NERPM features more than two dozen clinics focused on a variety of model railroading topics – weathering, prototype information, layout overviews, techniques and specific pieces of equipment. We welcome presentations from everyone. That model you’ve been working on, or project you’ve been researching, could very well be a great clinic.
NEW FOR 2026 - OJT
The staff of the 2026 NERPM presents "On the Job Training" or "Hands-on Learning Sessions."
Set up throughout the meet will be tables, exclusively for "Hands-on Learning Sessions." These tables will be set up throughout the day and differ from the "standard" clincis in that you are a participant, along with the instructor! Read each clinic summary carefully to see which are designated OJT as well as what to bring to these sessions!
| 2026 Clinic List |
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| Denotes hands-on clinic/learning session (sorted by clinician first name) |
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| Presenter | Title | Description |
| Bill Badger | The Rich Lumber Co. in Manchester, VT | After logging operations in Pennsylvania and New York, Rich Lumber moved to Manchester, Vermont, where it built a mill, a small company town and railroad up the mountain complete with a switchback. From 1914 to 1919 Shay locomotives brought spruce logs down to feed the mill, until fire ended the operation. |
| Butch Eyler/Dave Oppedisano | Weathering | Gather round and ask questions as Butch and Dave transform freight cars into pieces of art. Butch is one of the most amazing modelers you will ever find. His weathering skills and talents are unmatched. Dave is an amazing modeler and artist too. There is so much to learn from these guys. |
| Dave Oppedisano | Staging for the Lakeside Division | Layout room preparation and staging construction for a 1200 square foot multilevel layout. |
| Dave Owens | Magor DODX | As tanks increased in weight, the Army needed a heavy duty flat car to carry them. Dave biult a train by modifying the old AHM/Roco cars. The new DODX cars from Rapido are game changers and capture the prototype beautifully. |
| Dave Ramos | Modeling Manhattan’s West Side: Three Railroads, One Cohesive Layout | The challenge and opportunity of modeling the west side of Manhattan by focusing on three key railroads organized into a layout built in four independent parts. With so many prototype operations across Manhattan, Dave will explain why he selected these particular lines and how they best capture the character and variety of the area. The presentation also highlights how a relatively small layout can still deliver dense, engaging operations—ideal for modelers who want to start compact without sacrificing realism or activity. |
| Dee Matyas | Creative Railfan Photography Revisited | Dee will present ideas and inspiration for taking nontraditional railfan photos with the goal of crafting art. |
| Earl Tuson | Milk Tank Cars, 1903-1930 | The history of milk tank cars prior to the establishment of the General American-Pfaudler joint venture in 1930. Car designs and rosters, businesses and mergers, dairy handlers, and routings will be covered. |
| Ed Olszewski | CaroVail Fertilizer Blending Plant - Auburn, NY | The plant was originally Agway built in 1964 and is still in use today served by the Finger Lakes Railway. The plant has gone through several updates and expansions through the years. The plant receives hoppers full of potash and tank cars with liquid fertilizer and ammonia. The plant has two tracks for hoppers and two tank car unloading sites. It is located on a stub spur off the FGLK main on the west side of Auburn, NY. In addition to the fertilizer plant there is a small cinder block building on the siding which is used to transload pallets of bagged onions from semi-trailer to boxcar. In the past there was also a dirt business which used heavy duty canvas bags loaded with dirt formulated for baseball diamonds and horse race tracks. These bags were loaded in open gondolas. This track plan would be ideal for a small shelf switching layout with prototype operation. |
| Evan Tong | Planning, Printing, and Painting: Applications of Computer-Based Design and Manufacturing for Model Railroad Rolling Stock | This clinic covers the general approaches and procedures used to design, produce, and finish HO and N scale models through synthesizing computer-based techniques such as CAD, 3D printing, and cutting with traditional modeling techniques to create accurate and prototypical models of unique prototypes. |
| Glenn Annis | The Central Vermont Railroad's Southern Division 2nd (hand) District...The West River Railroad. | The brief story of CV’s 36-mile West River branch, which was a repository of second-hand equipment, structures and bridges. |
| Irv Thomae | When the Photos Don’t Seem to Match: Modeling the Montpelier & Wells River, circa 1940-41 | Historic photos of this classic Vermont branch-line are full of contradictions. This clinic will detail collaborative efforts to resolve some of them. |
| Jack Labeck | Ballasting track | Jack will demonstrate how he ballasts track. He welcomes questions and you're welcome to try your hand at ballastiing. |
| Jim Fellows | Moving Spuds | Modeling steel reefers from the BAR and MDT used to move potatoes in the 1950s and 60s. |
| John Brown | Transporting wheelsets on CP and now CPKC. | Modeling CP and now CPKC wheel sets new and used as they are transported from Vaughn yard in Toronto Ontario to western Canada. |
| John Sacerdote | Handlaying Track | The basics to get you started: The right tools and a different technique! |
| JT Burke | Electronics soldering | JT covers choosing the right equipment and solder, to setup, technique and the science behind it. |
| JT Burke | DCC Sound System Installation Design | |
| JT Burke/Nick Santo | Electronics soldering | Sit down with JT and Nick and ask questions, try soldering and refine your skills. |
| Ken Akerboom | ORERs | |
| Larry Lawyer | Modeling Military Flatcar Loads 1960 to present | |
| Larry Lawyer | Penn Central Cabooses, Prototype and Modeling | An overview of Penn Central's variety of cabooses and how to model them. |
| Mal Houck | Scratch building a steam locomotive - Start to finish. | |
| Matt Herson | Conrail and its predecessors | To mark the 50th anniversary, Matt reaches into his vast photo collection to present Conrail and its predecessors. |
| Matthew Hurst | Got Milk? | The Pennsylvania Railroad was not know for milk train operations like in New England, but did run over numerous lines that required daily milk service. One operation in particular was centralized on the PRR/H&BT interchange of Supplee Milk cars out of Philadelphia, PA. Matthew will cover the operations and opportunities presented in modeling this operation. |
| Matthew Zuccaro | Using AI for Your Model Railroad | Artificial intelligence tools like ChatGPT are opening up new possibilities for model railroaders of all skill levels. In this introductory clinic, we’ll explore how AI can be used as a practical tool to generate scenery ideas, develop industries and prototypical operations, convert prototype measurements to scale, and even match airbrush paint colors from reference photos. |
| Mike Boland | Passenger Cars and Passenger Trains | |
| Mike Rose | Closing in on Completion of the Lehigh Line | Mike Rose discusses the basic completion of the Conrail portion of his Lehigh Line model railroad. |
| Mike Sparks | Eastern States Farmers Exchange - A Northeastern Farmer-owned Cooperative | An overview of the company's facilities, products and means of delivery to the customer. Long before the advent of Tractor Supply and Agway, it was companies like Eastern States that farmers turned to for animal feed, seed, fertilizer, lubricants and building supplies - the bulk of which was distributed by rail. |
| Neil Schofield | Expanding the CP Rail in Vermont - adding the Central Vermont Interchange at Richford | Neil details the expansion of his CP Rail layout to include the Central Vermont interchange at Richford, VT and how he chose to enhance the scenic and operational characteristics of the Central Vermont operations to support a dedicated operator. He'll review the challenges of installing an aisle swing gate and making the most of limited space to selectively compress a scene. The clinic will cover benchwork through the initial phase of scenery. |
| Nick Santo | What is a Power Bridge stay alive? | A Power Bridge is a stay alive that keeps a locomotive “locomoting” across electrical dead spots on your tracks. This provides a more prototypical operation with no stalling, no light flickering, no sound breaks, and no locomotive restarts. As Super Capacitors have evolved, the amount of stored energy has become significantly greater, so the size of capacitors has been able to become much smaller. As Super Capacitors have become accepted, the quantity manufactured has increased and the price has decreased. Electronic charging circuits have also evolved so that older ways can be put aside. The Power Bridge I, II and III all have characteristics pertinent to model railroaders. I’ll discuss the applications not the theory. I will be pleased to try to answer your questions. |
| Peter Muto | Bellefonte Lime Traffic to New England | A comprehensive overview of lime industry traffic from the PRR's Bellefonte lime district to destinations in New England to include an overview of commodities, customers, traffic patterns, and equipment from the 1940s-1970s. |
| Peter Ness | TOFC Service on the New Haven Railroad 1937-68 – Part I: History | A look at the history of TOFC operations on the New Haven Railroad from launch 1937-1968, discussing New Haven TOFC history from 1937 through the transformative years to the “pre-intermodal era” in 1968. |
| Ramon Rhodes | The Challenges of Designing Practical Staging into Your Railroad | In this presentation, we will look at various design ideas of how you can add multiple staging tracks and yards to your railroad that will improve its operational flexibility. |
| Rick Abramson | How to Paint a Brass Steam Locomotive | Disassembly, preparation, priming, painting and finishing a steam locomotive. |
| Ron Hoess | Modeling British Railways | British model railroading can best be described as small shelf-type layouts often referred to as exhibition layouts. Because of their small size these layouts can be built relatively quickly at minimal cost. This talk will describe the construction of one such layout with the emphasis on capturing the feel of an English countryside branch line. |
| Ron Poidomani | Modeling Mill River Junction SS-79 on my HO Scale New Haven Railroad Layout | This presentation will discuss how I am modeling MIll River Junction SS-79 New Haven CT. I will show you how I used prototype maps and historical photos to help design the area. Layout operations will also be discussed to include what a typical ops session looks like on my layout. In addition I will show updates to the layout build progress to include some new areas being modeled to include Cedar Hill Yard, a foundry, New Haven Trap Rock and a new switch job currently being added to future ops sessions. |
| Ryan Trombly | Southern New England in Kodachrome | A presentation featuring railroad negative and slide images from the 1960s to 1990s taken in the Hartford and Springfield metro areas with a focus on the Springfield line and surrounding branchlines. |
| Steve Funaro | TBD | |
| Steve Funaro | TBD | |
| Steven Meyer | The Shay—More than a Logging Loco | Clinic describes the prototype Class D 4-truck Shay and the new model from Broadway Limited.C4 |
| Ted Culotta | PFE's Postwar Steel Reefers | In the postwar years, PFE added 10,000 new all-steel reefers, a number greater than the entire fleets of many other refrigerator car companies. They augmented a fleet of earlier all-steel cars and rebuilt or refurbished wood and composite cars. All three classes (R-40-23, -25, and -26) had subtle, distinctive differences. All have also been offered in HO scale, yet all of the models miss details. This presentation presents the prototypes as well as how to accurately model them in HO. |
| Ted DiIorio | Hands on Weathering | Bring your car, and I’ll bring everything you need to get started with a quick and easy weathering technique using AMMO by MiG weathering products. Ted urges you to join in with a car you want to weather. He also hosts a weekly weathering workshop on YouTube. |
| Ted Shasta | Round table discussion on anything you want | Ted will lead a round table discussion where the goal is share knowledge, solve problems, motivate you and to enhance the enjoyment of our hobby. |
| Tom Murrary | Modeling Amtrak Amfleet Cars | |
| Tony Koester | Two-town branch line in Proto:48 | MR’s Consulting Editor Tony Koester will discuss progress he has made building an O fine-scale tribute to the Mogul-powered Wabash High Line branch in western Illinois ca. 1953 |
| Tony Sissons | Creating a GP33ECO Locomotive | Using a test resin shell casting given to me that looked somewhat like an ECO locomotive and an old Athearn chassis which I later established did not fit this resin cast chassis, I almost created a GP33ECO engine, more a fantasy freelance engine. The build involved removing 50% of the roof and rebuilding it plus adding many other details noted in photos, replacing and/or building with scratch detail parts. This clinic is a sequenced step by step journey of the build creating a freelance GP33ECO running number GBFX 4371. |
| Will Jamison | Building a Vermont Railway 50' stretched green boxcar. | Building a Vermont Railway 50' stretched green boxcar, used in service at the Proctor and Gamble plant in Mehoopany Pa. |
and now the schedule!
(please note that this is tentative and subject to change by meet time)
ATTENTION ALL MODELERS:
We are always looking for new clinics and layout owners interested in showcasing their work. Please contact Dave Owens at neprotomeet@gmail.com or call 860-209-8155.