MRH report day 1 (Tuesday July 16)

MRH is at the NMRA National Convention in Atlanta this week, and we're taking in some of the great stuff to be had here.

First was a great clinic on using smartphones and tablets as throttles and panels via JMRI by Steve Todd:

Next, Bernie Kempinski's hosting a Civil War ops road show, and there's some unqiue challenges to operating a layout set in that era ... in this case, an O-scale layout. Here's the Tuesday evening crew doing work:

These are battery powered trains using the Stanton wireless battery DCC system from Northwest Shortline. The cars are coupled with link-and-pin couplers, so you need to use a wand with a magnet to set and remove the pins!

These trains display nicely in O scale. Everything was smaller in this earlier railroad era, so having things at 1/4" to the foot makes for some really fun railroad ops. Plus the equipment of this era was quite colorful and different than the more modern stuff in the hobby.

More coming Wednesday as MRH continues to circulate around the NMRA National Convention in Atlanta, GA.

Wish I could've ...

caught that Steve Todd Clinic...23 pages of related discussion and counting 

Chris Palomarez

MRH report day 2 (Wednesday July 17)

First off, I had to go drop by the Civil War Era layout and get Bernie Kempinski himself into a photo in front of his O scale Civil War layout. By the way, the MRH crew is going to try their hand at operating this Civil War era layout on Thursday evening, so that should be a real kick ...

Wednesday is always the Layout Design SIG car tour day, so we hopped in the car and went to see some layouts. One of the stops was Joe Sullivan's N scale Gainesville & Tennessee Subdivision of the L&N. The layout is a double-decked line and it's still under construction, without a lot of scenery yet. For a serious layout design SIG member like me, getting to see a layout in the "bare bones" stage has its own fascinations that you don't get with a fully finished layout ...

One of Joe's cool tricks is his home-made double-track spacing jig he built from LEGOs ... very clever:

Another fun bare bones layout we got to see was Alan Hirschfield's UP and BNSF Mountain Lines - actually a modern era layout featuring some mountain branches of these class one railroads. Alan's benchwork and roadbed demonstrated some fabulous engineering work, like that of a fine craftsman ...

I also gave my State of the Model Railroading Hobby in 2013 clinic, and it was quite well-received. I may turn it into an article one of these days ... 

So, how was ACWRR recieved????

Dear Joe, Bernie, Atlanta attendees,

So,,, how was the layout recieved?
It's heartening to see a purpose-built show layout, with nicely finished full-procenium presentation,
(no "flat pan domino with no backdrop, scene framing, or ceiling/lighting-rig"),

but how was this style of presentation handled by the punters?
Was it an afront to them, or did it (as intended) focus their viewpoint and assessment of the scene and the modelling?

Happy Modelling,
Aim to Improve,
Prof Klyzlr

Lego Jig

Special announcement

MRH report day 3 (Thursday July 18)

First thing on Thursday, we set up the MRH train show booth ... That's Les Halmos on the left and Jean-Francois Delisle on the right - these are our ad and marketing guys. They seem quite happy that the booth setup chore is done, hooray!

The other big event for us today was getting to operate on the O scale Civil War layout. The MRH crew decided to try our hand at operating this 1864 layout, complete with link-and-pin couplers and a battery powered loco using the Northwest Shortline DCC wireless battery-powered system. Les Halmos is the engineer, Joe Fugate is the conductor, Patty Fugate is the brakeman (or is that the brakelady?).

Running the Civil War train was a total kick, and the fact we had no front coupler we could use meant we had to really think about some of the switching we needed to do. Here's the engineer and brakelady following the conductor's instructions ...  the scenery on this layout is top notch, which made the experience all-the-more fun!

Civil War Displays

I think the layout was very well received. In addition to our O scale layout, the ACWRRHS SIG overall had a first class display with layouts in N and O, a HO diorama, a continuous running locomotive rebuilding clinic and an awesome collection of prototype hardware and paperwork. We had 6 op sessions on the O scale layout that ranged from 45 minutes to 2 hours. I saw lots of smiling faces. I cant think of too many other show layouts where the visitors were encouraged to run the layout. Amazingly, every one seemed to really enjoy the link and pin couplers. It was a new challenge.

I doubt it

Dear Joe, Bernie, Glad to

Dear Joe, Bernie,

Glad to see and hear the positive feedback. I'm interested that the wireless systems was recieved soo well too, although I note you're not using the "stock" Stanton throttle...

Does this success mean maybe we'll see more UK-esque purpose-built and display-optimised "exhibition layouts" starting to show up on the US "train show" scene? (One can only hope... )

Happy Modelling,
Aim to Improve,
Prof Klyzlr
(...about to launch into a 2-1/2 module, fits-in-a-Subie-Outback full-procenium On30 show layout speed build...)

front coupler

Wasn't that red bar on top of the "cow catcher" the front coupler on that locomotive?  Or was it a non-working detail on this model?

Red bar was "broken"

old school switching

So Bernie was just trying to make your lives difficult; gotcha.  I'm surprised he didn't give you some scale chains and a poling beam to really make things fun.

A little taller.

We could push cars with the cow catcher, but we could not pull

That's what scale chain is for......DaveB

Wish I could have gone with you guys.

Although the heat has me inside working on the layout!

Dimensions

Front bar

Valance height

You can always make a "cheater"

http://www.pacificcoastairlinerr.com/1879/cars/couplers/loco_link/

Harold

Is there there anything else

Is there there anything else going on at this convention? Any more news, updates?

MRH report day 4&5 (Fri July 19 & Sat July 20)

Sorry about missing a day but we got in very late on Fri and I was too bushed so I just went straight to bed.

First, on Fri we spent much of the day at the Atlanta National Train show. The Lego display was awesome. Here's just about 20% of the display - yes, this is not even one-quarter of the total display space:

Then there were a number of different hobby vendor booths next to us this year, namely ... ExactRail (things were popping there):

Also nearby is the Digitrax booth ...

Then we also have the huge Walthers booth just behind us ...

On the other side of the Walthers booth is the MTH Trains booth ...

And at the end of our row is the BLMA booth ...

Those are just a few of the booths of our advertisers that are near us.

Friday evening, we went to the LD SIG banquet in Kennesaw, GA and after the banquet walked across the street to the Southern Museum of Civil War & Locomotive History. In the museum is the actual General locomotive from the Great Locomotive chase, a true event from the US Civil War:

And finally, on Saturday night during the NMRA Banquet, look-alikes for Lucy and Desi entertained us (they did a good job), then did the door prize drawing ... they made jokes about different railroading terms they didn't understand and made the drawing quite fun:

...Babalu!

"And finally, on Saturday night during the NMRA Banquet, look-alikes for Lucy and Desi entertained us (they did a good job), then did the door prize drawing ... they made jokes about different railroading terms they didn't understand..."

Lucy, you've got some 'splining to do! 

Link to Facebook Page - Oh, Nevermind

I went to this thread yesterday because, as I recalled, there was a link to the Facebook page where pics from the Atlanta show were being posted, but, alas, I could not find the link - where did it go (or do I recollect incorrectly)?

Nevermind - I found the link - for me, it is not worth doing. Facebook albums will not scroll properly, if not logged in. I'll just wait 'til they are posted in the ezine.