Greetings live steamers! Allow me to take a few moments to recap the National Spring Steamup and share with you some of the highlights of the event. Many thanks to the people who helped make it a success this year: Ted Sharpe and Jim Montgomery who hauled their impressive club track down from Washington for the event, Paul Brink who shared his extremely useful narrow gauge layout with us, and to Charley Lix for his as-usual unique 32mm gauge track. Ruth Saley and her granddaughter stood watch over the registration and shirt tables and their help was, as in years previous, a lifesaver for me. Kevin O'Connor arranged the seminar series and I heard great reports on the presentations given by Paul Kenney, Clark Lord, Jim Reyer, Larry Bangham, Kevin O'Connor, and Mike Martin. Mike Martin also organized the door prize event (always popular) and my personal thanks to the dealers and vendors who contributed to that event. Gary Broeder and Dan Liebowitz generously made their homes and tracks available to us after the steamup and these open houses were well attended.

For me the steamup is a rather kinetic affair dashing here and there taking care of this, that, and the other thing. It's quite the blur until the open houses, which I then enjoy immensely. Given that situation, I'm not the best person to elucidate the high points of the three-day steamup, but I did take note of several things that make putting the event together a worthwhile effort.

High on that list is the camaraderie that is enjoyed as friends descend on the Hilton and head to the ballroom to join in the activity, whatever that may be. Setup on Thursday evenings reveals a crowd of volunteers doing what it takes to prepare for the event and catching up on news as well as swapping stories. Friday and Saturday evenings are the high points of the event in terms of number of locomotives in operation and numbers of live steamers engaged in the art of live steam. Any sort of interest can be met on these evenings: standard gauge from around the world, narrow gauge from around the world, scratch built locomotives, modified locomotives, and of course a few show stoppers.

I am also continually in admiration of the many live steamers who pitch in to help out newcomers or even old-comers with a new or different challenge. There are many that contribute to the hobby in this way but certainly Norm Saley and Sam DiMaggio were notable this year. Sam provided masterful oversight for at least two new owners who were firing Aster locomotives for the first time, and Norm is famous for his good natured assistance and on-the-spot tuneups.

The future of the National Spring Steamup faces a significant challenge in that Northern California has been a tough location to find affordable venues. Facility costs are astronomical even as far east as Sacramento. We've been passed from Hilton to Hilton and frankly we're running out of Hiltons willing to give us the space at a price that makes sense. Several of us are working on finding a suitable venue for next year and information will be passed along.

The National Spring Steamup was launched as an effort to provide a venue for the active live steam community on the West Coast to enjoy each others company, to host an enjoyable event for live steamers from other parts of the country, and to create the opportunity for live steam manufacturers and dealers to meet with potential customers. Each of the four Steamups has, I think, met this objective with varying degrees of success and it will be fun to work on shaping the next one.

Mike Martin, Grover Cleveland, Andrew Macpherson, and I took the following photographs. Paul Gamlin contributed the video clips. As usual, National Spring Steamup information can be found at http://www.steamup.com/steamup.