Subject:
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GMLTC update
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Newsgroups:
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lugnet.trains
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Date:
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Fri, 28 Mar 2003 13:01:12 GMT
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Viewed:
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1235 times
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Hello all:
Before I start this, let me say that perhaps I don't read or post here as
often as I might or should have. I apologize. I find that as this group is
dominated more and more by prototypers I just have less use for it, being
more of a Lego fan than a train fan.
We had a display two weekends ago in LaCrosse WI. It is a show that Conan
has been doing for years, since way back in the nineties with the island
layout. (historical information and picture available here :
http://www.gmltc.org/history.asp )
We were happy to see that for the second year in a row, we were joined by a
second, local Lego train club. At the beginning of the show his layout was
known as "Nick's Lego" Nick is a 13 year old in LaCrosse who had seen us
come down so often and was inspired to build his own layout. By the end of
the show, I had decided that he needed more formal recognition. Nick's Lego
was renamed to GMLTC:LaCrosse Short Line. As a show of support for our new
shortline, we left Nick with a quarter page of GMLTC decals for his layout,
2 18" LEGO signs, 10 tickets in the raffle for a LEGO train set (more on
this below), and a promise to ship enough baseplates to completely coat his
plywood layout. Unfortunately Nick was quite ill on Sunday so he could not
join us for this picture.
http://www.gmltc.org/gmltc_until_lacrosse/pages/DSCN0897.htm
We donated a train set (http://guide.lugnet.com/set/4534) for a door raffle
for the train show. That raffle happened after the show and I have not
heard yet who the winner was.
Putting our money where our mouth is on selling Lego Trains, the GMLTC has
been purchasing even more train sets than we might normally do. The effort
has been to build a stock with which to sell at our displays. We had
limited success at our last roundhouse show, selling around $40 of train
sets. The train show went much better, selling over $200 in Lego sets on
the first day. We sold around $40 on the second. This is in addition to
the barrage of train catalogs we handed out at the show. We have been
trying on and off to become a reseller for Lego since 1998. This effort had
been hampered by a storefront requirement to become a Lego reseller. He are
in negotiations with the MN transportation museum to overcome this hurtle
and try again. (We laughed at the stocking order requirements.)
The LaCrosse show was one of the first, if not the first, show where we did
not have any of the Collapy clan on hand. Conan and family were in Mexico
enjoying the generosity of their family.
Our next show is with Thomas the Tank Engine, which limits us in terms of
being able to sell sets or even to display our Lego Blimp. The nice folks
with Thomas were also interested in having us travel with them in the
Midwest, which we politely declined. We did attempt to steer them onto the
other groups in the area, TCLTC, NILTC, and MLTC.
Progress is continuing on two new modules. The next one should be completed
in time for Thomas. We plan on setting up the weekend before the show and
complete a massive rebuild in the town section for that show during the
weekend. As some of the pioneers of "mountain sections" (we've been doing
them since the first non-plywood layout) we have been talking about a
massive mountain section since our first display of this layout in February
2002. I have been grudgingly talked out of having it in the center of the
layout and Steve's plans for the mountain section were adopted and laid out
last night. Both trains will tunnel, one will have a curving bridge like in
the island layout of old, and it will have a coal train shortline that runs
below the mainline grades.
I think that is about it. I'm sure more of our more active lugnet members
will fill me in what I have missed.
Thanks
-John 3
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