Re: World's Greatest Hobby on Tour

[Steve Wise <swise@aoot.com>]

Nice report Ira!

I agree it was a great show and I think we should do WGH events whenever 
possible.

There were are few glitches that made my blood pressure rise a little.  
The main one was that the roundhouse control box was DOA when I hooked 
it up.  My dad and I did some debug on it Saturday morning and we think 
the bridge rectifier had blown.  This was used to convert AC power from 
the harness to various DC fixed voltages to run the LEDs in the control 
panel as well as the turn table motor.   After remembering how it all 
worked, I realized we could bypass the control box and just use a simple 
HO transformer to run the turntable.  So after a quick purchase of an HO 
transformer, we were up and running.  The only limitation we had was no 
LEDs to indicate whether power was on/off to each turntable track.    So 
we had turntable action most of Saturday and all of Sunday.

By the way, I haven't mentioned this in a while, but _everyone_ is 
invited to use and play with the turn table and transfer table modules.  
If you are interested, then I can show you how it all works at the next 
event.


Cheers!

Steve.




Ira Schneider wrote:
> 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
>
>
> ------
> TTAT members reflector.
>