World's Greatest Hobby on Tour

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

Here are my impressions of last weekend's World's Greatest Hobby on Tour show:

The show was big.  Really BIG.  Actually H*U*G*E.  This show was by far the
largest train show I have ever seen.  I think the Live Oak Civic Center could
fit inside the room we were in, which was the smaller of the two halls used
by the show.

There were some vendors selling train items, like all other shows we attend.
However, there were also booths from many manufacturers, including Lionel,
MTH, Ross Custom Switches, Bachmann, Atlas, Woodland Scenics, etc.
They were exhibiting their products, and many had running train layouts.

Speaking of layouts, there were MANY train layouts at this show, including
a combined layout created from three N-gauge clubs.  There were several
O-gauge layouts, a modular G-gauge layout, several N-gauge and HO gauge
layouts, and a layout made entirely from Lego blocks.  There was a Thomas
the Tank Engine ride near us.  They had an engine and two passenger cars
for people to ride (both kids and adults) and drove the train around a circle
of track.  The line for this ride extended all the way around the ride.

We had a large layout, approximately 45' x 40'.  We used the new 45 degree
corner modules, Steve's transfer table/turn table/industrial sidings scenery
modules, Ed's Hellgate bridge, with Thomas running on the loop under the bridge,
and my carnival rides, including the roller coaster.  We also had Ricky's train station
and city scenes, my wireless train camera, and the trolley.  Needless to say, there
was a lot of animation on the layout, besides the trains.

Did I mention our layout was BIG?

We used Bill's Lionel Legacy system as the backbone of our control system.
There were some small glitches in the system, but, for the most part,
the system ran well.  We were able to run Legacy, TMCC, ProtoSound 2.0,
and conventional trains.  We used the CAB-1, CAB-2, and MTH handhelds.
Most of the time, everything ran well.  Occasionally, we had to stop
everything and reboot (i.e. power off and on) the Legacy base, but that
was just a minor annoyance.

We had a couple of train wrecks, including one that spilled over across three
tracks.  (The Thomas ride, which was near us, fell over on Sunday
morning, so we were not the only set up which had accidents over the weekend.)

The show was packed with visitors.  We had a constant mob around the layout
on Saturday, and a slightly smaller crowd on Sunday.

We ran a raffle, with phenomenal results.  My wife, Lorraine, was at the raffle
table most of the weekend.  In the past, we took in around $150 to $200 for
a weekend raffle.  This weekend, we took in about $750!

I grumbled a little about the logistics of the show, being in downtown San Antonio
(e.g. we had to pay for parking, the facility had few large, flat dollies, the facility
was only open until 8:00 PM on Friday for set up, traffic on Friday night was
bad going into the city, etc.)  However, these were minor nuisances compared
to the experience of being at such a large, well attended show.

I am working on the pictures and videos I took a the show.  When they are finished,
I will post them to the photo album on the club web site so you can get an idea
about how the show looked.  (Please be patient.  It usually takes me a week or two
to edit a set of pictures and videos.)

To sum it up, this show was a great experience.


Ira