Today was an easy day - I only actually attended a couple of the clinics (so far), took a bunch of photos and videotaped stuff. Oh, and found out what I won at the silent auction.
First up this morning was Tony Koester's clinic on his Nickel Plate Road, 3rd Sub, which was basically a philosophy and "what works" session. Very interesting stuff, actually, even if I can't apply any of it to my own layout. He's just a very good speaker. In his opinion the car card and waybill system is pretty much bulletproof, so why try and reinvent the wheel? On the other hand, the cards themselves are boring and don't look much like the real thing. So he and a friend got ahold of an authentic NKP waybill and used selective compression to shrink it down to car card size. Very pretty - since they can't be 4-sided though, the idea is to put 2 double sided (or 4 single sided) waybills in a plastic sleeve and simply rotate through them. I got to talk to him in the hallway for a few minutes later and he did admit they weren't quite ready for prime time on his layout, although they were close - he's working on "route home" (not simply "empty car") cards where the car may be returning to the ATSF from unloading in Buffalo, and the Franklin yardmaster will say, "Hey, I need a car like that going that way..." and grab it and route it, now with an "empty car" card to a local industry.
Joe and I then videotaped most of the contest entries - there are now three levels of contests at National - the traditional judged contest, the "People's Choice Award" which is essentially a popularity contest, and the Model Showcase - no judging, no contest - simply a display area for people who are dipping their toe in the river of having their work seen. The last one only had a couple of entries, since Robert admitted he'd talked most of the people who were going to participate in that to move up to the People's Choice category instead. It seems like a good way to get more people to participate in bringing their work out to be seen. Robert said he'd be happy for the day when he had to tell the hotel he needed another 2000sq ft. of display space to show off everything.
Joe then spent about an hour talking to Alan Cooper (and a large audience) as Alan demonstrated the program Google Sketchup and it's rather incredible 3-D drawing capabilities.
After that it was lunch, and then I came back down and videotaped and photographed the Western Prototype Modeler's RPM meet - Joe DAmato showed up as I was getting finished with a bunch of Z scale locomotives and cars, including a "not yet ready for release" SD40-2 in FerroMex colors.
In the afternoon I went to a session run by Byron Henderson of http://www.layoutvision.com on Creating an Operating Session - how to prepare yourself and your layout for such an event. Very interesting stuff, and very applicable since I'm to the point where I'm looking at doing that.
At the silent auction I won only one of the three Z scale items I'd bid on, two Diesel Spotter's Guides ($5/ea, Contemporary & 2nd Ed, both of which retail, if you can find them, for north of $15), and, on a lark, a Mongram Snap-Tite model of a Hudson steam locomotive (ATSF prototype). If nothing else... I can create a static display for it. Maybe at the amusement park... they like steam there.
This evening will be spent at the Digitrax Users Forum and could easily last up to 3 hours - we're taping that one.
Okay, just got back from a session that I'd forgotten about - Bruce Petrarca (think Litchfield Station) had a clinic titled "How Do I Get The Sound Out?" - all about speakers and the best ways to mount them. Very informative. Afterword I got to talk to Nancy Workman (edited to add her last name) from Soundtraxx/Blackstone regarding the Diesel Tsunami - right now they are using the same format as the TSU-1000 but they will have Atlas format boards out by the end of August. One thing she was very careful to tell me was that the Tsunami was fully 16-bit while the QSI Revolution spoke about having a 32-bit processor... but the rest of it doesn't keep up apparently. So I'm a bit up in the air again. For those Digitrax command station owners, I also got a flyer about Soundtraxx's new SurroundTraxx system, which uses transponding to determin the location of your locomotive and sends the sound to the appropriate speaker underneath the layout - a sound solution for N scale.
Photos of the day:
My first Z scale car, a Burlington Northern Bulkhead flat. I think I paid $8 for it. Unfortunately I did not win the auctions on the caboose or the GP-9 (which would have been a steal at $45 and probably was at whatever the winner paid).
....I hope I got the right photo.
Above is a Micro Trains SD40-2, preproduction model brought by chief designer Joe D'Amato to the WPM RPM meet at the convention. I believe he mentioned that he'd handpainted it...
Joe Fugate, someone who's name I don't know, Tony Koester, and Alan Cooper discuss the Google Sketchup program as Alan demonstrates it.
This SP #2467 4-6-2 only took and honorable mention in the contest - the other models were simply that good!
More photos can be found at https://goo.gl/photos/5kTPxRcU5drWqVTf6
