2024 Mini Festa Fiesta! 

What wonderful and whimsical creativity you all have!!! Precious!!

Fantastic railroads and amazing modelers! What fun it must have been! Thanks for the show!

Bandit Canyon on the go shots really puts things into perspective. AMAZING seeing all the displays gathered in one place. So cool!

You’ve gotten me very interested in small, non prototype, modeling! But that’s 180 degrees from what I liked 30 years ago! Thanks for opening my eyes!

I enjoyed seeing it a second time. So much talent in one place how amazing would of loved to be there. Thank you for sharing. GOD BLESS 🚂💖🚂💖🚂💖🚂💖

I think my favorite was the vineyard layout. I thought it really captured the romance of a small family-owned vineyard and winery, and the workers cleaning up the spilt wine from the broken bottles was great!

Looks like y'all had fun! Pretty neat that Bob Gurr of all folks showed up! Seeing all the little detail on these railways really reminds you that you can do a lot with very little space!

True artistry. Thank you.

Im so happy to be included in this! I had such a great time seeing everyone and showing off my Outpost of the Lost!

thank you for sharing .really enjoyed it.

This is a great way of bringing people together to show their craftsmanship. Preparations are underway for a Mini-Meet here in the East in January. Looking forward to a great time.

So much detail

Just Fabulous Work By All !!!! I think I saw Bob Gurr of Disney fame!!!

Thanks!!

Amazing to watch 👍👍

What a great meet up! :D 4:23 - And even the legendary Bob Gurr showed up! That is cool!

Terrific video thank you for sharing an awesome group of makers.

Whole herds of talent in that group! I really loved the Shay. Thanks for taking us along Dave.

The 2024 Festa Fiesta may be billed as Mini but it is definitely Grande in creativity and talent and scope! Well done to everyone who participated! Thank you.

@ThunderMesaStudio thanks for sharing!👍

I just love small layouts and I get so much inspiration from watching your videos and the work of you, and, your friends.

What I see in some of the model railroad layouts displayed at this event over the years is what I believe to be an outstanding example of absolutely genius American folk art. If someone watching this show does not see more than one piece that belongs in the Smithsonian alongside other examples of great American folk art, they are not paying attention. What we are witnessing here is going to be remembered as a very significant contribution to the dawn of a new movement and direction that is occurring in model railroading. I feel more than fortunate to be able to witness this event through the lens of Dave's camera. Dave, the sound you are hearing that you think is detractors is only the sound of an extremely faulty American educational system trying to dodge falling shards of paradigms and glass ceilings being broken. Endeavor to persevere.

Wonderful layouts, dioramas, and great workmanship. This was a joy to watch ... many times. I wish I could join you folks with my portable On30 Utacolzona Railroad but I'm on the East side of this great country. So I will just wait until it rolls around again next year to enjoy another round of wonderful Southwest workmanship. Thanks, Dave.

It must have been quite a pleasure to have Bob Gurr there - Wow! Several years ago I was at a media event at California Adventure and he was sitting off to the side at one of the tables set along Buena Vista St with Richard Sherman. I thought at the time, the stories and history those two have to share must be amazing!

Nice small layouts! I liked the glimpse of that Z scale layout. It's the scale I'm mainly modeling in at the moment.

Thank you for this video!!! I really loved the rocking chair reserved for you! lololol....I think it would be really cool if someone made a minature of you to sit in the chair ~ rocking with a banjo playing in the background. You guys are AWESOME! Love the imagination of everyone!!!!

Great Job Dave

I could live happily in any one of those layouts!

very cool... some very talented folks there...wandering spruce was a favorite..would love to do something like these with a northern new england theme...inspiring!! thank you!

BEAUTIFUL!!!! ❤❤❤❤❤

Thank you for sharing this with us. Small meet ups like this is how the hobby grows. I like the variety of layout and diorama that was there.

11:14 both the McKeen motorcars and that cab forward locomotive look very cool Mike Miller did an impressive job on these locomotives and motor cars

I've really admired the folks that can build small layouts like those and stay inside the lines, I always seem to blow them up outside the lines

There is nothing like a storyteller, and all of you qualify as master storytellers! Every time I look at the Bandit Canyon I think to myself, that one is a real butte... 😮 too bad the Island of the lost didn’t have a single like Pioneer or C.P.Huntington, there are two on the ocean floor off New Jersey and no one knows why or how they got there...

Absolutely awesome!

4:23 Bob Gurr!!! Very cool

What absolutely amazing layouts! I am so bummed that I couldn't make it this year!

Awesome!

Thank you,Dave. Hope you had a chance to visit with friends, or take in some sights, while you were in CA..

These mini-layouts are fascinating in their creativity. I'm not in a position to build one (strapped for both cash and space), but if I did, I know what it would be - a Jurassic Park layout... So, in Jurassic Park lore, there are two islands - Isla Nublar, the actual 'park' with all the guest facilities and tours, and then Isla Sorna, Site B, the industrial-scale factory-floor genetics laboratory and hatchery where the dinosaurs were bred. Isla Sorna was, canonically, exploited by a German mining company before WW2, so what if it had a little narrow-gauge railway of the kinda frequently seen in Central/South America. This line, after years of abandonment, could then be put back into service in the 1970s/80s when InGen (International Genetic Technologies) covertly leased the island to use as the facility that would clone and breed the dinosaurs of Jurassic Park. There's so much fun to be had with such a premise. Workers trains, supply trains, a mix of refurbished interwar stock and newer vehicles, smaller dinosaurs transported in cages loaded onto flat cars. Alternatively, you could apply the idea to Isla Nublar/Jurassic Park itself, an old industrial line now once again in use both to support park operations and to take park guests on a safari tour of a Lost World brought back to life. It's a scenario I'd love to explore, but can't, so if anyone reading this feels suitably inspired, feel free to make use of the idea! :D

Looking at some of those displays of talent, I kept expecting to hear some Buffett in the background.

Wow, did I just see Bob Gurr?

I don't recall what that style is that all you guys model. It's caricature like. I've only seen it on Thunder Mesa😀

Is that Bob Gurr that pops up at 4:24 and again later?

Are those Mike Miller McKeens (11:13) available for sale?

are all of these made with flex track or a mixture of track ?

Don’t you get tired of the trains just going around and around? Nor being techy here, just an honest question, wouldn’t some operating possibilities be nice?