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Great Train Expo in Review



Now that we've all recovered from the weekend I would like to offer my thoughts on how the show went.
 
Setup went well. We got the trailer in around 3:30 and got everything unloaded. Ira and I redesigned the layout on the fly to maximize the scenery towards the front of the venue. We found that we had a bit more room than was show and slipped in the two unused modules from the original design. This allowed us to make the largest layout we've ever had and we used everything in the trailer. I expanded my city to include a corner module. We had some new industries that came off Steve's siding modules along with the transfer table. Ira made a new Halloween themed scenery module and also brought his carnival and we had some of Scott's scenery modules so the layout was very full.  We had everything up on legs and in place when they closed at 7pm. Saturday morning we got everything connected, tested, and scenery up by in time for the show to open at 10. It did take awhile for the show people to get us power though.
 
Saturday most everyone had plenty of run time since many were out due to the UT v OSU game. There was not as many vendors as I thought there would be and there was little if anything for sale in O scale, save for some die cast vehicles. On track 1 experienced power loss on one side of the layout which caused my train to stall. On the opposite side my train would speed up and at one point it caused me to loose part of my train and it came back around causing a spectacular train wreck that seriously damaged my brass MoPac caboose.
 
Sunday many more members were there and you had to wait your turn for a track. We experienced signal issues with the legacy base. Had no signal near the lift bridge end of the yard and you had to stand near the power cart in order to make lashups. Not sure what we could have done differently. Apparently Jason, from the Broken Knuckle Railroad had power and signal issues as well. Teardown went well and the trailer was out of the building by 6 pm.
 
We were allowed to do a raffle at this show and we made $250. So again many thanks to Lorraine, Kailyn, and those members who sat in for them at our raffle table. The show paid us $150 for setting up so the club made $400 for the weekend. Thanks to everyone who came out and helped make this show a success.
 
Ricky