Flatonia Wrapup

["Ira Schneider" <ira_schneider@iname.com>]

Here is my two cents about Flatonia.

Setup was impossibly long.  Jim, Bob, and I met in Flatonia at about 2:30 PM.  We were joined
by Dwight and later by Randall and Ryan.  Since Bob, Dwight, and Jim left earlier than Randall,
Ryan, and me, I don't think we ever had more than four people there at any one time.  Randall,
Ryan, and I left around 8:00 PM.  That means we spent 5-1/2 hours setting up!  Actually, we
had the modules all together about 7:00 PM.  We spent the last hour hooking up main power,
installing skyboards, and testing the tracks.  It was a long evening.

On Saturday morning, I connected the MTH TIU, the Lionel Command Base, and the IC TPC
together to provide full functionality to both control systems.  I downloaded the latest level
code to the MTH system.  I set up my laptop to display the video from Bob's wireless camera
and mounted the camera on a caboose.  The camera was in use all weekend, either being
pulled or pushed by some train on the layout.  It was a real crowd pleaser (if you could call
the few people that came to the show a crowd).  Scott was there early and installed his
scenery modules.

Saturday was a dreary, rainy day.  There were relatively few visitors to the Czhilispiel.  We only
had 5 members present during the day (Jim, Scott, Adrian, Dwight, and me), so we each got
a lot of track time.  We experimented with running a TMCC engine using the MTH controller,
which worked OK.  The major problem is that you have to define the TMCC engine to the
MTH system with a user-supplied name and it takes some time to enter the name into the
MTH handheld controller.  Once the engine is defined, it seems to work well.  We also found
out that the MTH handheld controller could control a TMCC engine on ANY track, not just track 2
(where the MTH TIU is connected).  The Lionel CAB-1s can also control TMCC engines on
any track, including track 2.  We also found that if you press the e-stop button on the MTH
handheld controller it shuts down track 2 and sends a Halt command to all TMCC engines
running on any track, but does not send any commands to shut down track power.  If you
press the Halt button on the CAB-1, it shuts down tracks 1, 3, and 4 and has no effect on
track 2 (except that it probably sends a Halt command to any TMCC engine running on track 2).

For some unexplained reason, I found the track signal for the MTH DCS system was rather
poor on this layout, even though it was pretty good at the AMRE show.  I haven't any idea what
was different.

We decided not to run the raffle at Flatonia due to mitigating circumstances, mainly the
bad weather and low visitor turnout.

Sunday we had similar weather and turnout.  We had a couple of more members (Bob, Randall,
and Ryan were there, Dwight wasn't).  Again, we had all the track time we wanted.  (I was relieved
to be able to finally give up my track!)

I didn't take any pictures at this event, but Dwight and Randall did, so hopefully we will see
some pictures from someone else's point of view.

Overall, this was a good event for running trains, but a poor one for entertaining visitors.  The
days were long and exhausting, but fun.




Ira