Southeastern Region

This year marks the 20th Anniversary of the 2004 NMRA Seattle Convention Model Contest Photobook presented in PDF form. The year’s Gold Award winner was an exquisite O-scale Nickle Plate Road Berkshire steam locomotive which earned 124 points and is covered using 17 photos!

What followed was several more volumes covering the years 2005 Cincinnati, 2006 Philadelphia, 2007 Detroit, 2008 Anaheim, 2009 Hartford, and 2010 Milwaukee (the NMRA 75th Anniversary issue), each volume (except 2004) containing from two to four parts. After a gap of five years, the final volume covering the 2016 NMRA Indianapolis Convention Contest was issued. Both volumes 2010 and 2016 each contain 500 photos (spread over four parts) covering all of the entries (evaluated or not) that were present at that year’s contest.

Each model contest entry that is evaluated is listed by Entrant’s Name, Town & State, Description of the Model, each of the five Category Scores, & the Total Score. The color of the box containing the text indicates the placement of the model. At least one photo, and very often many photos, of each model appear under the text information box to show each model’s detailing to its best advantage. (The 2016 issue follows a slightly different format using two info boxes, one for scores and the other for who built it.)

The intent here is not to describe how each model was built, but to show the models themselves and give the reader an idea of the quality of the finished product through a photo study of each model entered. In later years, photos of some of an entry’s documentation that the entrant provided with their entry has also been included. This is to give the viewer an idea of what documentation should be provided with each entry – either a single page or a somewhat short but concise description over a few pages and not a novel! Unlike Achievement Program (AP) evaluations, a Contest is constrained by time to just a few minutes per entry being evaluated and they don’t have all day to read a book on what you did.

This series of Photo Books was created to better show what the scoring was for each of the models entered in the contest. It was also a way to show that many more than just a small handful of models were entered in each contest as in the past, only the winners of a contest will have been displayed in the national magazine, whereas there have always been many more entries present. Hopefully some of you who view these Photo Books will be encouraged to enter future contests.

NOTE: The entry forms shown in these issues are not the latest versions and should not be used. The latest forms can be found on the NMRA website at: https://www.nmra.org/celebration-contests-3