If you've never been to an NMRA National Convention before, you may be wondering what they're all about. What can you do at one?

The National Convention has become a major annual week-long event loaded with informative, educational and inspiring hobby activities. The convention features prototype tours, tours of local layouts, op sessions on prominent layouts, educational clinics, contests, model displays ... the list goes on and on. There are so many activities it's impossibe to do it all!

To top it all off, at the end of the week there's the National Train Show. Hundreds of hobby vendors show their wares to eager modelers - for modelers, it;'s like walking into a live Walthers catalog, with all the products there to see demonstrated, study up close, and buy. Vendors announce many new products at the Show, which makes it an exciting place to see what's coming in the hobby for the next year.

The Model Trains Video crew will be videoing many clinics, and we'll be making them available here in the MRH Theater section for free! I'll also be videoing my own two clinics and making them available in MRH Theater. And of course, we'll be videoing extensive coverage of the National Train Show for free MRH Theater viewing!

On Wednesday, I'll be going on the Layout Design SIG's layout tours, and taking lots of photos - and I'll share some of them in this blog!

So keep your eyes on this blog next week, I'm hoping to post daily from the convention some of the highlights of each day, with photos!