ML2003 convention - No off topic (please)

So... it's been over for a few days and not much has been said about it anywhere (good or bad). How was it for those that attended? I think everyone that came to our two operation sessions, and the two buses that stopped at the Guelph Model Railroad Society enjoyed themselves.

Bill Freeth

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>>>>Club
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>>>> Locomotive fleet

Reply to
Freeth's
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Bill:

Well...I went. And had a very enjoyable time. Cough, cough. Except for this nagging fever I brought back.

What I found was a wonderful city with 5,000,000 very health people in it. The train show turned into what I would identify as a regional show, by and for, Canadians. A real shortage of USA name tags. That was a shame. People were absolutely not sick up there.

When I visit a show, I visit with the devious intention of stealing the best ideas from layouts of all gauges and sizes and bringing them back. I've posted some photos (see links). Did I mention that I model in Z scale? That "cute" scale that is very, very adictive if you ever try it.

To the right of the door was George's Trains (Toronto hobby shop). They had 5 huge boxes of "stuff" from all gauges that they cleared out of the back of their store. Prices were giveaway, because it was all very old stock, musty from age. Found some tiny, tiny plastic brick sheets for scratch building at

25 cents. And I found a never-opened Relco marked 4.99 Canadian (about $3usd). I got that, too.

At the rear was Neal's N-Gauging Trains from the USA. Brass buildings, more MT cars, Marklin sets, those wonderful P&D Marsh automobiles, all at discounts. I expended my "allowance" and left a ton behind.

Here's my personal pick of "best of show" (N scale layout) (that's me on the left)

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Some close-ups for idea theft: (wow !!, just look at the detail)
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Look at the roof details "we" all forget to put on:
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Paul, who was my generous host who provided me lodging, and I were looking at our pick of "most innovative" animation at the show.
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Its a functioning race track, with a double loop of track just below the visible race track. Two trains with magnets run around underneath, and two sets of cars with magnets following SMOOTHLY around the track chasing the train underneath. No jerky motion at all. Outstanding!
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Look at this Nn3 module. Coffee table ideas anyone?
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This layout was fascinating. The entire layout is motor driven and rotates clockwise. The train is running counter clockwise at the same speed. It climbs and climbs up the mountain, but always in front of you because of the matched speeds. At the top, it disappears into a hidden spiral that brings it back down and starts the process all over again.
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We almost ran off the road when we spotted a CN train pulling 40 foot boxcars. A real treat to see one, much less a string of them in wonderful condition. Everything is 70+ feet long down south nowadays.

Hope you enjoyed some idea stealing.

A very good show. Glad I went.

Bill K. Houston, Texas

Reply to
ZBendTrack

Well, I don't feel that I can say a lot about the Convention as a whole, since I spent most of it running the Fiddle Yard on the Operations Road Show Wabash layout in the SIGs Roundhouse Room.

The ORS, which is a joint project between the OpSIG and a group of Rails on Wheels members, ran three-hour operating sessions at 9:00 am, 2:00 pm and 7:00 pm Monday through Wednesday. Although we had MAJOR butterflies in our stomachs as we set up on Sunday (we were a little worried that nobody would be interested), we filled every one of the 145 crew slots over the following three days, with many people signing up for more than one session.

Family obligations on the parts of a couple of members limited us to being set up for three days.

The layout ran extremely well for all 27 hours of operation, with the exception of one flakey decoder controlling a train order signal. We ended up reprogramming that one at least once a day- it'll be replaced before we resume operations again in Saline. I only had to change one battery in any of our ten radio throttles during all that time.

Basically, we gave a 20-35 minute introduction to timetable and train order operation, followed by assigning crews to trains for the remainder of the three hour block. Crews which came off of one train would be put on the assignment board for another train later. At the end of each session, we stopped the clock. The next session resumed exactly where the previous one left off. The active fiddle yard helped make this possible.

Between the introductory session and the "quick guide to TT&TO" we handed out, most of the crews picked this up quickly. Many commented that they never throught they'd get a chance to run on a large layout under TT&TO rules. The quick guide is available to be viewed and/or downloaded at our web site

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The paper flagmen we made up for these sessions are available to be printed out, too, at the same site. The flagment were extremely popular, far beyond our expectations.

This was the first public showing of this layout, and it ran extremely well. There is still a LOT of work to be done, including toning down the ground cover, building MANY structures, completing and adding more grade crossings, and affixing pounds of foliage. A whole bunch of our freight cars and locomotives need weathering, too.

Hopefully, we'll be allowed space to repeat this at the Cincinnati Convention in 2005. We still haven't firmly decided how we want to do this at the Detroit Convention in 2007, since we're only about 40 miles from any of the likely base hotels and it's a LOT of work to bring the layout out. It's still in the air whether we'll want to take it to the hotel or have people come to us.

I did manage to get to two clinics- I saw the update on the V&O on Friday and Bill Sharpe's clinic on scratchbuilding wood cabooses. I HIGHLY recommend Bill's clinic- it breaks down the process into easily comprehended pieces and shares some very useful techniques that he's developed over the years.

I also went on the LDSIG layout tour. My group only caught the last half, as we spent half of Thursday taking down and packing the ORS layout. Nice layouts in a variety of sizes.

The silent auction wasn't very large, but I did find a few things to bid on. One of my buddies sold most of the stuff he brought.

As I mentioned in another post, I didn't have a chance to see the Prototype Modelers room until Friday (the hours it was open mostly corresponded with the hours the ORS layout was being operated). When I did, most of the freight cars had been packed up and taken home, but I did see the sample of the new C&O coach Walthers is bringing out (the one I've been yapping for years here about wanting in plastic). They also showed samples of the new Rivarossi UP cars (I didn't pay much attention to these as I was concentrating on the C&O cars in the few minutes I had before the V&O clinic).

Having to leave on Friday, I missed the train show, so I can't say anything about that. I'd've liked to have attended, but family obligations overruled.

-fm Webmaster, Operations Road Show, at

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The address in the header of this message is deliberately bogus to foil address-harvesters. See my web sites for my real address.

Reply to
Fritz Milhaupt

Wonderfull web site for the details of the ORS. But are you going to offer 'visiting' sessions once you get it back to its 'home'?? Since you saw the amount of interest in the operations training environment you created, I suspect many people would find a way to visit that didn't get to the show.

We are already looking at many of the details of operations you have published. Some of our members are in the OPSIG and saw the materials in the newsletter. I'm thankful that you are also putting them out for all via the website.

-ken c

Reply to
Ken Cameron

Fritz, I heard wonderful things about the program from other conventioneers. I now regret that I didn't attempt to try it myself. :-( Also wondering if you had any of the younger attendees get involved. My boys 13 and 11 y/o were with me all week and had a great time with anything hands on as opposed through sitting through talks and slide shows. It kind of drove home the type of things needed to attract new MRRers to the hobby. I am now thinking that they would have enjoyed participating and learning about another facet of the hobby.

Lynn

butterflies

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freight

Reply to
Lynn Caron

=>So... it's been over for a few days and not much has been said about it =>anywhere (good or bad). How was it for those that attended? I think everyone =>that came to our two operation sessions, and the two buses that stopped at =>the Guelph Model Railroad Society enjoyed themselves.

I helped out at the YCP, and had a wonderful time, the kids were enthuisiastic and determined to get things done right. I wish I could have been there all day, but had opted for the Super narrow Gauge tour - very inspiring, even though it was long (about 1o hours all told.) Bonus: some lovely gardens (which is another pastime.) Contest entries were down in number, but as good as any I've seen. There was a series of Can Nor and CNR stations that were very nicely done. They were clearly modelled to represent specific prototypes, perhaps illustrating the types used in Alberta (they were all Alberta locations.) Looked like a set done for a museum. I'd like to know who did them and why. Anybody know? I took a bunch of phtos, but a single flash for lighting just doesn't do the models justice. Have to wait for MRR and RMC's versions, I guess.

Couldn't stay for the whole convention, am now looking for an excuse to go to Seattle. Have a nephew in Portland, a sister in Davis -- Seattle is one the way between them --- H'mmmm. :-)

Reply to
Wolf Kirchmeir

This Nn3 module is awesome! That's the kind of layout I'd like to see more of in the magazines.

Terry

Reply to
Terry Brancacio

We've always planned on it. We still need to work out a scheme for keeping things manageable, though.

I'm glad that you're finding them interesting! The basic idea is to give people an idea of one way to operate timetable & train order, without having to have them have to read through "The Rights of Trains" (a very useful book, but not something you want to require of visiting crews).

With time, there'll be more material on the site. Eventually I hope to have the timetable we use up there, as well as the Word templates we use for waybills. I still have to update the "Quick Guide to Timetable & Train Order Operation" that's on the site, since it's two revs behind what we used in Toronto.

-fm Webmaster, Operations Road Show, at

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The address in the header of this message is deliberately bogus to foil address-harvesters. See my web sites for my real address.

Reply to
Fritz Milhaupt

We had at least one father-son team sign up and run, and one entire family. We didn't put out a lot of advance publicity for this outing, so we probably didn't attract quite the range of attendees we could have.

While we were unpacking one of the trailers after we got home, we talked about the idea of approaching the NMRA Junior College Program folks about our setting aside a session specifically for their participants at Cincinnati. If they're interested, we certainly are.

I would specifically like to encourage younger modelers to participate the next time we're out, as well as to "sit in" (throttle in hand) on our sessions in Saline.

Two of the regular crewmembers on Jack Ozanich's Atlantic Great Eastern, another Michigan layout I operate on that also runs TT&TO, began operating there in their early teens. They've turned into some of our best crews and been invited to operating sessions on some very well-known operations-based layouts in the Chicago area. One of these young guys is now assistant superintendent on the outdoor railroad at the same place (see

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- hopefully John's fixed some of the broken internal links and missing graphics...).

Increasing the visibility of this facet of the hobby was a major goal of this layout. Not everybody knows a Jack Ozanich or a Bill Darnaby or a Tony Koester well enough to be invited to a TT&TO operating session on their home layouts (and with the exception of Jack, /we/ don't either, really). We wanted to make it so you wouldn't need to in order to try running under TT&TO.

-fm Webmaster, Operations Road Show, at

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The address in the header of this message is deliberately bogus to foil address-harvesters. See my web sites for my real address.

Reply to
Fritz Milhaupt

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