Bay Area Prototype Modelers Meet 2026

On June 27, 2026, I headed over to the Bay Area Prototype Meet in Kensington, CA, a couple miles south of where the meet has historically been held at St. David's School due to the regular venue building receiving new windows and forcing the BAPM to be moved to a new venue.

Time for a Walk Around the Show

Here's some pictures that I took at the event, Enjoy!

The long-time regular at BAPM Harry Wong moves his lighting and camera rig around taking photos for Railroad Model Craftsman, where he now works.

Rapido's New C-40-3

The last several years Rapido has had a table with a couple of their reps to talk to and discuss projects with.  Last year, they had 3d printed pre-tooling model for their SP C-40-3 caboose.  This year they have pre-production models from the actual injection molding tooling and detail parts applied and then painted and lettered.  These are probably my second most anticipated model project for 2026, which I have reserved a couple years ago, which is in the pipeline right now.  My primary models of interest that are expected soon, are the Golden Gate Depot/3rd & Townsend Models Harriman V2.0 cars, expected in July 2026.

This would be the as-delivered scheme, initials only, pre-1946.

I was told by the Rapido representatives at the show, that these pre-production models will have some slight changes for production.  While I've not gone over these with a fine-tooth comb looking for problems, they look good to me on the first pass as they are.  As with all pre-production samples, this is to be expected.  Rapido is expecting these cabooses to be out near the end of the year 2026.

These models look very nice and I'm looking forward to receiving mine and writing the review on them for service on the Jawbone Branch.

The Rapido rep that talked with me said that the cars with the 'frog-eye' markers will work, and the earlier corner-lantern cars will have non-working markers included, which can be mounted on either end of the car as the modeler desires.  This seems like a reasonable solution.

This is one of the SP cabooses which was fitted with two stoves inside.

Some SP cabooses only had one stove, but some wood cars were refitted to have two stoves, like my SP 2 caboose, a C-30-2.  As I recall, the SP C-40-3s were built with two from the beginning.  Some kept the second stove in the short-end, but some had it capped off and/or removed.

A little weathering and this car would be ready for service on most any SP mainline layout after 1938.

It was rather busy at the Meet, but I should have grabbed some photos of the Gothic Lettered version (post 1955-56 era) for my blog.  

Here's a 'borrowed photo' from Cyrus Gillespie's collection from the meet showing the Gothic Lettering later versions of Rapido's C-40-3s.

I didn't see a sample for the version I have on order, which is the 1946-1955 version with the spelled out 'Roman' version of "SOUTHERN PACIFIC".  Oh well.  I'm sure pictures of those models are already out on the web at Rapido's site and other places too.

Working Construction Equipment Models?!

The arm has a working attachment connector to switch out what tool it needs at the moment.

Probably the most impressive models being shown at the meet are these functioning models of heavy equipment by Nexus Hobby. 

Business Card for Nexus Hobby, the builder of these amazing little machines.

Draglines, clamshell buckets, and an excavator with multiple attachments.  Plus a dump truck that can drive around the site as well.  The dragline and clameshell units could also traverse and move on their own tracks around the 'solid ground' of the 'sandbox' that the owner brought with him.  I shot some video of the pieces of equipment showing off what they could do.

Here's some of the videos that I shot of the working heavy equipment.

Excavator moving around with it's full light package and fully working arm with different attachments.

OwlMtModels & Jason Hill's Passenger Cars

My display of OwlMtModels lumber loads and passenger cars (and partial train consists) taking up a bit more than one table.

I brought the OwlMtModels collection of Lumber Loads and a couple Beet Racks, plus some MW cars.  Also a large group of my current passenger train project cars, including most of my current West Coast consist and parts of my Santa Fe Grand Canyon, with the shadowlined cars and the MoPac 6-6-4 'Eagle River'.  I also had a couple miscellaneous Pullman Tourist Cars, including my 16-section kitbashed car and the Walthers 14-section 'Challenger' Tourist car.

Many folks enjoyed seeing the rainbow consist of the West Coast, with the freshly painted 'Golden Plain' (in the middle of the photo), and my newly started Walthers conversion for a ex-CoSF SP 9200/9201 Pullman 10-5 that I'll be posting about soon.

I think this was a Pullman 11-double-bedroom sleeper originally, with another ex-City car to the top left too.

I didn't see who's models these were, but they had a large collection of early Amtrak passenger cars.

I grabbed this detail shot so I can see what to do on my kitbash soon.

The cars that caught my eye were the ones which were clearly ex-City of San Francisco (or other City train sets) that had the roof conduits still in place, as my SP 9200/.9201 will need that.

Pullman 10-6 "Blunt-End" Overland-Pool Car

Among the other passenger train modelers, I found this Pullman 10-6 Blunt-End sleeper in Overland colors.

SP 9041, Blunt-End 10-6 for SF Overland, I didn't catch who the modeler was to give credit, but very
nice model.

I'll probably include this photo in some of my West Coast modeling blogs, as an example of the 10-6s that bumped the SP's 6-6-4s to secondary train assignments.

SP SSS & Gray era E-units and lightweight cars.

More Gray and SSS SP passenger consist modeling.

A couple of examples of the longest lived F7As on the SP roster.  SP 6432 was the last F7A on the Pacific Lines, as I recall.

The T&NO 350-series units came back to the Pacific Lines in the 1950s, and 355 was among the last as I remember.

Ken Adams' M47 Tanks on Flatcars

There were a couple of military modelers at the show, one was Ken Adams with his M-47s and extensive research on them.  The 'Popsicles' and SP models behind are Kieth Clayton's, thanks to Cyrus Gillespie's photos of the meet.

Davy Dauchan's Wall of Consists from Time Books

This display shows sequential days of trains that the engineer took over the SP.  Pretty cool concept.  Amazing that today we can pull together photos of the engines to actually get a pretty good modeling of the consists of the trains from nearly 40 years ago.

The front ends of multiple trains, plus the time that the recoder operated the trains. 

I've never quite seen this type of consist modeling and display before.  It's a rather interesting way to show the actions of the trains and how they fit into the whole system and also relate to the timing of how the railroad worked.

Cyrus Gillespie got this better view of the data from each day's trip and consist.

1970s KTM 72-IC-series "Subs"

The lighting was rather tricky to get good photos of these solid Gray or Gray and black roof 'Subs'.

It's always good to see what can be done with these classic 'budget' brass passenger car models.

Lucas Goodman's Various Cabooses

A nice collection of SP and Santa Fe cabooses by Lucas Goodman.

Pat Davis' Models of Amador Central Engines

Pat's collection of custom AC's S12s.

Pat Davis' Amador Foothills model - photographed by Cyrus Gillespie, I missed getting this angle in my photo set.

Pat worked with Bill from PDC.CA for a couple months to get all the artwork correct for these custom decals.

Other Models at the Meet

Many of the other models around the room didn't have name tags or I didn't catch who did the models, so no disrespect intended as I'm just going to post these photos as I walked around the meet.

Maybe a couple dioramas

Cryo-reefer cars, covered hoppers, boxcars.. steel cars... all sorts.

My five cars in the foreground that overflowed from the lumber trains and passenger cars on the table to the right.  I missed who the WP modeler is that brought these WP MW cars and consist.  The far car in my five-car group is my NC&StL 15337 (which is currently one of my favorite cars), then a Fox Valley 'Wagon-top', two OwlMtModels F-50s with Blackburn Racks, and my kitbashed SPMW 847 wheel car.

Look at all the SD9s and Alcos, plus a couple Kraus-Maffies!  I also see a B-50-15/16 there and a yellow-stripe SP boxcar.

As always at these meets, there are diesels from all over showing up.

SP Centennials, Kodachrome, MW tie consist, and some regular gray & red SP units too. 

Amtrak Superliners, tank cars, gondolas, doodle-bugs, couple Daylight cars, all sorts of cars on this table.

How about some foreign train modeling too?

Even a few structure models show up at the meets too!

More diesels!

In Closing

As always, the group that comes together for the BAPM meets are a wonderful group, always positive and enjoyable to meet and talk with.  The shade trees at the new location in Kensington helped keep the heat down, and the narrow drive along the Richmond-Oakland ridgeline was certainly exciting, plus a great view of the bay and San Francisco.

Model Room around 1PM at the BAPM 2019 Meet at Saint David's School.

I'm happy that the coordinators were able to get the new location on short notice and I understand the Saint David's School needed some renovating with new windows, which required the shift in locations.

I enjoyed meeting up with many old friends and some newer friends.  Plus a couple of people who were attending for their first time.  Over the years, I found I much enjoy the RPM-type meets over any sort of 'contest' meet.  The people are so much more open with techniques, suppliers, vendors, etc to help with your modeling project that they've found.  Instead of the 'If I show you how I did mine, you might beat me next year!' attitude of many contests.  The RPM folks take the opposite stance, 'I want you to bring an awesome model next year, one that I'll be asking you how you did this and that on!'  So if you ever have the chance to attend the BAPM meets, I highly suggest that you attend.

Jason Hill