A work-related conference took me to St. Louis, Missouri this month and I knew I had to reserve some time to visit Ken Patterson, the host of the What's Neat monthly show for Model Railroad Hobbyist Magazine and the weekly What's Neat This Week video podcast. I also had to stop in and enjoy some great St. Louis barbecue at Sugarfire Smoke House as well as meet Joshua Barton, a regular on the podcast. Joshua is executive chef at Sugarfire.
When I returned to the hobby after a 30+ year hiatus, I stumbled onto Ken's monthly show and found it to be a wealth of knowledge with how-to videos, interviews with prominent modelers, and reviews of products. The show is entertaining and well-produced. I watched all the videos (100+) over a number of months.
After I started to actually build the Monaghan Branch I occasionally needed some help with a particular aspect. I recalled some pertinent information that Ken had presented but could not remember the specific video the segment was part of. Searching YouTube helped some but it still took too long to find the exact clip I was after.
Fast-forward a few years: As a web developer, I built an application that allows me to maintain an index of every What's Neat segment with search capabilities. At first, I though it was a useful app and had no intentions of putting it out in the wild. I had enough of the app built to show Ken when I arrived at his amazing basement studio / train room. I figured he would get a kick out of. Suffice it to say, I think he liked the app.
You can watch the segment on Ken's Youtube Channel.
I wished that I could have stayed longer but my flight departed way too soon after I arrived.
Ken and his wife were gracious hosts - he a busy man and I am grateful he took the time to chat a bit.
Feel free to check out the application at https://wnindex.theconsist.com/
