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"James J. Trobaugh" <james@ngltc.org> wrote in message
news:GFELAx.HBo@lugnet.com...
> Wow! Looks great, that's a huge layout for your first show, excellent job. • I
> can't way for the commentary.
Commentary:
All in all - a great first day and a great first "real" [1] event for NCLUG.
The GATS people have been very easy to work through this as has LEGO Direct.
We arrived at the Raleigh Civic and Convention Center (RCCC) yesterday
(Friday) afternoon about 4:00 with tables in tow (pictures from the setup
session - http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?f=5110) and started
setting up.
After being relocated by GATS (right to the front of the exhibit area), it
took about an hour to set up the tables and about half an hour to lay down
the track. The monorail loop takes a while to put together, I'd guess we
spent another half hour doing just that. At that point (about 6:00 PM) I
headed home to gather up my layout items. I got back to GATS about 8:30 PM
and got some of my layout in place. While I was gone the rest of the group
had pretty much gotten their areas in shape.
The only real problems we had were AC power - it took a while to get us
some, and the bridges that cross the opening in the layout. Cary Clark had
built two bridges for the train track and I had built one for the monorail.
Of the three, only one was sturdy enough to be used. So the bridges
returned home for some re-engineering work.
I arrived about 7:30 this morning to get my sections in shape. The rest of
the group showed up around 9:00 and we installed bridges, made some monorail
adjustments, and added finishing touches. Just before the show opened Cary
Clark installed the controllers with the polarity switches (I'll elaborate
on those below).
Before the show even opened we were approached by two people responsible for
the local NMRA show in Raleigh (Sept. 8-9 at the NC State Fairgrounds in
Raleigh) and asked if we would participate (which I think we will). This
seemed like a good way to get off the ground.
The show opened at 11:00 and our area was immediately surrounded by people.
Like most groups have reported, we got lots of questions: Are these yours
or do they belong to LEGO? Do you work for LEGO? When did LEGO start
making trains? How long did it take to build the layout?
I think it is safe to say that we had the busiest layout all day long. I
don't recall a time where we didn't have at least four or five people,
usually many more, around the layout. The kids layout was extremely popular
and was pretty much SRO all day long. LD donated the bricks for the kids
play area, the train components for the play area were provided by myself
and Cary Clark. Everything seems to have survived the day okay. I had put
out two train motors this morning - I think tomorrow I will only put out
one. On a couple of occasions kids were crashing trains into each other (we
had a modified figure eight layout on the play area). Other than that,
there were no problems.
Our only real incidents involved monorails. For most of the day we had two
monorails (my four car Airport Shuttle and Cary's black and yellow Airport
Shuttle clone) running. Cary's would run faster than mine and would catch
up after about five circuits. Every once in a while we wouldn't catch it in
time and Cary's would run into mine. One or the other would end up falling
off the track. As long as we were paying attention this wasn't really a
problem, we would just stop Cary's for a while until they were spaced out a
bit and then start it back up.
Other interesting data: LD had sent out a postcard (presumably to their
Mania Magazine database but I am not 100% sure) offering a $1 discount on
admission. The GATS people told me that at least 100 people had used the
postcards at the show and they (GATS) viewed it as extremely successful for
generating attendance. There were two people that told me the only reason
they came was because of the LD postcard.
There is probably more that I missed, others from the group are free to
chime in. I am looking forward to tomorrow. Maybe I'll dig out my
Metroliner and build it at the show.
>
> I really want to hear about the polarity switches on the controllers, what
> did they control?
> http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=50712
Cary Clark can elaborate on these but essentially what he did was to use the
polarity switches to power sections of the track. Each colored polarity
switch caries power to one of the sidings in the rail yard. By throwing the
desired polarity swictches, an individual siding can be powered. Over in
the rail yard the connectors that clip on the track have corresponding
colored tiles attached to them.
>
> And this cracked me up, what a great idea:
> http://www.brickshelf.com/cgi-bin/gallery.cgi?i=50740
This is how Kendall's blimp (which was extremely popular) is powered. He
got the idea from something we saw (he works with me) when were at the
Orlando LIC a couple years ago. It really works well. There is no reason
why a plane or helicopter couldn't be suspended the same way. Maybe we'll
add a plane to the other end tomorrow.
>
> Also I'm interested in hearing how your "Kid's Railway" went, the kid's
> tables looked good.
KRR was extremely popular. The gutters were last minute addition that
worked out really well.
>
> jt
>
> --
> James J. Trobaugh
> North Georgia LEGO Train Club
> http://www.ngltc.org
Lastly - thanks to everyone in the group for making this come together and
turn out so well. The layout ended up much better than I had hoped for a
first outing. We had some doubts about our ability to fill the space but
fill it we did.
Mike
--
Mike Walsh - mike_walsh at mindspring dot com
http://www.nclug.net - North Carolina LEGO Users Group
http://www.nclug.net/ctb - Carolina Train Builders
http://www.brickbay.com/store.asp?u=mpw - Brick Depot
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