This is the latest schedule for St. Louis Online. Any updates will be posted here.
- Morning (AM) virtual clinics will begin at 10am CDT (8am PDT, 9am MDT and 11am EDT), and clinics will run consecutively through the morning.
- Afternoon (PM) virtual layout tours will begin at 1:30pm CDT (11:30am PDT, 12:30pm MDT and 2:30pm EDT), and tours will run consecutively through the afternoon.
- On September 5th, there will be a business meeting following the final layout tour, to hear presentations from future convention hosts, and to select a location for the 2024 and 2035 National Narrow Gauge Conventions.
Recordings of the clinics and layout tours are now available on You Tube. Visit the St Louis Online playlist here (hosted by the NMRA Pacific Northwest Region, 4th Division). A special thanks to Burr Stewart for creating this You Tube channel for us! Videos will be added after each day of the convention.
Schedule Details
What When Presenter Title Preview Details
Welcome Aug 22 - AM Pete Smith Welcome from the 40th National Narrow Gauge Convention host committee
Clinic Aug 22 - AM Dean Smith Operations on the East Tennessee & Western North Carolina RR—Vida Div Dean will discuss operation on his HOn3 ET&WNC layout. He will examine operation on the prototype and the compromises I made to facilitate challenging, realistic operation on my model railroad, which consist of dispatcher control, freight and passenger train movements, timetable operation with a fast-clock, and waybill-driven freight car movements. Note: An article about Dean’s railroad’s operation appeared in the 2016 HOn3 Annual magazine.
Clinic Aug 22 - AM Guy Cantwell Scenery Tips and Techniques Join Guy for a rundown of scenery techniques and tips. The clinic will cover basic principles in scenery design and application and will provide many tips for creating more realistic and effected scenery. Guy will discuss how to design your track plan and layout infrastructure to facilitate great scenery and will offer some tips for more effective use of the common scenic elements—trees, grass, rocks, dirt and ground cover. He will demonstrate the application of many of these ideas with photos from his layout.
Clinic Aug 22 - AM Gerry Cornwell Layout Lighting Professional lighting designer Gerry Cornwell presents a review of lighting design for the train room. Topics include light sources, color temperature, color rendering, light fixtures, controls, and designed for typical shelf, double decker, and island layouts. There is a comparison of actual costs and savings for fluorescent and LED system. Topics include a review of methods to achieve day/night effects and automation.
Layout Aug 22 - PM Chuck Graham D&RGW Fourth Division (HO, HOn3) 
Chuck Graham’s D&RGW Fourth Division
Layout Aug 22 - PM Axtell Kramer Ozark Mineral Railway (On3) 
Axtell Kramer’s Ozark Mineral Belt Railway
Clinic Aug 29 - AM Don Railton Building From Scratch The clinic covers the steps in the scratch building, detailing and weathering of structures and rolling stock in various scales using simple materials, tools and techniques. He will discuss some of his past builds and magazine articles and explore internet sources for inspiration that include the work of other scratch builders. He has conducted clinics at the 2018 & 2019 NNGC, Fine Scale Structures Show and Train Masters TV.
Clinic Aug 29 - AM Bill Obenauf I Can’t Believe It’s Not Water Water: it’s a modeling element many struggle with or even fear. Bill Obenauf will share tips and techniques to help you create bodies of water with eye-fooling realism. Learn three essential components that will elevate your model water to a level of museum quality. Plus, the ONE thing you can do to prevent a common headache associated with modeling water. By the end of the clinic, you’ll be able to model lakes and rivers that will make viewers say; “I can’t believe it’s not water!”
Clinic Aug 29 - AM Lind Wickersham V2.0 Building Detailed Structures See additional examples for building detailed structures not available in kit-form, and modeling techniques to create them which can also be used to modify or enhance kit building. Lind discusses modeling prototype structures when there are photographs, but few or no actual dimensions. Modeling in wood, styrene and other materials will be described with finish and weathering given special attention.
Layout Aug 29 - PM Bob Lenz Colorado Western and Aspen Junction Railroads (HO, HOn3) 
Bob Lenz’s Colorado Western and Aspen Junction Railroads
Layout Aug 29 - PM John Kalin RGS Lizard Head Division (Sn3) 
John Kalin’s Rio Grande Southern
Clinic Sep 5 - AM Terry Wheeler Growing Up with the Black Canyon of The Gunnison River The clinic will cover—A brief history of the D&RG railroad’s amazing route through this virtually impenetrable canyon—A milepost by milepost trip through the canyon between Sapinero and Cimarron, Colorado—How it related to Terry’s family and the impression it made on him growing up—A description of the area as it is today.
Clinic Sep 5 - AM Chuck Lind, MMR History of Logging & Sawmill Operations in Texas & Louisiana As the timber resources were being depleted in the Northern Michigan and Wisconsin, the vast timber resources in the East Texas area remained untouched. That changed after the civil war as the railroads moved in and opened up the vast long leaf pine forests in the South. In the beginning most of the logging railroads in Texas were narrow gauge—over 30 of them. Chuck will cover the early history and up through the “Golden Age of Logging” in Texas and Louisiana, which lasted until the Second World War.
Clinic Sep 5 - AM Gary Hoover Modeling the N & W, 1950s The clinic will describe the methods use to recreate specific scenes on the Norfolk & Western Railroad in the mid-1950’s. with emphasis on those scenes made famous by the late O. Winston Link. We’ll also discuss some special photoshop techniques used to create more realistic backdrops, fog, etc.
Layout Sep 5 - PM Gary Hoover Norfolk & Western (1954-1957) (HO) 
Gary Hoover’s Norfolk & Western (1954 – 1957)
Layout Sep 5 - PM Pete Smith Loon Lake Railway & Navigation Co. (Sn3) 
Pete Smith’s Loon Lake Railway & Navigation Company
Meeting Sep 5 - PM Pete Smith Business meeting Presentations from future convention hosts (Hickory 2021, Seattle/Tacoma 2022 & Denver 2023), and the selection of hosts for 2024 and 2025





