Interest In Tour Car or Car Exchange?

[Ralph]

Guys, thanks for your work in putting this together. Looks like a good plan. OK, so I guess Teejay and I are supposed to confab about what we might wish to exchange. T, I'll PM you tomorrow.

[teejay]

Gee , I guess I'd better start building a car !! .....................................................................................

T

[Mike Kieran]

The exchange schedule for September is up at <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://modelrailroadcarexchange.blogspot.com/2013/09/exchange-schedule-for-september.html">http://modelrailroadcarexchange.blogspo ... ember.html</a><!-- m -->

Thanks very much to Mike Kieran for working this out! It's a lot easier if we all share the workload!

Thanks John. It's my pleasure. I've always wanted to do something like this.

[teejay]

I checked out the post office and it looks like $10-12 range ...oh well .......can anyone offer tips on packing ? I thought I did a decent job on the RRL forum exchange but my car got banged up pretty good on one of the mailings ......maybe the posties were having a soccer game with it . I'm not going to send any particularly fragile units but I would like to give the car the best chance of survival .

T

[jwb]

In my experience with these things, guys tend to have good results with a blue-box style box where the car is packed with foam rubber, or sometimes even paper towels, so that it won't move around. (If you have a more recent Athearn RTR type car with the plastic insert in the box, that's good, too.) Wrap the kit box shut with rubber bands. THEN pack the car in a larger box where you pack the smaller box in with newspaper, paper towel, foam rubber, Styrofoam popcorn, etc, wrap it securely, and send it off.

[jwb]

I've revised the September 2013 schedule posted at <!-- m --><a class="postlink" href="http://modelrailroadcarexchange.blogspot.com/2013/09/exchange-schedule-for-september.html">http://modelrailroadcarexchange.blogspo ... ember.html</a><!-- m -->

It looks like I misunderstood the first version of the schedule that Mike sent me. This is a correction, intended to maximize circulation. I don't think anyone has gotten so far with the interchange that this revision will cause a problem -- if it does, my apologies.

[Lester Perry]

You have completely lost me now. I understood the first one but this one I don't. How does it rotate or dose it stay the same?

[Puddlejumper]

Let's see if I understand.

Mike is going to send me a car. I am going to send a car to Ralph. Ralph is going to send a car to Teejay.

When we are done doing what we want to with the cars, we send them back to the original sender? Or will there be another rotation, using the same cars, next month until they eventually make it back home?

Dave

[jwb]

To answer Les, it's the way Puddlejumper has it: first sends to second, second sends to third, third sends to fourth, last sends to first. For now, let's just say that at the conclusion of the rotation, everyone sends the car back to the owner. Then we'll recalibrate and see where we are.

[Mike Kieran]

I'm working on the spreadsheet as we speak. I'm recalibrating the cells for the format, so hopefully, it will work itself out.

[jwb]

Let's not get too far ahead of ourselves -- people are still asking questions about how to do the first rotation!

[Ralph]

Just to clarify...I'm sending TeeJay a car. He'll photograph it and then send it back to me...not to the person he is scheduled to send a car to...right? He'll send one of his own cars to that person, yeah?

[Mike Kieran]

I created a monster. Maybe we should go with the original exchange for September and I'll finish up with a proper schedule for the coming exchanges. I rushed things and created a mess. I apologize.

[Ralph]

No, no, no, Mike! We appreciate your efforts. Take your time and tweak it.

[teejay]

It's OK boys , let's take a deep breath and put this off for about 2 weeks ( my car isn't finished ) ......Mike , you're doing just fine . I don't think it makes much sense to mail a car to someone and then get it back right away , but if that ends up being the format I can live with it ......just will be a lot of mailing back and forth ....... let's just settle on a plan .

T