ML2003 - No Off Topic

Good Evening,

Just got back to my room. The V&O Update clinic was good - he has made a lot of progress in the past two years. After supper, I attended a clinic on lighting and Wabash caboose models(while waiting for the lighting clinic) nice models.

Jim Bernier

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Have you found the RPM room yet?

Andy

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- Pre-Interstate Urban Archaeology

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Jim thanks for the news from the convention. Please continue your reports. --------------------- Ken McCorry

Andy,

Found it occcupied in the 'Aurora' Room - still not a lot of models as of this afternoon.

Jim Bernier

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Keep us posted. This is good stuff.

CTucker NY

Good Morning,

Attended several clinics Wednesday(a lot of TH&B for a friend) and also had a nice chat with Dean Freytag. He has a high table setup and has tools and models he has built on display. He is around all day and is 'chating' with folks about how to build this or that from available styrene and existing models. What is unusual from most demo's is that he is NOT building a model. He has lots of time to talk, show you completed and uncompleted projects and techniques. In most 'live' demo's the builder really does not have time discuss what he is doing, and seems to consider the crowd a distraction. I am not really interested in steel mill stuff, but I learned a lot just listening to him.... Went a 'N Scale Super Tour'(9 layouts) last afternoon/night - got back at Midnight! All of the N scale layouts were very nice, and very clean. Several had a lot of staging(over 20 trains, and multiple staging tracks), with really nice scenes and trackwork(most used code 80 and Peco turnouts). One layout was all Kato trackage! Off to more clinics this morning. I plan to attend the Maple Leaf train show on Saturday, and leave Sunday. Most of the dealers are Canadian and I suspect there may not be too many deals - I'll really save money this year!

Jim Bernier

ML2003 -Thursday

Off to a late start. That 9 layout 'Super Tour' proves I am not as young as I once was! Saw a clinic by Stafford Swain on Cdn freight cars - quite good. I also attended a yard design clinic. After lunch I took in a Garden RR clinic and then went to my room for a short nap - 4 hours later I woke up and had to rush to get to the High Performance Trucks clinic put on by JP Barger from Reboxx. He also did a clinic on couplers - It appears that he will be doing a scale Kadee compatible coupler sometime in the future in his own line.

Friday is some more clinics and maybe some laundry time. Saturday is the Maple Leaf Train Show. I spoke with some of the convention staff this afternoon and it looks like they have a little under 2,000 registrations. The convention knit shirt has sold out twice! Not too bad after suffering through the SARS scare last month. I have heard rumors of break even to maybe a loss of up the $100,000 Cdn, but none if this is offical. The convention is very good, but you can see that they planned for at least

3,000 registrations.

Jim Bernier

Thank heaven! We need more scale Kadee compatible couplers. :-)

Uh Oh, you mentioned the convention and SARS. You know what that means

- a lenghty, meaningless discussion on world politics. Watch out here comes Procter!

Hope they do not lose money on the convention. Glad to hear the convention was good. Its good to hear people still came.

CBix

distortions from the original mean they

I wonder, when Kadee will make a version of their 58 coupler for us in Continental Europe, that would plug inside NEM sockets? I could use some dozens of these.... (I like the NEM version of the #5, but a #58 NEM-compatible I feel would be dandy.

Regards from H-O-T Athens, Nick Fotis

Forgot to mention this:

Lenz had a new 4 amp decoder for large scale trains. It has some kind of battery or capacitor in it and allow engines to run over dirty track with no problem. Debbie Ames had a demo engine and laid a sheet of paper across the track. All of the engine wheels where on the paper and and she could still start/stop the engine as enough signal leaked through the paper! They are investigating using this technology in future smaller scale decoders as well - very interesting.

Jim Bernier

I had a hell of a time trying to get to see the RPM displays. It was purely a personal problem, though- the schedule on which the room was open coincided almost precisely with my responsibilities for the OpSIG.

By the time I was able to get there when the room was open, it was Friday morning and nearly everyone had packed up and left.

At least I had a chance to see the new Walthers C&O streamlined coach, which was on display there. It's exactly the car I've been wanting for years (as numerous posts here will attest).

-fm Webmaster of the Pere Marquette Historical Society, at

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