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Don’t you love it when a plan comes together! This is going inside the single 9v track loop on the right side of the display. I built a road/track crossing today (so I had a place to use the crossing arms) and modified two of the MILS’d straight roadway sections to be parking lots. Add those to the MILS’d 4-way intersection, some of Phil’s MILS’d track, and my classic railway station and it all fits together nicely!! I’ll add some trees, some minifigs on the platform, and some cars in the parking lot on Saturday!
Very nice, Bob! Looking forward to seeing it all come together.
Some additional information from Nicole:
– She has confirmed the two additional tables (so 13 total) for us.
– Anyone coming on Saturday and/or Sunday before 10:00 am, enter through the security entrance at the back of the building. Otherwise, enter normally and tell them you are with Steel City LUG for Locomotion Weekend. They are supposed to give us parking vouchers and wristbands each morning as well.
I received a final email from Nicole reiterating most of the information previously provided (see above in this thread). She also stated this for anyone coming during the show Saturday and/or Sunday: “everyone attending the event, no matter what time they arrive, should come through security so they can sign in as a visitor.” So always enter through Security (instead of at the main entrance) and sign in as a member of Steel City LUG.
I built a road/track crossing today
This looks great Bob!
Where is the security entrance?
Red double door on the Casino side of the building. It’s shown on the “parking directions” posted earlier in this thread.
For those who are staffing or bringing stuff on Saturday to display, if you’re not sure where to go, having trouble getting in, or need some help getting your stuff unloaded, here’s my cell number:
* 724-841-6085
@timf and I will be there today setting up from 1-5 pm. I’ll be there all day on Saturday (expect to get there around 9 am), and from 1-5 pm on Sunday.Where is the security entrance?
Red double door on the Casino side of the building. It’s shown on the “parking directions” posted earlier in this thread.
Thanks! Must’ve missed it.
Good start today to set-up for this event. Tim (@timf), James (@brixbymortarless) and I got all of the MILS’d baseplates and trackwork down, the 9v trackwork tested, and even some of the modulars placed. There’s a lot more to do to “dress this up” with more modulars, landscaping, minifigs, and of course the fleet of rolling stock that’s coming tomorrow.
It’s tough to tell from the pictures. but as far as I know this layout is by far the most ambitious trackwork display we’ve ever done as a LUG. The overall footprint is 18 ft. wide by 10 ft. deep, with one table left out of the middle for access. When everything is installed, we’ll have eight different things running at the same time, (6) trains, the Incline, and John Singer’s Trolley!
Overall, the MILS’d baseplates and ballasted track look great! We had some issues with unevenness in using the venue’s tables, so we shimmed as best we could. Hopefully the RC trains on the long radius curves can handle whatever fluxuations are left. We also had issues with connecting track at the curves. The ballasting at the curves is especially flimsy, and those pesky door rail plates falling off were a constant annoyance.
That looks great, Bob. And I have that box car ready to receive the LUG logo piece on the side.
On my end, I have made two large custom trayed boxes of three large trains and their long consists ready to go, as well as that requested 9v speed regulator. As mentioned, the PF units are set to channel 4 red/blue so that leaves the other three channels red/blue open for everyone else.
I and my little brother look forward to meeting everyone tomorrow morning and helping with the group layout during this weekend of fun.
@timf, @rcgrier3406, @emperorofthenorthpole,
I found a pack of small rubber bands that fit the driving wheels. I’ll bring the entire bag tomorrow at 1pm in case anyone else is having wheel slippage on the track. Plenty of spares. Seeing my driving wheels polish themselves smooth was a new one for me LOL as that never happened before on my track at home but I have the solution.
That does look great. I’m hoping there’s more pics soon. I had considered coming out to see it, and possibly even bringing pine trees if they were needed, but I came down with a serious cough this week (I have one negative covid test so far), so I’m not gonna be able to make it.
Unfortunately I will not be able to make it out to see it, but the pictures both on here and social media look great!
Big difference between yesterday and today! Getting the rest of the modulars installed, adding landscaping, vehicles and minifigs, and of course getting all the rolling stock on the rails really helped fill out the display. But that’s nothing compared to what things looked like once all that rolling stock was in motion!!
Here’s a link to some pics and videos. What I haven’t captured yet are enough detailed pics of what @emperorofthenorthpole and @playingwithechoes engines and rolling stock look like, which I’ll do tomorrow. They are incredibly detailed and impressive and had many of our visitors in disbelief that they were LEGO built!! We were able to set up one of the back tables with all the rolling stock that wasn’t running so that all of it was out for everyone to see!
@amplef0rth’s Winter village was by far the most popular with the kids. I’m biased, but the last video in the album is my favorite, for obvious reasons when you see it!!@rcgrier3406 Awesome pictures and video! I love the last one. 😉
Sorry I won’t be able to make it down afterall. Have fun today!
As being part of a LUG event for the first time, I want to thank everyone for their hard work and great success in making the CSC a wonderful display. Special thanks to @joshhall, @timf, @rcgrier3406, @knb112 @mitchsbricks, @emperorofthenorthpole, and everyone else in building all those beautiful MILS track modules painstakingly by hand and providing cities and scenery. The results were mind blowing to all of us operating our trains on the circuits.. Thank you for letting Glenn and I run our trains on the outer loops and for the help and advice in getting the trains up and keeping them running. I look forward to future projects where we can run our train collections again. 🙂
Hello all,
This was my first LUG event that I participated in and I am blown away. It was really fun and seeing what the other members have created is spectacular. I personally have never seen a larger lego train display up close. I am inspired to go back home and try and step up my own personal creations.
Thank you all for the allowing me to be part of the group.
Josh
I’ve added some more pics and video from today to my Flickr album. Here’s the link:
Tear down went pretty smoothly. The event ended at 4 pm, and we were packed up and out of there before 6 pm. Thanks to @brixbymortarless, @amplef0rth and @mitchsbricks for sticking around to help @timf and I get everything safely disassembled and packed up.
We heard from the Science Center reps that attendance for the whole building was 3,500 on Saturday, which is 1,000 more than a normal Saturday at this time of year! By early afternoon on Sunday, attendance was around 2,700 people, so a very successful weekend. We will definitely be asked back for next year!!
This was a great event! was great to see @jupdyke for his first event as well as @playingwithechoes those trains look awesome! Really was a great event and I was happy to help with tear down.
One of the things that Tim and I talked about is doing a “lessons learned” from this event to capture what went well, what didn’t, and where we can make improvements to the MILS’d components before the next time. The Home and Garden Show in early March is a good next candidate for these, although I would expect it will be more city and less track than this event was.
As a first step to this, I’d like to do an “as-built” Bluebrick of this layout so we can preserve it and not have to reinvent the wheel for future displays. @jupdyke, is that something you’d be interested in doing? I have a mark-up of what we ended up with that I could send you. Let me know!
In addition, @joshhall and I have talked about the need to “take stock” with where we are with the MILS’d components and figure out as a group where we want to end up for roads, track, plain MILS’d baseplates, etc. so we can determine what we still need to build, and if we have the parts to do it or if we need to source more. This time we were fortunate that @pnbrenem was gracious enough to let us use a bunch of his MILS’d straight track, R40 curves and turnouts to get us through this event. In addition, to finish up some of what we needed for this event, we ended up drawing from LUG inventory, the surplus parts tubs and even Josh’s inventory to make up for where we were short.
I can get this started by inventorying what we have completed to date before we return everything to HQ (@timf, I’ll text you about getting a count later this week on what you have). From there, we need to decide how and where we want to capture this info (maybe a spreadsheet like the Inventory Tracker), and then set up a session (maybe on Discord) to discuss path forward. If you’re interested in participating or even just helping out with this effort, let me know.
@rcgrier3406 I am happy to update the layout to match what we ended up with and document it.
I think a lessons learned activity would be great. Do you think we should continue that in this forum thread or would it make sense to try and organize a meetup somewhere? I think lessons learned is a great topic, but I think we should not let the name limit the discussion. I think this event probably got the creative juices flowing and it would be great to see what ideas we have for future.
One thing I saw on one of the other displays was an “I Spy” game. They had a sign which challenged visitors to try and find a list of things. I thought that would be a cool idea for the LUG to do. I was thinking we could have a “I Spy” kit that can be taken to any even. The kit would include a sign and perhaps 10 or so small items that can be hidden in any display. I think mini figs would be great for this. For example C3P0 and R2D2 would be great. I am sure others could suggest some small but unique items.
Mac
“I Spy” kit
THAT is an interesting perspective! Usually, like what @laura does at the trolley museum and what we’ve done at the cranberry library, is just come up with a list of things each time we do it, which ends up with a lot of thought and work typing up the list and printing it off….with your suggestion, we can reuse the same kit for any display, have a nice list of things already done up nicely, and we just have to make sure to dot the items all around…It’s like a layer to the display, and a reusable one at that! I think we have plenty of minifigs that could be used in the lug inventory already. You up for leading that kit idea?
One of the things that Tim and I talked about is doing a “lessons learned” from this event to capture what went well, what didn’t
that certainly is something we should do. Discord seems like a great platform for that, too. Anyone who can’t make the designated time can post in this thread, but then it just takes someone to lead and collate the responses and summarize the discussion. Any one up for that?
and yeah, I think the inventory sheet should be where we keep it all. We can add columns if needed.
Since it was proposed to have lessons learned, I’m throwing out an idea here: what about building some sort of LEGO frame or trim to go around the outside of the MIL’s plate?
Of course there probably wouldn’t be space for anything around the baseplates when LUG tables are being used, so its not a versatile solution, but I think covering the red bricks that are visible on the edges would be a good idea.
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