RR Open houses

[ngauger]

Wow!!

Nice pics

[Green_Elite_Cab]

Did I see a little Catenary? to bad there weren't more electrics.

[Lester Perry]

Did I see a little Catenary? to bad there weren't more electrics.

I remember seeing wires and at least one GG1. I will have to look through the pics for more. He took around 250 pics on 2 layouts so there should be more of them

[Lester Perry]

Sorry GEC that is all there is.

[Green_Elite_Cab]

Figures! Steam always gets the attention!

[Lester Perry]

Yea even at six years old he sees the beauty of steam.

[Lester Perry]

At about 7:30 this evening (Friday) I decided to vacuum the floor in my train shed in preparation for open house. When I went in I decided to run a train while I did it. Nothing would run! track was dead! 9:30 I got it going on a shoe string. I sure hope it is running tomorrow.

[ezdays]

Les,

We wish you the best, good luck.

[Gary S]

I had my open house last weekend. Since I live about 30 miles south of Houston, I didn't expect much of a turnout. Surprisingly, I was swamped on both days. 16 visitors Saturday, 17 on Sunday. I opened at 10am and went to 6pm each day. It was packed the entire time on both days. All the visitors had the opportunity to run the local freights with my "simple" version of a switchlist. Some of the folks stayed for 4 hours or more. I was quite pleased by the compliments and interest. I now have about a dozen folks who gave me their email addresses and asked that I include them in future operating sessions.

Oh... Sunday evening, a grandmother and her two grandsons stopped by, one was about 10 and the other probably 12. With the 58" layout height, they could not actually see the layout, but I fixed them up with my stepstools. Then I showed them how to use the uncoupling magnets. I turned them loose with the trains, figuring that they would just run the main. To my surprise, they began switching out some industries, doing run-arounds and such. They told me they often played with a Train Simulator program on their computer, so they already knew how to do everything. It was pretty cool seeing these two youngsters operating the trains like old hands. I invited them to come back for a real operation session whenever they wanted.

[Green_Elite_Cab]

Couldn't get out of Laboratory classes soon enough today, otherwise I would have went out to check out Mr. Perry's layout.

Its a shame, since I have a funny feeling my experiment isn't going to work out. Long story short, it was a long, tedious protocol and nothing worked as expected. I'd rather watch/run trains!

Maybe Next Saturday i'll be able to visit some layouts.

[Lester Perry]

Couldn't get out of Laboratory classes soon enough today, otherwise I would have went out to check out Mr. Perry's layout.

Its a shame, since I have a funny feeling my experiment isn't going to work out. Long story short, it was a long, tedious protocol and nothing worked as expected. I'd rather watch/run trains!

Maybe Next Saturday i'll be able to visit some layouts.

Any time, just let me know and come on down.

[ngauger]

A few pics of the layout and a "Certain" HO Car....

   

   

[ngauger]

Pics of an N Gauge Layout on the tour - This is the first year for this layout, it's only 1/3rd finished, but it's nice so far!!!!!

   

   

   

[Lester Perry]

As I said before, I had an electric issue Friday night. I thought I had it fixed but I still had some issues. Ngauger can attest to it, the picture he took of a certain car was sitting still as it had stopped there. That was a place that was very difficult to reach. After several attempts to move the train it was obvious it was staying put. Four dead diesels is a heavy load to move. It is now moved and my Gern facility is now moved to the floor in a safe corner. There was a terrible earth quake and a large hole appeared in the ground in the lower left of his pic. I can now easily reach the dead train. I will post pics of this disaster elsewhere here later.
287

[Ralph]

Murphy's Law seems to apply especially to Open Houses and times one wishes to show a layout! Wow though, the layout looks great and those photo backdrops are sensational with the way they blend with the modeled foreground.
Ralph