Help: Danish Exhibition

[Darren Jeffries]

Brian,

 

With a bit of creative placement of buildings and roadways, that could look pretty good. I presume spectators will be able to view the layout from all 4 sides?

[CaptOblivious]

Just a thought: Perhaps you should have the yard in the back, hidden from view---a fiddle yard, as it were. The idea is, you run a set of trains for a little while, and then you start switching them out one by one for new ones in the yard. Keeps viewers interested, because new trains keep popping out. Also, keeps all the action in the front, in view. You would have to connect all the inner loops together, at least, and you will lose some yard storage, but that's OK. The yard is just a place for you to store trains you want to run more often, and open space for you to place and remove trains to and from the layout.

[domino]

Thanks

 

I will try to make room for road system and buildings.

Im not sure if the spectators will be able to see all 4 sides, i havent got the plan from the exhibition yet.

 

Brian

 

 

 

 

Brian,

 

With a bit of creative placement of buildings and roadways, that could look pretty good. I presume spectators will be able to view the layout from all 4 sides?

[domino]

Just a thought: Perhaps you should have the yard in the back, hidden from view---a fiddle yard, as it were. The idea is, you run a set of trains for a little while, and then you start switching them out one by one for new ones in the yard. Keeps viewers interested, because new trains keep popping out. Also, keeps all the action in the front, in view. You would have to connect all the inner loops together, at least, and you will lose some yard storage, but that's OK. The yard is just a place for you to store trains you want to run more often, and open space for you to place and remove trains to and from the layout.

 

Thanks.

So you want the yard in the back ?

The layout is not that big , so people will still be able to see the trains in the bag yard, i just thought that i would be nice to have lots of never before seen trains in the front for people to see?

 

Brian

[CaptOblivious]

Oh, I'm in total agreement that you want to be able to show off as many of the unique trains of Japan to this crowd as possible. But you don't want them to see everything all at once, that spoils the fun. If a new train they haven't seen before is popping out every couple of minutes, this keeps the crowd glued to your layout, instead of just giving it a once-over and moving on (at least, I think! Cteno4 I'm sure would have a lot more to say on this subject, as he does this kind of thing for a living!)

 

It wouldn't be too hard to make a small mountain in the back covering the yard, or surrounding the yard with buildings. I've done something similar on my Shogatsu layout, which is even smaller: http://akihabara.artificial-science.org/tag/shogatsu/

I've only got a couple of trains hidden back there, but it's enough to keep my (at the time) 6mo old daughter fascinated for as much as ten minutes! That's eons for a baby :D

 

But, too, this is just what I think, and you can take or leave it: You're going to have the most fun doing what you think is best.

 

Just a thought: Perhaps you should have the yard in the back, hidden from view---a fiddle yard, as it were. The idea is, you run a set of trains for a little while, and then you start switching them out one by one for new ones in the yard. Keeps viewers interested, because new trains keep popping out. Also, keeps all the action in the front, in view. You would have to connect all the inner loops together, at least, and you will lose some yard storage, but that's OK. The yard is just a place for you to store trains you want to run more often, and open space for you to place and remove trains to and from the layout.

 

Thanks.

So you want the yard in the back ?

The layout is not that big , so people will still be able to see the trains in the bag yard, i just thought that i would be nice to have lots of never before seen trains in the front for people to see?

 

Brian

[cteno4]

Don, i would agree on a small layout like your sweet mountainside baby (nice layout!), but on the larger jrm layout our experience has been that the shinkansen yard is almost as much of a display as the layout is. Domino is planning a pretty good sized layout, so ill have to disagree with you on this one and say show off the trains!

 

i think there as many photos taken of the yard as of the layout at times! i agree that having surprises is great, most of the audiences outside of japan are pretty new to seeing the trains and love spending a lot of time staring and talking about all the different kinds of trains in the yard. its a great talking point as we usually have everything from a 60s era 0 series all the way to the new 700t. seeing the evolution of the trains is really wonderful. also a lot of train fans have a real soft spot for a yard (me included!).

 

another big attraction for kids (and some of the big kids) is to choose a train to be taken out of the yard to run for a while. this really helps interact with the audience and give them some participation.

 

we get a lot of surprise with the great convoluted track plan Matthew did for the ground level tracks. its hard to tell where those trains are going next a lot of the time so folks will follow those trains for quite a while tracking the track plan. even the buildings help hide the trains from view some and give some surprises.

 

I think the fact that the set up on the fly layout with more perceptual scenery, trains running right past big buildings and cities, a huge variety of trains on display, and 4 trains running is already way more surprise than most layouts at shows! we always get a lot of wow factor, folks are a bit stunned with the jrm layout, not because its some work of art, but its really different in its display and content so folks are captivated. we even get a fair number of the crusty old american steam era train guys hanging around quite a while, even though we are 180° from all they like and do!

 

we get great hang time by visitors just taking in all the different trains and the different display approach. i think we have about the best kid hang time of all the layouts at shows -- i measure this by how many fits are thrown by kids when the parents try to move them on. so i dont think you may need to be too concerned with keeping surprises for the audience, they are going to have plenty to look at!

 

As Don said this is just my opinion as well, best to do what feels good for you and what makes you happy and have fun with this! Important thing is to have fun with the display as its going to be a big hunk of work so make it worthwhile by making it a really fun experience for you! the more excited about the layout you are the more the public will pick up on it.

 

one last bit of advice is to get out and talk with folks as much as you can. interacting with the audience can be really fun and they will have loads of questions! Also it will let you pick up more on their excitement, surprise, interest and really help make the effort you do more worthwhile! a couple of heartfelt thank yous from folks have made sitting in traffic for 4 hrs on friday then getting up at 5am on sat morning for the show worthwhile!

 

cheers,

 

jeff

[disturbman]

I'm agreeing with Don and Jeff on this one. It would be nice if the loops are connected in a way or another so the trains just don't pursue their own tail. Then people will wonder where the train is going to pop out.

 

Maybe you can put somewhere some kind of a screen (a scene divider) depicting a city landscape on a side and some farmland/nature on the other. You could then be able to put your building in front of the city screen and give all this a bit of perspective. :)

[cteno4]

Yes having as many things block views some and having your track plan as little as an oval helps a lot! downside is that curve radius on model trains are tighter than prototype and make the trains sometimes look bad, but its worth trading some of that off to make the track plan more un-predictable and not have the snake chasing its tail!

 

cheers

 

jeff

[cteno4]

Forgot to mention a couple of things with protection from the public...

 

first is a small edge guard. on jrm we have a small slit cut in our edge framing that we slip a small 2" high piece of 1.5mm plexiglass in. this is mainly to prevent trains from flying off the edge of the table if it derails on a stretch of track along the edge and also to help prevent fingers poking in on trains right at the edge. while fingers can come over the top to touch, it stops the direct path and thus most of the problems that way! if your setup does not let you do a slot to put the guard in you could also easily make an inverted T of plex to just set along the edge (maybe a bit of double stick tape to gently hold it in place).

 

the other thing is some sort of velvet rope to keep the audience back a couple of feet from the layout. as much as i love to try and trust the public with my exhibit stuff (i have found if you trust the public and dont try to armor everything they tend to respond well and not vandalize, but when you show them you dont trust them by armoring they tend to vandalize), the trains are just too tempting to let them right up to the layout. also folks forget and point and poke trains by accident or a big one is when they take pictures over the layout and their camera straps, dangling lens covers, sleeves, etc hook a train! this has happened with even our members taking pictures of the layout!

 

or first barricade was just 1/2" pvc pipe sections about 30" high that sat in some 1' square plywood bases. the top of the pipe had a hole drilled through it and we just strung a yellow piece of rope through them. these were spread about 5-6' apart around the layout. problem with the rope is that its not that pretty, hard to set up, and folks can easily push in on it if they want to. recently i made some nice stanchions out of bamboo sections (like 1.5" round bamboo from one of our members yard). i epoxied pvc fittings in to the bottom of the stanchions and cut out some nice round 1" thick by 12" in diameter bases, routed the edges, painted black and put yellow tape around the edge for visibility. at the top of each stanchion and in the middle i drilled a small hole and put loose loops of nice twine through them. then just used nice 7' long sections of 1/2" bamboo (bought at a garden supply place for a couple of bucks each) for cross pieces between the stanchions. the cross pieces just rest in the twine loops on the stanchions. this looks much nicer and makes a more solid barrier. this lets us bring the barrier in closer to the layout then. it held up to the massive crowds we had at the national Cherry Blossom Festival where the attendance was huge!

 

http://japanrailmodelers.org/photos/_sakura/pages/page_7.html

http://japanrailmodelers.org/photos/_sakura/pages/page_30.html

 

we also at smaller shows will usually have a few of the folding chairs out on the outside of the barrier turned around. this lets parents put smaller kids standing on the chair (as long as the parent is holding them and its on their head to take care of the kid) so the kids can get up to see the layout. we do our layout at a lower level than most show layouts specifically because we want kids to get a good view. also our layout is better seen from a higher angle as its deeper and lots going on and would be hard to see if up at the higher levels.

 

that being said we only have had one kid ever really nail a train. at the cherry blossom festival one 5yr old got frustrated that we were not taking out the train he wanted (it had just been put away and had been run for like 3hrs) and he swung his arm and shoved the train hard and it (my doremon) went flying down the layout. luckily the edge guard kept the any cars from going over and no real damage to anything!

 

anyhow it is important to think about what you want to do about all the fingers (big and small) that will want to come into your trains! if you dont put something up then you really need a couple of pairs of eyes always on guard. will be interesting to hear your crowd/public experience!

 

cheers,

 

jeff

[Bernard]

One concern is setting up at the exhibition and wiring it. You have 10 turnouts and 8 main lines, are you going to have someone to help you, because to me it seems like a lot of wiring. Also the top 2 turnouts in your yard appear to be short, I not sure how much you will be able to store in that section of the yard. How about using those 4 turnsout to form a siding or let trains cross into the other main lines.

 

I agree with Jeff (hey I agreed with you Jeff ) about having too many ovals, it nice to have a train come out of nowhere (being hidden) from the viewer, in your case, this can be accomplish with buildings placed at certain points on the layout hiding the track. On my layout, trains are popping out of tunnels, behind forest, or mountains and views are caught by surprise.

How about a variation on the oval, perhaps a "dog bone"... or a variation on a figure 8, that will give the impression that a train has changed direction.

[domino]

This is my first try, i will take a look at all your comments and then make some changes.

 

What do you think ??

[Bernard]

You will definately get people stopping by and looking.

Jeff made a good and important point in an earlier post, time yourself to see how long it is going to take you to put this layout together. This is your first show and "practice makes perfect" as the saying goes. You do have a lot of elements to set up.

Also are you going to have anybody helping you at the show?

[domino]

You will definately get people stopping by and looking.

Jeff made a good and important point in an earlier post, time yourself to see how long it is going to take you to put this layout together. This is your first show and "practice makes perfect" as the saying goes. You do have a lot of elements to set up.

Also are you going to have anybody helping you at the show?

 

 

It think i will take 6 or 7 hours to complete , and no one is helping me, im going alone to this exhibition.

Everything is packet down, if must put all track together at the exhibition the day before.

[cteno4]

Domino,

 

the viaduct looks great with the half dog bone breaking up the oval. only suggestion on the ground level tracks might be to think about going to just 2 or 3 tracks and see if you can make the outer one do something interesting like a folded figure 8 or something to make it more unpredictable and also make the run of that line a lot longer. 4 or 5 trains running at once is plenty to grab folks attention! the more trains you have running also the more you have to keep watch on the trains! its important not to get too distracted with the public and have a messy crash! worse is when one picks a point and ends up shorting out and can melt a truck!

 

its good you have the day before to set up. give yourself time as the worse feeling is trying to rush to finish at the last second.

 

cheers

 

jeff

[disturbman]

I'm also thinking, if you just have three or two going tracks you could then have the yard connecting on the mainlines.

[domino]

Hey again

 

I also have a small part with old fashion Japanese style, but there is something wrong ,it looks wrong but i cant put my finger on it?????

[Tenorikuma]

Old Japanese neighbourhoods have quite narrow streets (too tight for two vehicles to easily pass), and the buildings are so close there is often no space between them whatsoever.

[domino]

Well, probberly close my stand or get some one from another stand to look after my things ?

 

Brian

[alpineaustralia]

I also have a small part with old fashion Japanese style, but there is something wrong ,it looks wrong but i cant put my finger on it??

 

To me it looks too spaced apart. Pack the building in, and close in the street, really tight.

 

See these images:

Model_japanese_stret.bmp

[Bernard]

Brian - I've thinking about your layout and trying to come up with an alternate layout plan. My thinking is this, (and this is coming from my TB Forum experience) whereas the public will be interested in seeing these unique Japanese trains running, the other exhibitors might be looking at the layout as a "Roundy-Round". You don't need 8 main lines doing exactly the same thing, as Jeff has said, 4 or 5 trains running is enough, less is sometimes better. (Also if a derailment happens, it could effect mulitiple train lines.)

An interesting loop that gives the appearance that a train has changed direction, might give the impression that the train has traveled a longer distance and the people will start to follow the path of that particular train.

 

You still have plenty of time, lets look into a diverse but simple plan that include a yard that will also show off your fleet. 

[disturbman]

Maybe someone should design or show some propositions of what we all seem to have in mind. :)

[Bernard]

Brian - In my conversion, since I deal in feet and inches, am I right in saying that your space of 110cm x 440cm is 3 feet x 15 feet?

[domino]

Brian - In my conversion, since I deal in feet and inches, am I right in saying that your space of 110cm x 440cm is 3 feet x 15 feet?

 

 

1 meter is 3,28 feet, so 1,1(110cm) is 3,608 feet

                            and4,4(440cm) is 14,432 feet

 

your are almost right 

[domino]

If i was to change the inner loop to 8 track, i will lose space to building an roads and what about the big station entrance ??

As it is now many trains will be hidden once the are behinde the tall buildings.

 

 

 

 

 

Brian - I've thinking about your layout and trying to come up with an alternate layout plan. My thinking is this, (and this is coming from my TB Forum experience) whereas the public will be interested in seeing these unique Japanese trains running, the other exhibitors might be looking at the layout as a "Roundy-Round". You don't need 8 main lines doing exactly the same thing, as Jeff has said, 4 or 5 trains running is enough, less is sometimes better. (Also if a derailment happens, it could effect mulitiple train lines.)

An interesting loop that gives the appearance that a train has changed direction, might give the impression that the train has traveled a longer distance and the people will start to follow the path of that particular train.

 

You still have plenty of time, lets look into a diverse but simple plan that include a yard that will also show off your fleet. 

 

 

[domino]

I understand what your are saying, but i cant do anything about it, also the exhibition is over 2 days, so when the show is closed during night i will have to sleep on the floor to make sure nothing happens to it .

 

 

 

 

Well, probberly close my stand or get some one from another stand to look after my things ?

 

Brian

 

I don't know what the situation is in your part of the world, but I suspect that you cannot just close your stand in the middle of an exhibition !!!!

 

Otherwise, who are you going to trust with your trains, and when are you going to teach them how to operate the layout while you are gone