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@willmcdine, sounds good. That should give us time to get the MILS’d base layout, track and roads down before you get there today, and I’ll wait until after you’re done before setting the Incline in so it’s not blocking your access to set up your stuff.
I don’t think we’ll need the forest fire scene, but we can make that call this afternoon. My biggest concern is making sure we leave enough room on the inside corners of the large radius curves for Michael’s Schnabel car, which overhangs as much as 5″ as it goes around those curves.
If anyone has any issues getting in, or you need to get a hold of me, my cell is 724-841-6085. I won’t be checking this thread again until tonight, so if you need something call or text me.
Everything is loaded (yes, it all fit!) and I’ll be leaving shortly to get the tables arranged the way we want them, leveled and covered with black table linens so we won’t have to mess around with any of that once we start loading in at 1 pm.
Set-up went very smoothly today. I was able to get in there a couple of hours early to level the tables and get the table linens on. We got the loading dock right on time at 1 pm, and we had the bulk of the display installed by around 3:30 pm. Thanks to everyone who came in to help!!
A couple of pics from today are attached. Greg is bringing in a few more modulars and his recently completed train in the morning, and of course @emperorofthenorthpole and @playingwithechoes are bringing “the big boys” in with their custom trains!!
Glenn and Michael, you’ll notice that we have 3 sidings in the rail yard within the layout, and another 4+ set up on the back table. Should be plenty of room for you to store any rolling stock that isn’t running.
It may be clear already but something came up that is preventing me from participating in this. Bummed at this timing 🙁 sorry everyone!
I’m not gonna make it out either, real life intervened this weekend. I hope everything’s going well over there.
Our first event for 2024 is now in the books, and it went very smoothly!! We had everything torn down last night, packed and loaded into everyone’s cars in an hour and 20 minutes, which is pretty incredible for an event of this size!! There were 11 of us that stuck around for that, so lots of hands made for quick work, and everyone took the time to make sure that things were packed away neatly and where they should be so as not to make more work for the next time!
In all, we had 17 people staff this 2-day event, of which 12 displayed. Our base layout covered the equivalent of 180 32×32 baseplates, with another 20 or so equivalents included in the rail yard on the back table. At any one time, we had 6 trains, a trolley and the Incline all running simultaneously, plus we had 2 sets of motorized crossing arms operating intermittently.
Probably most importantly, the layout looked professional!! From the MILS’d bases and ballasted tracks, to the MOC’s everyone provided, to the fleet of custom-built trains that Glenn and Michael brought, it all came together nicely and looked great!! A lot of folks from the other train clubs that were displaying came over to check us out, ask questions and even get some pictures of some of their stuff with our stuff!!
I don’t know what kind of attendance the event had, but things were pretty steady all day on Saturday and after lunch on Sunday. Conservatively I would guess in the neighborhood of 1,200 people.
Pics from the event have been uploaded to the Gallery. To view them, click on the “Gallery” link at the upper right-hand corner of any page, and then click on the album “2024-01 CSC Locomotion Weekend”.
I’ve also uploaded some videos to my Flickr page, including a short snippet that was on the Channel 11 News about the event! We didn’t get mentioned specifically, but we were featured at the beginning of the piece. To view them, click on the link below.
I’ll work on tallying up the cup credits over the next few days and include them in another post for review. Thanks again to everyone who participated!!
This was my first time attending, but I had a lot of fun! Will for sure be prioritizing this for future years.
Here what I have for cup credits for this event:
Bob Grier: Display + 6 shifts = 4 cups
Glenn Holland: Display + 5 shifts = 3.5 cups
Michael Lynes: Display + 5 shifts = 3.5 cups
Pete Lehman: Display + 4 shifts = 3 cups
John Singer: Display + 4 shifts = 3 cups
Will McDine: Display + 3 shifts = 2.5 cups
Dan Walker: Display + 3 shifts = 2.5 cups
Greg Schubert: Display + 2 shifts = 2 cups
Phil Breneman: Display + 2 shifts = 2 cups
Krista Kay: Display + 1 shift = 1.5 cups
Josh Hall: Display + 1 shift = 1.5 cups
Jade Leung: Display + 1 shift = 1.5 cups
Will Kay: 3 shifts = 1.5 cups
Joss Lynes: 3 shifts = 1.5 cups
Jenny Walker: 2 shifts = 1 cup
Ann Schubert: 1 shift = 0.5 cups
Denise Grier: 1 shift = 0.5 cupsPlease review your credits and let me know if we need to correct anything before we get them posted. Thanks again to everyone who participated!!
Got this email from the Science Center this morning. I think the 6,000 visitors she’s referring to are the total number of visitors to the whole Science Center for the weekend!! Otherwise, that would mean 500 visitors per hour (or 8 per minute!) for this 2-day, 12-hour event! Based on this, I think it’s safe to up my estimate to 2,000 visitors just for this event.
Hi everyone,
I took the last couple days off to recover from our fun weekend, but I wanted to say thank you so much for making this a great event for our visitors! We had nearly 6,000 visitors for the whole weekend. I always get so many compliments, especially for all the fun interactives you include with your layouts. I am so appreciative of all the time and effort you put into this event. We couldn’t do it without you!
Stay tuned for next year’s dates! I am fairly certain it will be MLK weekend once again, but I am beholden to the powers that be for scheduling. Hope to see all of you next year 😊
Nikki
Nikki Wilhelm (she/her)
Miniature Railroad & Village® Manager
Carnegie Science CenterThanks to you @rcgrier3406 for making this event amazing. The setup went so smooth and the display looked awesome!
I wanted to say thanks for everyone putting the display together and getting things operating. Once again, it was a blast to be rolling trains with the LUG. Between @emperorofthenorthpole cargo trains and my own STEM/Industrial trains, the crowds were loving the giant consists and all the amazing details packed into the outer loops. And the little trains on the R40 loops were wonderful and charming. The Mr. Rogers trolley is always a favorite. So thanks again for everything.
At one point, I heard some visitors singing the “Roll on Big Boy” song. Quite a few retired steel workers and nuclear energy engineers were happy to see their trades represented by Lego bricks and they told old tales of working with those torpedo and flask cars.
Special thanks to Glenn again for lending the battery box for the Challenger to help stretch its run on rechargeable power.
I look forward to rolling trains again soon.
For Home and Garden, I’ll of course bring back the giant blue Schnabel car but I should have the little retro 6w Circus train ready if anyone has or wants to build a circus display. (It will fit on a R40 loop.) And as requested by John, I think those secret agents may have their spy satellite launch car ready by then too. XD
Here’s the video tour I made of the layout, if anyone wants to share it for the LUG.
Tour of CSC 2024Should be able to embed on blog sites, etc. And it features almost all the trains that rain on all the loops. Pardon the sound effects but I rather enjoy editing all the reverberating noise to be more realistic. It’s so fun playing with echoes. 😉
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