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In lugnet.org.us.michlug, Larry Pieniazek writes:
Hi Larry,
thanks for giving these first infos. Now it's like christmas: waiting for the
pictures....
I was amazed that everybody has to do some of the experiences for his own
again. At our last event I thought I would be able to recognize my stuff in any
case, so I could obmit to mark the models. But if your Metroliner-middlewaggon
is in a line of 7 others, they suddenly all look the same... And if you put
somebodys little amount of track just into one oval in one room, someone at
some time will shorten the oval and bear part of it somewhere else (not meaning
to "steal" it, but not thinking about who might be the owner of it). Then you
will find out that 50% of the track spenders haven't counted or marked their
stuff at all.
Rolling stock which is droping from tables is part of any good show too, as it
seems. If you haven't chrashes like that, you had not enough moving models and
visitors have been too far away from the layout. ;-)
What about your experience with driving trains of other people? We have thought
about kind of rule: only the owner of a train model is allowed to work on the
transformer, as long as his model is on the track. Has anybody else experiences
with rules like this, or is there no need for it? (I myself do not like to see
my favorites MOCs being part of a great train crash, caused by anyone else than
me.)
Leg Godt!
Ben
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In lugnet.trains.org, Reinhard "Ben" Beneke writes:
> In lugnet.org.us.michlug, Larry Pieniazek writes:
>
> Hi Larry,
>
> thanks for giving these first infos. Now it's like christmas: waiting for the
> pictures....
>
> I was amazed that everybody has to do some of the experiences for his own
> again.
Well, to a certain extent, advice is easy to give, and some of the things we
ran into were things that people in the group (remember, this is a very
loosely organized group with no structure, just forming, and many of the
group members had never worked with each other before this) such as myself
(who has been involved in, or advised about, many many shows) had given
advice about.
But advice is one thing and doing the work is another. Chris did the
majority of the work in organizing and pulling things together, and he's
never done this before. Not everyone was able to be there at the setup, and
nothing compares to going through it yourself.
So I am not going to fault anyone for not taking advice beforehand. Advice
is easy to give. Doing it is much harder.
> At our last event I thought I would be able to recognize my stuff in any
> case, so I could obmit to mark the models. But if your Metroliner-middlewaggon
> is in a line of 7 others, they suddenly all look the same... And if you put
> somebodys little amount of track just into one oval in one room, someone at
> some time will shorten the oval and bear part of it somewhere else (not >meaning
> to "steal" it, but not thinking about who might be the owner of it). Then you
> will find out that 50% of the track spenders haven't counted or marked their
> stuff at all.
Two suggestions: Don't bring stock models, you'll know your own MOCs, and
use stickers on the bottoms of things and inventory lists.
> Rolling stock which is droping from tables is part of any good show too, as it
> seems. If you haven't chrashes like that, you had not enough moving models and
> visitors have been too far away from the layout. ;-)
>
> What about your experience with driving trains of other people? We have
> thought about kind of rule: only the owner of a train model is allowed to
> work on the transformer, as long as his model is on the track. Has anybody
> else experiences with rules like this, or is there no need for it? (I
> myself do not like to see my favorites MOCs being part of a great train
> crash, caused by anyone else than me.)
This seems unworkable, as all our controllers are in the center, and we
needed the majority of the folks working the show on the outside, doing the
"any questions, here's a flyer that answers all the common ones, kids,
please step back and don't put your hands on the layout, stop taking those
trees off, yes LEGO has made trains since 1965, no, it's a stealth product
but go read about it on lugnet.com, etc." routine.
Both of my bullet nosedives were when someone else was on the controls and
neither was the "fault" of the controller. We mostly didn't have anyone "on
the controls" the center person just tripped the master power if anyone
yelled "power".
We used three controllers per track circuit to lessen voltage drops. One
circuit had gaps, one didn't. The gapped one was easier to control as you
could more easily adjust speeds independently (it looks cool to have the
train crawl through the yard and speed up on the other parts of the line)
++Lar
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In lugnet.trains.org, Larry Pieniazek writes:
> Both of my bullet nosedives were when someone else was on the controls and
> neither was the "fault" of the controller. We mostly didn't have anyone "on
> the controls" the center person just tripped the master power if anyone
> yelled "power".
Er, let me eat those words. One nosedive was due to me, and was while I was
on the controls. I was trying to get the bullet to run as fast as I dared, a
middle coach tipped over on a curve (it was the inside of a doubletrack) and
was plowed off the table by an oncoming freight (someone yelled "power" when
the tipover happened but there wasn't time to shut down before the freight
arrived).
That wreck is reminiscent of the conrail/amtrak wreck a few years back. BTW
I shouldn't talk about wrecks because I am riding Acela NYC-Boston tomorrow...
++Lar
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In lugnet.trains.org, Larry Pieniazek writes:
>
> So I am not going to fault anyone for not taking advice beforehand. Advice
> is easy to give. Doing it is much harder.
indeed: and even nosediving engines offer lots of fun (and memorable moments),
after you have survived the first shock and found out nothong important is
broken...
> Two suggestions: Don't bring stock models, you'll know your own MOCs, and
> use stickers on the bottoms of things and inventory lists.
That's in fact planned for the next meeting.
> > What about your experience with driving trains of other people? We have
> > thought about kind of rule: only the owner of a train model is allowed to
> > work on the transformer, as long as his model is on the track. Has anybody
> > else experiences with rules like this, or is there no need for it? (I
> > myself do not like to see my favorites MOCs being part of a great train
> > crash, caused by anyone else than me.)
>
> This seems unworkable, as all our controllers are in the center, and we
> needed the majority of the folks working the show on the outside.
Ok, that's the difference between a 100% Lego®-fan meeting and GATS. At our
meetings we never needed flyers and that stuff: all visitors exept from
children have been familiar with Lego® trains.
We always have had layouts with lots of ramps and bridges. So you need always
someone at the controller or trains won't go upphills or derail in downhill
curves. A flat 9V track layout can be handled without any problems as long as
any train runs on its own oval.
> We used three controllers per track circuit to lessen voltage drops. One
> circuit had gaps, one didn't. The gapped one was easier to control as you
> could more easily adjust speeds independently (it looks cool to have the
> train crawl through the yard and speed up on the other parts of the line)
That's a nice idea. We have used two transformers for upgoing track (full
power) and downhill track (reduced voltage) at our 1998 layout with the 4
meters bridge, but we haven't used gaps in the circuit.
BTW: I have just downloded all pictures from brickshelf: Larry P., Kai B. and
Scott S. have uploaded 52.2 Mb of picture data.... I fear it will take some
hours to take a clooser look at the stuff this evening. (And one hint at Larry
P.: I know cameras with some Megapixels are cool, but despite of this pictures
with reduced resolution (for e.g. 640x480) seem to offer enough quality for the
internet, don't they? If 400-kB-pictures like this one should be published at
all, is another question, one could dare to ask. ;-)
http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=28129
But in general I cannot get enough pictures of Lego®-train shows. Great chance
to find lots of good models in nice ambience. Thanks at all from MichLTC for
sharing them with us!
Leg Godt!
Ben
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In lugnet.trains.org, Reinhard "Ben" Beneke writes:
> BTW: I have just downloded all pictures from brickshelf: Larry P., Kai B. and
> Scott S. have uploaded 52.2 Mb of picture data.... I fear it will take some
> hours to take a clooser look at the stuff this evening. (And one hint at Larry
> P.: I know cameras with some Megapixels are cool, but despite of this pictures
> with reduced resolution (for e.g. 640x480) seem to offer enough quality for >the
> internet, don't they?
Yes, but I don't like to take reduced resolution pics... and I didn't have
the time to go through and make them smaller. So I dumped them all up with no QC
> If 400-kB-pictures like this one should be published at
> all, is another question, one could dare to ask. ;-)
> http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=28129
which leads to ones like the above which is gone now...
++Lar
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In lugnet.trains.org, Larry Pieniazek writes:
> which leads to ones like the above which is gone now...
Er, that is, I am *trying* to delete it but not having any luck...
++Lar
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Larry Pieniazek wrote:
>
> In lugnet.trains.org, Reinhard "Ben" Beneke writes:
>
> > BTW: I have just downloded all pictures from brickshelf: Larry P., Kai B. and
> > Scott S. have uploaded 52.2 Mb of picture data.... I fear it will take some
> > hours to take a clooser look at the stuff this evening. (And one hint at Larry
> > P.: I know cameras with some Megapixels are cool, but despite of this pictures
> > with reduced resolution (for e.g. 640x480) seem to offer enough quality for >the
> > internet, don't they?
>
> Yes, but I don't like to take reduced resolution pics... and I didn't have
> the time to go through and make them smaller. So I dumped them all up with no QC
I usually try to crop or reduce the size of pictures, but it certainly
adds time to the process. What would be nice is if Brickshelf had some
way to specify on your viewing the max picture size you wanted to see,
and then it would auto-scale pictures which are too big. Of course that
would require more run time CPU power or a fixed set of max size choices
and extra disk space (if it was done this way, one could probably
actually get away with a single max size of 640x480, and just store that
preference in a cookie).
> > If 400-kB-pictures like this one should be published at
> > all, is another question, one could dare to ask. ;-)
> > http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=28129
>
> which leads to ones like the above which is gone now...
Hmm, still seems to be there. I often skim through the pictures on the
camera, and delete things like that before I even get close to the PC.
--
Frank Filz
-----------------------------
Work: mailto:ffilz@us.ibm.com (business only please)
Home: mailto:ffilz@mindspring.com
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In lugnet.trains.org, Reinhard "Ben" Beneke writes:
> In lugnet.trains.org, Larry Pieniazek writes:
<snip>
> We always have had layouts with lots of ramps and bridges.
Quite right - as you should. Are we the only two here (now that Matt
isn't around much) who think (of train layouts) in three dimensions? 8-)
> > We used three controllers per track circuit to lessen voltage drops.
> > One circuit had gaps, one didn't. The gapped one was easier to control
> > as you could more easily adjust speeds independently (it looks cool
> > to have the train crawl through the yard and speed up on the other
> > parts of the line)
I was planning to use multiple gapped controllers at Supertrain2001,
but hadn't thought of slowing down through the yard - good idea.
Any other advice on wiring (or other aspects)? It's going to change,
but currently this is my layout plan. (To give you an idea of the size.)
http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=28383
SRC
StRuCtures
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In lugnet.trains.org, Steve Chapple writes:
> In lugnet.trains.org, Reinhard "Ben" Beneke writes:
> > In lugnet.trains.org, Larry Pieniazek writes:
>
> <snip>
> > We always have had layouts with lots of ramps and bridges.
>
> Quite right - as you should. Are we the only two here (now that Matt
> isn't around much) who think (of train layouts) in three dimensions? 8-)
I think in 3 dimensions too but on a plywooder layout with no terrain, a
bunch of ramps and bridges tend to make things look more toylike unless
there is some clear justification for the bridges (to cross over another
line for a plausible reason)...
terrain makes much else more possible and realistic. But terrain costs a lot.
++Lar
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In lugnet.trains.org, Steve Chapple writes:
> In lugnet.trains.org, Reinhard "Ben" Beneke writes:
> > We always have had layouts with lots of ramps and bridges.
>
> Quite right - as you should. Are we the only two here (now that Matt
> isn't around much) who think (of train layouts) in three dimensions? 8-)
I assure you, the GMLTC thinks in three dimensions. The layout we're
working on now will have trains running at least four different heights, and
maybe five if we can squeeze one more into the design...
We try to put "interesting" things at many different heights, because that
causes people to spend that much more time checking out our layout. And a
lot of times kids will notice stuff before their parents do, because we put
stuff down at their level.
JohnG, GMLTC
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In lugnet.trains.org, John Gerlach writes:
> In lugnet.trains.org, Steve Chapple writes:
> > In lugnet.trains.org, Reinhard "Ben" Beneke writes:
> > > We always have had layouts with lots of ramps and bridges.
I thought there was rule that at some point on the layout the trains had to
cross over each other. ;-)
The layout we are working on has a climb into a mountain, where a ski resort
will be and three tunnels to provide transaction from scene to scene. A
little more work but I hope the results will justify it.
Have a look at the work so far, this is a work in process, and let me know
what you think. We have worked more on the mountain and I hope to get some
more pics up this weekend of the waterfall and tunnel.
Matthew Greene
http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=2353
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In lugnet.trains.org, Steve Chapple writes:
> In lugnet.trains.org, Reinhard "Ben" Beneke writes:
> > In lugnet.trains.org, Larry Pieniazek writes:
>
> <snip>
> > We always have had layouts with lots of ramps and bridges.
>
> Quite right - as you should. Are we the only two here (now that Matt
> isn't around much) who think (of train layouts) in three dimensions? 8-)
>
> > > We used three controllers per track circuit to lessen voltage drops.
> > > One circuit had gaps, one didn't. The gapped one was easier to control
> > > as you could more easily adjust speeds independently (it looks cool
> > > to have the train crawl through the yard and speed up on the other
> > > parts of the line)
>
> I was planning to use multiple gapped controllers at Supertrain2001,
> but hadn't thought of slowing down through the yard - good idea.
> Any other advice on wiring (or other aspects)? It's going to change,
> but currently this is my layout plan. (To give you an idea of the size.)
> http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=28383
>
> SRC
> StRuCtures
A problem we encountered with wiring was wire length. Because we did not have
enough long (Mindstorms) wires we had to place controllers in inconvienent
places. If you are not a 100% purist you should consider making some long
exteneders. Some of the Mindstorms sights have information on making your own
connectors and the gauge of wire needed. Unfortunately this does involve two of
the three deadly sins (cutting, gluing and painting).
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> A problem we encountered with wiring was wire length. Because we did not have
> enough long (Mindstorms) wires we had to place controllers in inconvienent
> places. If you are not a 100% purist you should consider making some long
> exteneders. Some of the Mindstorms sights have information on making your own
> connectors and the gauge of wire needed. Unfortunately this does involve two of
> the three deadly sins (cutting, gluing and painting).
It involves cutting but no gluing or painting! How about soldering--is that
a fourth deadly sin, a subset of gluing (joining?), or is it just venial?
Peter
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In lugnet.trains.org, Peter Guenther writes:
> > Unfortunately this does involve two of the three deadly sins
> > (cutting, gluing and painting).
>
> It involves cutting but no gluing or painting! How about
> soldering--is that a fourth deadly sin, a subset of gluing
> (joining?), or is it just venial?
I'd say a subset of gluing, but what about the electrical tape... :-)
SRC
StRuCtures
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