@rcgrier3406
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Google Maps says drive time from Cranberry Library to Penn Hills Library is 40 min. if you take the Turnpike, so better allow at least an hour to get there. 11 am to 4 pm is when Marcella had the room reserved, but I don’t think they’ve set the start time yet. If we ask her to hold the start of the meeting until 1 pm, I think we could make it work on the 31st.
I’m also OK with a weeknight install. Monday thru Thursday the library is open until 8 pm, which would give people time to get there after work.
@timf, June 6-7th is the Mars New Year Festival, so I’m already committed for that on the 7th. What about installing on Saturday morning before the LUG meeting on May 31st?
This all sounds good to me. If we are building more track, do we also need more 1×1 and 1×4 reddish-brown tiles (for the ties)?
@timf, we’ll need all of the materials to both MILS and ballast any new track sections, including the tiles for the ties. We do have small amounts of some of these materials (in varying quantities) left over from 2024, but there’s not enough to complete a full 32×32 Double Track MILS base.Once we decide to go forward with this for 2025 (probably at the Q2 meeting in May), I’ll work up a detailed parts list with quantities and dollar amounts like I did last year.
Assuming we go for this again this year, couple of things I’d like to put out there for consideration from a MILS bases standpoint:
* One thing Josh and I noticed at H&G this year is that we have LBG plates between the tracks on both the 9v (45) and RC (14) Double Straights. We also have LBG plates between the curves on the R40 Double Curves (4), but we have green plates between the curves on the R120/R104 Long Radius curves. While the LBG plates look OK in the rail yard, they stand out as different in the rest of the layout, so I’d propose changing them all to green. I did a rough count, and we would need approximately (1,200) 4×4 green plates to do this.
* In 2024 we added (14) RC Double Straights to the inventory to go along with the (45) 9v Double Straights that we built in 2023. At H&G this year we ended up using a mix of RC and 9v Double Straights to complete the main train layout, but we were able to do it without having to borrow from Phil. For 2025 I’d propose adding more RC Double Straights. Because of the (250)/item quantity minimum that Project Support has, we already have approximately (100) 5″ segments of RC straight track left over from the 2024 Project Support order. Each 32×32 Double Straight uses (4) of these, so we already have enough track for up to (25) more RC Double Straights.
* In 2024 we added (5) Left and (5) Right MILS RC Switches + Returns, and we finished ballasting the (3) Left and (3) Right MILS 9v Switches + Returns we started in 2023. We do have (5) more left and (5) more right RC switches (track only) available in inventory, but I think we have enough with what we already have MILS’d and ballasted (i.e. total of (8) left and (8) right) so I don’t recommend that we build any more of these this year.
We got project support for building mosaics? wkr? Was there a designated pattern on which this order was based?
@greg, you’ve got to start getting to more meetings!! The is part of the Project Support that the LUG applied for last summer that was broken into 3 parts (MILS, Hoth, and Mosaics), got approved, and that the LUG paid for. We received all of these parts last November. Some of the MILS parts were used in the Locomotion Weekend and Home & Garden displays, and some of the Hoth parts were used in the Winter Trolley display.For the Mosaics, there was no designated pattern. We decided as a group to order 1×1 bricks (because they’re easier to disassemble than 1×1 plates) in a variety of colors. We ended up ordering approximately 45 colors in quantities of 400-600 per color, for a total of approximately 24,000 bricks.
@joshhall what color bricks does the LUG have in decent quantity?
@timf, if these are intended for the “rivers of colors” to fill the spaces between the builds on the floor of the display case, we have over 24,000 1×1 bricks in a variety of colors that we ordered as part of Project Support for Mosaics last year. There are something like 45 different colors in quantities that range from 400 to 600 per color. @knb112 has all of these and can advise further as to what we have and whether anyone has asked or intends to use these during the time period for the Cranberry display (~June thru August).@timf, Michael had this video on his Phoenix Train Works Facebook page.
Thanks again to everyone who helped plan, display, set-up, staff and teardown for this big event. Lots of helping hands make light(er) work! After we got Josh on the road, the rest of us had our cars packed and ready to leave by around 8 pm.
All-in-all I think this event went very well. Members stepped up to help fill in any gaps we had in the display itself and with staffing, and other than our little incident with the 5-finger discount kid things went pretty smoothly. Adding the “Worlds” section and eliminating the divide between the trains and the general display were both great additions. Gabe’s big crane, Michael’s Behemoth bridge and Tim’s big buildings were all “WOW” factors that we added this year, and I know I heard a number of comments that our display was the “best thing at the show”!!
Pictures have been uploaded to the Gallery, and fair warning between Gabe’s and my pics there’s a lot to look at!! To view them, click on the “Gallery” link at the top of any page and then click on the “2025-03 Home & Garden” folder.
We had an issue come up this afternoon with some mini-figs and a LUG truck being taken from the display. This affected Tom Garrity’s (@thoga1109) food truck/park area and Tim Freshly’s (@timf) Liberty Avenue building area. Fortunately Josh and Phil were here this afternoon with their families, and one of them saw a 7-8 year old coming out from under one of the table skirts in the Train area. Josh and Phil, with the help of Phil’s son, were able to track this kid down (turns out the kid is the son of one of the other exhibitors at the show), and after several visits to that exhibitors’ booth we believe we were able to recover all of the items taken.
Also fortunate was that we had pictures of those portions of the display from last Friday, so we could compare those with what was there today to determine what was missing. That proved helpful to identify what to look for. We believe this was confined to the Train area, but we did compare photos of the other areas and didn’t find any issues.
Tom Garrity has verified that we recovered all of his stuff. Tim, we have your stuff in a bag on the table for you to go through on Sunday when you’re here. Security for the event was notified, and there are security cameras at several locations around our display, so if we didn’t recover everything that security footage may be helpful.
So, for those of you staffing tomorrow or Sunday, please be vigilant as to what’s going on around the display, especially on the side where Tim’s buildings are in that we’ve kind of created a barrier over there with the buildings. If you’re staffing one of the morning shifts and can come in a little early, that would be great. This was an exhibitors’ son that did this and not a member of the general public. Tom Garrity is coming in early tomorrow to keep an eye on things until one of our other members gets there but cannot do that on Sunday so we need help there @argonvesher and @rengawmk if you can. Thanks!
Bumping this forward in case you’re able to help staff this weekend. We expect Saturday to be the busiest day with the St. Patrick’s Day parade downtown from 10a – 1:30 p, and a Penguins home game starting at 3:30 p.
Currently we have:
Fri. 3/14: 9:30a – 3:30p – (3); 3:00p – 9:00p – (2)
Sat. 3/15: 9:30a – 3:30p – (4); 3:00p – 9:00p – (3)
Sun. 3/16: 9:30a – 2:00p – (3); 2:00p – 6:00p – (8)And here’s the link again for signing up to staff.
added the shifts.
2025 Home and Garden
Mar 3 – Mar 16
Multi day event at the convention center. huge display space for standalone MOCs and train/town collaboration. increased cup credits since it is a paid event.
Shifts Layouts Cups View Shifts (25)Empty Shifts – 7Participants – 16 I will there for teardown on Sunday. Does anyone have an ETA on when we can get onto the floor with cars?
@timf, best guess is around 7 pm. The show runs until 6 pm, and they usually make us wait until the Farm to Table area clears out before letting us bring cars in. We’re in Group 8.No issues with the RC trains last night. Crowds were light so we only ran one of @playingwithechoes trains at a time. Challenger 3985 (Blue – inside loop) ran exclusively on the rechargeable battery boxes and got about an hour and a half out of each charge. With 3 of them there now we had no issues keeping up with recharging.
We only ran Big Boy 4005 (Red – outer loop) once on the rechargeable AAA batteries, essentially to give the Challenger a break. Same run time of about an hour.
I signed up for tomorrow to help out. I’m hoping someone will be joining me for the late shift on Saturday!
Denise and I also just signed up for the afternoon/evening shift on Saturday 3/15. We’ve been waiting on the playoff schedule for our grandson’s hockey team this weekend, and they play Saturday morning down in Mt. Lebanon so we’ll probably be there shortly after lunch for the rest of the day.
@playingwithechoes, I ran the LEGO rechargeable battery box on the Challenger 3985 today (Blue – inside loop) and got about an hour and a half of run time, so better than the rechargeable batteries have been doing. I ran the second rechargeable battery box on the Challenger after that with the same results. I also brought in a 3rd rechargeable battery box (belongs to the LUG that I had at home to run my Grist Mill), so we’ve been using those all day on the Challenger. Charging time for first one of those was about 3 hours, so if the others run take the same amount of time to charge we might be able to just run the Challenger on those for the duration.
Run time on the Big Boy 4005 (Red, outer loop) on rechargeable batteries was about the same as @argonvesher experienced yesterday, i.e. 45 minutes to an hour. I checked the batteries after it stopped each time and they still had 1/2 to 3/4 juice in them, so it looks like it’s the thermal switch. I let it set for 30 minutes several times today and it started back up easily to confirm that it’s heat build-up that’s affecting it. I also pulled one car off of it to lighten the load again.
By running the Challenger on the battery boxes that will free up more rechargeable batteries for the Big Boy, so I think we’re OK there. There’s also nothing wrong with running just one of the RC trains at a time to avoid getting caught up in constant battery changes, especially during the week this week when the shifts are shorter and the crowds should be less.
I’m on first shift tomorrow so I’ll try the LEGO rechargeable battery box first thing and time how long it lasts. @playingwithechoes, do you have a preference which one to try it on between the Big Boy or the Challenger? I’ll also time how long it takes to recharge the battery box.
Last night I did run some of the LUG rechargeable AAA’s in both trains because the Powerowl’s hadn’t finished recharging yet, but with similar results in that they only lasted about an hour. I also took one of the cars off of one of the trains to “lighten its load”.
@argonvesher, thanks for hanging in there on taking care of these RC trains. Even though it’s outdated technology (at least from LEGO’s standpoint), battery life is one of the reasons we still run the 9v trains. Hopefully those ran OK over in the Worlds area.And if you think you’ve seen Gabe’s Big Crane before (like at Ross Park Mall for International LEGO Day) think again, because this version is over 2 ft. taller than the previous one! In addition to all motorized functions he had previously (boom and jib, base rotate and individual crawler), he now has the counterweight platform in the back motorized to extend out and provide him with more lifting capacity.
And yes, that’s the Fern Hollow Bus that it’s lifting with ease!
For those of you who haven’t been here yet, here’s what the Behemoth Bridge looks like in place, but the picture doesn’t do it justice. You need to see it in person while it’s here!!
Couple of factoids that Michael told me:
* The counterweight (gray panels labeled “Phoenix Train Works” on the Tower) has 6,000 1×1 plates in it!!
* The bridge can support 12 pounds, more than enough for 2 of the big trains crossing at the same time.@argonvesher, here’s what the Castle area looks like with my LOTR figs added. The additional castle was built by Adam while he was staffing today. Space is still open towards the notch for Tommy’s castle and figs tomorrow. The box for my figs is under the table if it ends up being too crowded and you decide to pull some stuff out.
@playingwithechoes and @emperorofthenorthpole, confirming that we left the R104 loop clear for Glenn. Michael’s Big Boy is parked on the outer loop by the rail yard, and the Challenger is parked on the first siding in the rail yard.
Michael, we pulled the batteries from both the Big Boy and the Challenger and put them in the chargers overnight. There were maybe 11 batteries charged and in the fully charged bag when we left, so you should be in good shape in the morning.
I changed the Incline batteries at around 6 pm, so they should have another 3-4 hours left in them. Replacements are also charging.
Great to hear @emperorofthenorthpole! As far as getting your boxes in, @playingwithechoes (Michael Lynes) is there tomorrow from 9:30 am until 3:30 pm, and if you want to coordinate with him to drop your boxes off before you park, he can meet you at the lobby where the Vendor booth is near the corner of 10th St. and Fort Duquesne Blvd. His cell number is (727) 259-3367, and his voicemail doesn’t work so best way would be to text him. Let us know what time you think you’d be coming in so he knows when to look for your text.
We got some early coverage already this morning on KDKA’s Pittsburgh Today Live, including my Pittsburgh City model, @joshhall and @tfdesigns Andy Warhol Soup Can, @greg’s Pittsburgh Bridge! Oh yeah, and that’s @thoga1109 in the opening shot with the Fort Pitt TCA Kids Club!!
Here’s what I’m bringing this afternoon, all LOTR stuff. My bad guys outnumber the good guys 2 to 1, so we definitely need more good guys. I’m going to set them in there in “groups” (Goblins, Orcs, Uruk-hai, Trolls, Wargs, Dwarfs, Hobbits, and men) on 16×32 DBG baseplates, and will post a picture later today. Feel free to move them around, take some out, mix them up, whatever you want @argonvesher!
@rcgrier3406 so it is OK to charge batteries overnight? If so, I would think we would want to charge available batteries overnight so they are ready to go for the next day.
@timf, as far as I know it’s OK, and we’ve certainly done it in the past. Although we’re technically not an Exhibitor (we’re considered a “Show Feature” since we’ve been “invited” to display by H&G), I took a look at the Exhibitor contract that’s on the website and there’s nothing in there prohibiting it. I think it comes down to whether we want to do it or not since the battery chargers we’re using belong to individual members.Couple of other variables to keep in mind. Batteries for the RC trains usually only last about 2 hours, while batteries for the Incline last 6-8 hours, and we don’t really know yet how long they’ll last on the bridge. It also will depend on how many spare sets of batteries we have. I have one spare rechargeable set there for the Incline, I know Michael’s bringing a bunch but I don’t know how many, and we also have several sets of LUG rechargeables there also.
I’d say as a general rule we should try to make sure there’s a spare set of fully charged batteries available for the next day for 2 of Michael’s RC trains, the Incline and the bridge. If not, then we should leave stuff charging overnight.
One other thing we could do is ask whoever’s there at the end of each day to log when the last battery change was made on each device so that the people coming in the next day know if they already have fresh batteries installed or not. We’ve done this in the past with mixed results, but it’s worth asking people to try to do that. I’m staffing on Friday night so I’ll bring a pad and start that practice.
I’ve updated the Operating Guidelines and Nightly Shut-down Checklist to reflect what we have powered there this year. I’ll bring a hard copy of this with me when I come to staff Friday afternoon, and it will be in one of the sheet protectors by the power strips in the Trains Area. For those of you staffing who like to do a little homework ahead of time I’ve attached a copy.
I’ve already left a copy of the updated Incline Instructions by the power strips in the Trains Area. A copy of that is also attached.
@playingwithechoes is generating an updated set of instructions for operating and changing batteries on his RC trains and is creating a new one for the Behemoth Bridge. These will also be in sheet protectors by the power strips in the Trains Area.One thing you’ll find missing from these are any instructions on operating or changing batteries on Gabe’s Big Crane. Because of the complexities of balancing the position of the counterweights with the load being lifted, Gabe prefers to do this himself on shifts that he is staffing. So PLEASE DON’T TRY TO OPERATE GABE’S BIG CRANE!! Thanks!
