News
Sept. 15, 2024 - Additional Home Layout Tour has been added - Saturday, October 19th, 1-4pm - Ken Smith
Sept. 12, 2024 - Deadline to order a Convention Shirt is October 1st, 2024. There will not be any shirts for sale at the Convention.
Sept 5, 2024 - Marriott has just released ten additional rooms to our reservation block. These will be the last rooms available at the convention rate. All are King bedrooms. Once these are booked, the hotel will be full.
August 26, 2024 - Ladies and Gentlemen, the Marriott is full. Our convention has booked approximately half of the 225 rooms; other groups and individuals have booked the balance. Marriott might have another group release some of its blocked rooms. If so, they will be assigned to the Piedmont Junction convention.
If you still need to reserve a room for the convention, Marriott recommends the Hilton Garden Inn, which is the closest hotel to the host Marriott. There are numerous other hotel options within a short drive of 4700 Guardian Drive, Durham, NC. Directions to Hilton Garden Inn Raleigh-Durham Research Triangle Park Hotel
August 24, 2024 - Updated new Clinics being offered! Check out the Clinic Descriptions page for more info.
Clinic #5: John Gallagher
Designing Operations Which Reflects the Economic Purpose of Railroading
Clinic #32: Alan Mende
Obsessive-Compulsive Detailing Revisited
August 15, 2024 - Ken Smith's Layout Tour has changed times from 7:30pm-9:30pm to 1pm-5pm and has been updated on the Layouts page. It remains on Friday 10/18. In other news, unfortunately Dan Fisher's layout tour has been canceled.
August 2024 - The Pre-Convention Early Fare of $60 is only good through August 31st. The rate increases to $70 on September 1st. If you have been planning to attend, but have not yet registered, please head on over to the Registration tab. And while scrolling through the website be sure to explore the layout tour schedule, clinics, prototype tours, and the other convention offerings.
May 2024 - New Things to Do Around the Triangle has been posted under Prototype Tours webpage.
April 2024 - Added Mike Rossi's layout to the operations page.
February 2024 - The 2024 convention venue, Marriott Research Triangle Park, Durham, NC, has a new owner and will be undergoing renovations that will impact our September convention dates. Therefore, Piedmont Junction has been rescheduled for October 17 through October 20, 2024.
For this inconvenience the hotel has reduced the room rate from $109 to $79 per night, in addition to other incentives.
All existing reservations will be transferred to the new dates and at the $79 rate. We apologize for any inconvenience, but as you no doubt understand, this change is beyond our control.
We will be contacting all clinicians, layout hosts, and other relevant parties affected in the coming days.
November 2023 - Piedmont Junction has now been listed on the NMRA website! https://www.nmra.org/region-conventions#Mid-Eastern
October 2023 - Added more Layout Tour descriptions.
September 2023 - Added more info to the Operations and Layout Tour pages.
August 2023 - Added more Operations, Layout Tours and Clinics descriptions.
July 2023 - Added more sponsors to our Sponsor page.
July 2023 - News page launched for convention announcements and change record.