JRM at the Rockville Lions Club Train Show Nov 11-12

[cteno4]

If you are in the DC area Nov 11-12 come and see us. This year we will have street car standard spaced ttrak and a loop of double viaduct coming off of it. 

 

its a very fun show all club layouts and no vendors and lots of kids. Also a benefit for their eyeglass program for kids.

 

more info in the flyer.

 

jeff

RLC_TRAINSHOW17.pdf

[toc36]

Jeff,

 

I'll be there on Saturday.  What can I do to help?

 

Is there a another dinner in November?

 

Mark

[cteno4]

Mark,

 

great to have you! Bring trams or shinkansens! 

 

Nov 8 will be a lunch in downtown bethesda as it's a weekday, we do the dinners when the 8th of the month falls on weekends.

 

cheers,

 

jeff

Edited November 1, 2017 by cteno4

[toc36]

Jeff,

 

I have a tough day at work on the 8th......

 

What restaurant?  I'll get there if my schedule changes.

 

Mark

[cteno4]

Mark,

 

Usually its Satsuma (Matuba our old standby for a decade closed last year after the owner retired to japan and the wheels fell off). large parking structure just down the street and good selection of bento boxes and $1 sushi thats decent.

 

jeff

[cteno4]

JRM did a lot of child manipulation this weekend. It was the annual rockville lions club train show. Very fun show as it's the closest in we do, indoor wirh carpets and heat and we get a lunch! All club show, no vendors and loads of kiss. Usually raises like $5k for their overseas kids eyeglasses fund. Lots and lots of kids as the show so very fun.

 

Thomas brought out his arduino tram controllers he built for kids big and small to play with. It's great with forward on the lever deaccelerates, center is coast and back accelerates. Great for kids as he can set top voltage and also accellerarion/deceleration rates.

 

We also decided to run without barriers and let kids get their noses right up to the trains. They did great and no issues except a few autos pushed around. It was an adult who almost derailed the shinkansens with his camera strap. Funny I nicely got him back in time and reminded him that camaea strap can grab stuff as well as knock him over and or the camera out of his hand (I've seen a few folks catch a camera strap while moving around trying to take a shot!). 10 min later I saw him almost snag a Lionel steamer in the other room! A few other adults almost had trains run into their cellphones as well getting a little too close. So it wasn't an issue with the little ones disturbing things!

 

since layout 3.0 is still under construction we did our standard spaced Ttrak modules and instead of the usual train station chunk at one end we did a larg loop of double viaduct to have some Shinkansens running. Unfortunately about 10 of my station plates are mia from the old New York show so I could not make a decent sized station. Just used foam blocks to raise the viaduct up to Ttrak module height of 1". It was too cold to get the blocks painted last week so we had pink concrete foundations... but it was enough as they got to see the shinkansens flying around and the scenery stuff was over on the Ttrak modules. 

 

Mark (toc) was able to join us both days and a great help in teardown. Many thanks mark!

 

mark noticed how the kids spent a lot of time looking at the scenery and buildings while adults seemed to focus more on trains in general, very interesting observation!

 

sorry I meant to take some time to snap Picts of the layout when folks were not in there but forgot!

 

cheers

 

jeff