back of MR. They had a fair selection of trains and one of the staff was very knowledgeable and pointed me to the club's display.
One of the guys in the plant where I was working was a railfan, and gave me a very well done handout on "Railfanning Amarillo" from a local NMRA meet. It nicely described the heavy activity on the ATSF (on the order of 40 trains a day) and the UP (maybe 20 trains a day) lines in the area, and gave details on a couple dozen good locations (activity, how to get there, time of day for best lighting, etc.). I would keep my camera in the car as the plant I was working at was about 10 miles east of Amarillo near the ATSF main, and I could count on seeing a train almost every night on the drive back to the motel. I remember that I also liked a spot just north of the old ATSF depot where the ATSF main line turned east on a sharp 90 degree turn (crummy area, but I had no trouble), another spot on the ATSF by the first grade crossing south of their major yard, and at the UP fuel pad east of town near the airport by the big row of grain elevators visible from I-40. I had no interactions with RR security, but this trip was pre 9-11. The first ATSF 2-10-4 ("Madame Queen") is on display outside the ATSF depot downtown. The depot was then an antique shop, but was nicely restored and worth a visit. Gary Q
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I am in the finishing stages of designing a model railroad for the Amarillo Club to depict the area from Clovis, NM to Canadian, Texas. Even though it is mostly flatlands, some interesting interchanges, and a lot of railroading happened in that area in the past ( and a fair amount still does) We are, however, going back in time for the design; steam and diesel mix, connections with the Rock Island, etc. While this does not effect your current trip, it will be something to look for in the future.
Don Cardiff Model Railroad Design Kaneville, IL

snipped-for-privacy@charter.net wrote in message
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Lots of good train watching to be done there if you like that sort of thing. The BNSF main carries 60+ trains a day and if you wander west past Canyon you can see them carrying on at 60MPH+ all day long. Quite a sight.
The Madam Queen is worth the extra time.