In the middle of the Swedish forest, in the village of Fagerhult on the west side of the large lake Vättern, about 30 km north of Jönköping, American model trains in n-scale run every year. The first meeting was held in 2018 and now in 2022 we held our fourth event (the pandemic forced us to cancel the meeting 2020).

We were 18 active participants of which 5 had traveled the long way from Germany. 13 brought modules while the other 5 either came with rolling stock or were satisfied with delivering joy and enthusiasm.

For a layout diagram click here, a schematic overview is available here.

Coal, steel and grain were the main themes, which meant heavy traffic with long trains. Two centrally located yards distributed the traffic. Corleone Yard handled the long manifests and local freight trains in the traditional manner. Pine Hill on the other hand was a coal marshaling yard that handled the coal trains to Loveridge Mine and JK Coal Mine, and the unit coal trains to and from Fairview Staging Yard. About 50 coal cars were loadad every game day feeding the manifests and a unit coal train to a virtual coking plant, a mighty sight.

As can be expected, there were a lot of traffic to Haslingen/US Steel where iron ore arrived in unit trains from the North Pier port, coke arrived from the staging yard and other goods via the manifests.

Switching the industrial areas Florida Industries and Danforth Bay is a challenging but at the same time relaxing task. You can calmly push your cars back and forth without disturbing through traffic.

Due to the many grain elevator a dedicated grain turn was run from Fairview Yard. Some people headed the advice on the job description that “cars bound for Fairview Yard can be picked up on the return trip”, others did not.

Passenger traffic was another high point at the meeting. In our FREMO world it is common to drive passenger trains from point A to Z and make short stops at stations in between, it can be relaxing but is usually a bit boring. At this meeting however this was not the case. There was switching to be done with express cars, sleepers, mail and milk cars that had to be dropped off or picked up, a procedure that made the passenger trains far from dull.

Five permanent jobs were available for those who wanted another challenge; yard master and switcher at Corleone Yard, yard master at Pine Hill Yard, Haslingen switcher and of course, the Dispatcher.

No LN-boxes, no Loconet cables; all wireless thanks to wiFRED. OK, we had boxes and cables to the boosters, wired connected was also used to the yards but all other train drivers were unleashed. A very nice feeling.

Driving a train is an exhausting job, which means that food and drink are of the utmost importance. Only 100 meters from the hall you will find the company Fagerhult, which houses the restaurant where our host served good and nourishing lunch and dinner in ample quantity at a decent price. It was greatly appreciated by the participants. As the restoration was close by, there were only short interruptions in the traffic.

Planning for 2023 is already underway, reserve 17-20/8 2023 for americaN in Fagerhult.