Weekend MR results

I set aside Sunday to build the skyboard down the centre of my new peninsula. By mid-day I was finished measuring and planning, and walked out the train room to head down to the hardware shop. I bumped straight into my neighbour Graeme - "Do you want to cut down that tree now?" he asked (I had asked for his help more than a month ago).

"Err - yeah." I said (without much enthusiasm).

Six hours later, I finally made it back into my train room and turned the lights off.

The weatherman says we're gonna have rain all next weekend. I'm hoping he's right!!

Ron

Pretty much as planned...

Saturday was the Open House. I had about 20 people show up visit, spending anywhere from 5 minutes to over half an hour. Everything ran well, and the TraiNcam was a hit.

Sunday I did a last run of the layout. Started by videotaping the whole layout, then set up the TraiNcam again and taped the output of that, running a full course of the layout, peeking into all the sidings. Finished up with that about 9:30 am. Stuck the tape back in the video camera, set it up for time lapse, and started stripping the layout. Rolling stock, structures... then trees... skirt, wiring, hoses for the turnouts, turnout motors... finally cutting the two doors apart, taking them outside and stripping the scenery off. So now I've got 2 doors with plaster stains and numerous small holes in them. I figure to use them for shelving or craft tables at the new house.

Even then, Murphy's Law wasn't finished with the layout. As we were cleaning up the driveway, sweeping up the last of the trash and putting it in the cans, a family of 4 walked up (Mom, Dad, and two young boys).

"We're here to see the layout"

I apologized, and explained that they were a day late for the open house, we were getting ready to move, and that what was in the trash cans _was_ the layout. The poor kids looked crushed. Ah, well...

I went to the GATS show at Portland, OR. Arrived at Convention Center Exhibit Area E at the opening bell, 11:00 a.m. on Saturday, 13 November,

It was a farce. Advertised "...hundreds of tables...". Note the plural "hundreds". Had by actual count, 126 tables. I even obtained a copy of the dealer list and table diagram. Sure enough, 126 tables.

Of these a third were die cast cars, trucks and planes. Sure, its a nice thing for those who collect such stuff, but its not trains.

There were actually two dealers who were selling interesting stuff in my scale - HO.

There were at least 10 tables of folks selling broken -- yes, broken -- Lionel post war to early 70s stuff. It was literally garbage in brown grocery boxes.

Saw several other local modelers there. Opinion was unanimous. The GATS shows are a bad joke.

Local TV station --KATU Channel 2, an ABC affiliate -- was there filming a "feel good" piece about kids, trains, etc. Several of us tried to get the cameraman and the talking head reporterette to focus on the false ads, the lack of dealers and the trash being sold and talk about the scam that was being foisted on folks. No interest from the TV folks.

Last GATS show I'll ever go to.

-- Jim McLaughlin

Please don't just hit the reply key. Remove the obvious from the address to reply.

It's been my experience that GATS and Greenberg shows were a mixed bag, and couldn't be counted on; but our local NMRA Division show is always high quality, and free of non-railroad distractions....

I managed just about everything I set out to do, for a change.

I managed to fit the dummy washout plugs to the 3.5' gauge County boiler

- they now just need soldering in place.

I played all Sunday with the 5" gauge Y6 tram loco. It was bit cold, though. Drank lots of coffee and talked a lot!

Did a bit more to the Honda 400/4.

Bruce Fav>

snip

I went to the "International Rail Fair" at Roseville, CA. Not much better. Lots of junk on sale, crowded aisles. A couple wirehead layouts, but I'm not too sure how good they were. An HO modular layout that was having some electrical continuity problems, and the guy on duty couldn't tell me what the rail standards were for their modules; looked like code 83 (which a step above the other modular outfit in the area, still stuck on code 100) but he didn't know.

But Russ Clover of Clover House was there and I got to pick up some PC board tie material free of postage. The down side was he's talking about retiring. I hope he finds somebody to take over the business, possibly expand, and definitely modernize its web presence.

Well, with the work crew I'd invited over, we got about half of the old layout dismantled, a fair amount more than I'd anticipated. 18' x 19' L-shaped room, still have the around-the-walls portion to go, but before that happens I need to load up the dumpster a couple of times and clear out the pile of junk in the middle of the floor. Salvaged all of the code 83 Shinoharas; most of the rest of the track was handlaid and we made no effort to save any of it - the new layout will use flextrack. Did salvage the main yard - about a 9' x 3' section, all handlaid code 70, including the turnouts. Haven't the faintest idea what I'll do with it, but it's still in one piece! May have one more work party before the end of the year, will definitely have one in January, and there's a slight chance to have trains running out there in the spring before it gets too hot for the summer.

Matt

Sailed a Mirror dinghy then turned up some wheels for a Scale7 diesel :-)

Jim.

Bruce Favinger wrote in news:9rXld.33484$Al3.9197 @newssvr30.news.prodigy.com:

Not bad, not bad. I got some yellow paint onto tthe hoods of the RS-1 I'm redecorating. but the weather was not cooperating (I paint outside) so I didn't get much else done on that. I didn't even attempt the coupler mods.

I did go to the club and work on scenery some more. I'm reworking the mountians on a module that has some really un-natural looking mountians. Also, because of the layout and arangement of the room, this module is viewed end-on by the visitors. Unfortunatly, any view from there is blocked by a large mountian. I took out the mountian two weeks ago. This weekend I got the center portion sliced out and formed up a nice valley. Finnished building a lower hill on the right side. Had to quit work on the left side mountian when a support caved in. I did mix some drywall compound with a bit of water and painted that over much of the mountian where the plaster cloth has been dry for a few days. This morning was a real winner at work. At 10:30 I gave up and played hooky at the train club for about two hours. I got the support for the mountian reset and finnished all the plaster cloth work. It's the only thing I did today where I feel like I accomplished anything.

Later this week I'll finish coating the cloth with drywall compound. I'm trying to get this done before the Christmas open houses begin in December.

Oh. One more thing. I registered our club's domain: PDXareaNtrak.org. Don't bother going there, all you will see is a parked page. Once I get ahead of myself on the seanery work I'll create a welcome page.

I used to have a Mirror - I loved it!! As a class, it is all but extinct here now. Pity.

Ron

Well, I got the video watched, which is about all I set out to do, so I guess the weekend was a resounding success ;-). And the workshop got cleaned up a fair bit (most notably by getting the table saw mounted on a wheelie-trolly thing, so it's easier to shove out of the way). Not modelling per se, but when the shop is so cluttered that it gets awkward and hazardous to work in there.....

And the yard-work got done. Next project: re-grout the tile in the kids' shower before they get home for Xmas.......

Sometime, I guess I'll do some train stuff ;-).

-- Kizhe

Dear folks, I am happy to report I got nothing done, and will try again next week.

Cordially yours, Gerard Pawlowski President, The Sparta Railroad

That's the spirit!

Helped set up at the local Greenberg Show. Ran some trains and chatted with folks. Then I was so tired I slept for a couple hours until it was time to tear down and pack up. Guys kidded me they were going to turn out the lights, leave me and my modules behind. Good thing I woke up in time. :)