Frequently asked questions

Prairie Rail is a closed invitation-only event. Invitees are individual guests of the participating owners and from operating groups from other cities that participating owners have asked to be invited. Sending an email to the point of contact for the web site will not get you an invite to the event.

That's up to the layout host, with the caveat that you must attend all sessions for which you have been assigned. Several layouts may be open for evening visits. Check the web site or ask at the registration table in the lobby for any last-minute open houses or impromptu activities.

Well, if we told you about them, then they wouldn’t be “unannounced”, would they?

Check the web site or ask at the registration table on the hotel lobby for any bonus sessions or open houses that may occur.

Layout assignments will be sent out to the owner invites and area coordinators one week prior to the event. You will also receive your layout assignments in the registration packet that you will receive when you check in on Friday.

You will be assigned the layouts that you are scheduled to visit. As courtesy to the layout hosts, who are counting on a certain number of operators showing up, we ask that you attend the operating sessions assigned. If, for some reason, you cannot attend a session for which you have been assigned, at least do the polite thing and let the layout host know ahead of time. Otherwise, please attend all the sessions for which you have been assigned!

If you can't make it for the weekend or part of the weekend, please contact your regional Prairie Rail Invitational Coordinator. He will take your information forward the information on to someone at on the Prairie Rail Committee so that your vacancy can be filled, if possible.

Go to the Layout Page, and click the individual link to a layout.

Actually, no. It's likely that we'll turn down a number of applicants due to limited space, so if you say you're going to attend, we expect you to honor that commitment. In the case of an absolute emergency, please be courteous and give us as much notice as possible so we can try to invite people from the waiting list. Last-minute cancellations will likely affect invitations to future events.

Please plan not to leave your Sunday layout assignment until 1 pm. If you need to leave earlier than that, please notify us when registering and submitting your layout requests and we will not schedule you for a Sunday session.

No. You will have the option when registering to request that you not be scheduled for the Saturday afternoon session.

It is up to each attendee to arrange their transportation to the event hotel. If flying to Kansas City, due to the distance to the event hotel from the airport, the least expensive option would be to rent a vehicle with others for travel to the hotel and to layouts for the weekend.

The registrar makes every effort to get an attendee at least one and hopefully two of their top 3 choices. There are many variables here: the number of operators needed, when a layout and local helpers are available to operate, folks that want or need to stay together, size of the bribe, etc. In general, the layouts were assigned to an attendee based on their individual requests and order of registration, within the constraints of the scheduling.

For various reasons, some layouts are more popular than others, and may not be able to satisfy the demand for operating positions. Layouts and pairings are also subject to change due to scheduling, demand, and real-life issues. Rest assured that every one of these layouts is fun to run!

No

No

Please ask the permission of the layout owner before taking any pictures or videos of the layout you are operating on. Some layouts do not allow taking of pictures or videos. If granted permission, any pictures or videos you then take are for your private use only. If you wish to publish them to a web site, use them in an article or blog posting, or post a video on a video sharing site, please get the permission of the layout owner first.

While the web site is fully responsive and can be viewed by all types of devices, it is best viewed on a full-sized screen.

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We will do our best to try and accommodate requests for groups of individuals to operate together at Prairie Rail. This needs to be requested when you select your layouts.

Please be advised if you ask to be kept together in a group, this will likely affect your layout assignments and make it highly likely you will not get your top layout choices. All groupings will be done based on layout availability and the number of people in your group.

We will NOT make last minute changes to the layout assignments for those that arrive at the registration table and tell us they need to be with this/these person(s) on Sunday to ride home. This all needs to be done at your layout request time. Plan ahead!

We removed them in 2019. Nearly everybody has apple maps, or google maps, or android maps on their phone devices now, so them maps have become irrelevant. Layout addresses will be provided in the event package.

As you can imagine, there have been many discussions all over the country about how to handle masks requirements and vaccination status at train gatherings. Prairie Rail is no different. Safety is our number one concern, both for our layout hosts and their families, and our out of town guests.

The following policy is in effected for Prairie Rail 2024: All layout hosts, helpers and attendees will be required to be fully vaccinated for COVID-19. Individual layout hosts may require masks depending on the local spread of COVID-19 at the time of the event.

Your participation in Prairie Rail implies that you consent to this policy. There will be no COVID Sheriff checking forms or paperwork. We all know how this works by now.

If you want to weari a mask even if it is not required by the layout host, please do so. We want everybody to feel comfortable during our event.

For 2024, the host hotel will be the Radisson Hotel Lenexa/Overland Park, locates at 12601 West 95th Street in Lenexa, Kansas. This hotel is conveniently located along Interstate 35 in central Johnson County, close to many of the layouts that will be operating during Prairie Rail.

For more information, go to the VENUE PAGE.

Friday afternoon, Saturday, and Sunday morning layout departures will be from the Radisson Hotel. The groups should gather in the Prairie Room to coordinate rides to their respective layouts.

Each layout host or his designee will be at the room to gather up the attendees and make sure that everyone has a ride to the layout.

For some of the most distant layouts, layouts may be paired for the Saturday sessions. For example, operators for Mark Juett’s L&N on Saturday morning will operate at Jim McCroskie’s CB&Q Omaha Division Saturday afternoon. Operators at Larry Tiffany’s UP South Platte Division on Saturday morning will operate at Mike Tomei’s ATSF Albuquerque Sub on Saturday afternoon. Guests going to these layouts will not return to the Hotel between sessions. They will go direct to their afternoon layout after the designated lunch period between sessions. These will show as a option when selecting layouts.

For the other distant layouts operating on Saturday, the committee will do its best based on our guest’s layout selections to minimize travel back to the Host Hotel meeting place between sessions. We will try to do this for as many of the operating layouts that Saturday as we can.

Guest’s packets with their name tag and lanyard will be distributed to attendees on Friday afternoon at the host hotel.

Each guest will receive an electronic version of the event packet’s in advance to help facilitate rides, etc. Some hosts may also choose to contact operators for their sessions in advance with additional information.