JeffShultz's blog

Here is one of those times I wish I'd had more time... I did have the opportunity to go into the Historical Display room as well as the contest room, I just didn't get to spend as much time in either as I would have wanted to.

My photos from both are at:

http://www.shultzinfosystems.com/gallery159/view_album.php?set_albumName...

A video of the Milwaukee Layout:

Note: all the photos in their full size (8 & 10MP) versions along with many others (I shot 150 on Sunday alone) are located at http://www.shultzinfosystems.com/gallery159/view_album.php?set_albumName=NMRA2010

Sunday... as I write this, the National Train Show has been over for about an hour, although I had to leave around 3pm.

The days all start blending into each other - and I'm a little surprised to realize that tomorrow is my last day here.

Today got really busy - I started by thinking that we just be videotaping interviews with a few select companies - I'd personally targeted BLMA, which is practically a tradition now, ExactRail, since Chris Clune was here with Blaine (rhymes with "train") Hadfield and I definitely wanted to talk to them, and Tangent, pretty much just because - they do a good interview and had a couple of new products that I think will be of interest to many modelers.

Okay, let's start with the photos that were inappropriate last night (because Athearn hadn't actually shown this stuff publically yet), but are fine now that the show is well and underway. I apologize for the poor photos - these are from a cell phone.

Incidentally, other than the green locomotive, we borrowed the other four temporarily and gave them the "Click 'n Spin" photo treatment. It may be sometime next week before they are up.

...and now, the news...

(Note: Some of you might have seen a version of this post go up briefly last night. After reflection, I decided that some of the items were inappropriate too be posted at that time and I took it back down. Here it is again, without the inappropriate elements, which will instead be in my Friday report, for which they are entirely appropriate!)

Take two: I was almost done with this entry, when apparently I hit the wrong "mouse" button on my laptop... and goodbye it went. Sigh. It's been a long day.... a fun one, but a long one nonetheless. Also, I popped a Nyquil a little over a half hour ago, so I expect to be unconcious before long.

Welcome back to my experiences at the NMRA convention - and it was a pretty busy day.

The  first clinic I went to this morning was by Donald Harbin, titled "The Roots of Making Trees." Donald has discovered that the root structure of a 1 to 2 year old Ash sapling (grows in most states) makes a fine armature for building deciduous trees on. His layout is in the Fall time period, so he ends up with some pretty colorful trees:

Wow... I'm tired. This morning started at 3am Pacific to catch a 6:15am flight from Portland to Milwaukee, via Denver.

It's now 9:15pm Pacific... but my body feels the 11:15pm Central it is here.

Okay, I think I may have goofed, rather expensively, here. When I bought my two new Trainman GP39-2 locomotives I thought that Atlas had converted over to using the new Gold Master chassis with speaker ports in it exclusively - just putting extra weight in when they didn't actually install speakers.

This is how my non-sound MP15DC came.

So when I bought a QSI Revolution-A to put in one of them, I was happy that it came with a 1" speaker. No problem!

Take out the couplers, pop the top off... problems.

I've been practicing "turtle railroading" lately - slow but steady is getting quite a bit accomplished. In the last few weeks I've done the following:

1. Completed a new swing bridge across the entrance aisle to the layout:

(early photo - roadbed for the siding is being glued down with AZ Rock & Mineral ballast as weights)