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RE: TCA Show summary



The club and Rick got a nice write up in the New Braunfels Sunday paper -
see attachment
Regards   Steve

-----Original Message-----
From: ttat-members-owner@aoot.com [mailto:ttat-members-owner@aoot.com] On
Behalf Of scott A Smiley
Sent: Thursday, May 24, 2012 6:59 PM
To: ttat-members@aoot.com
Subject: TCA Show summary

It has been a few days now so I may forget some things but others can fill
in t he gaps.

Fri. set up.  We got the trailer to the door probably 4:30 to 4:45.  By 6 we
had all the modules up and connected ( with some errors though) Pretty fast.
carried a module in and set it up about where it would go. 
The second shift arrived at 6 and we got the scenery tables up the skirt,
Plexiglas and looked like a running layout at about 7.   We had not
shorts in the set up.  Thanks all we had a great turn out for set up. 
Then it was noticed that we had not set up the reverse curves correctly.

lesson learned.  The reverse curves always line up ABCD on both sides, not
all 5 tracks.  The E position track( inside one) is always dead ending  into
nothing. 

Lesson 2 - The 45 corners are not all the same.  two have Plexiglass holders
on the inside and two do not.  

Ricky/Rick noticed both of these and fixed them.

Sat. Morning - When we got the layout started, no one could control track
4, tracks 2 and 3 shorted out!!!!   It took me a while but I finally
figured out the problem.

Lesson 3 - The 45 degree corners or at least the two that are normally in
the reverse curve position ( remember we did not get this right) have double
wires to hook onto the new buss cable.  We had connected the buss to the
wrong ones in two locations so the wires were all crossed.  We had the short
jumper but hooked to the buss wrong.  When plugging into the bus, the wires
to be used always come out on the inside of the layout. 
If you need to cross under the layout to get to a connector, it is the wrong
one.!

Once we got connect correctly, all was good.  We had pulled the layout some
to connect so the walk through did not really work and actually had a pretty
good gap that some engines had problems with.  ( I did not have the newly
adjusted 90 degree corner by the bridge so that may have hurt
too.)  

One other thing.  the lights in the siding control box started flashing, all
of them!!  It was good a few minutes before.  Checking al l the plugs, no
better.  I did not spend more time on this so unplugged the box from the
power box and we did switched manually and only had track power available on
the sidings, what we use most anyway.  

We sold three club items and they gave us $50.  Total income $115.25.  

We started taking down scenery at 3:30.  The trailer was loaded and rolling
about 5.  The last were out by 5:30.  Good time for this.  It really makes a
difference when we can load the trailer as we take things down.  

I hope everyone can learn from these mistakes as in this case we do not
always have the same group of members attending.  

Scott
------
TTAT members reflector.

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