JRM at 2023 Washington DC National Cherry Blossom Festival Sakura Matsuri

[cteno4]

JRM will be showing our Ttrak at the Washinton DC National Cherry Blossom Festival Sakura Matsuri April 1yth, 2023 in Martinsville WV 10:30a-4p on Pennsylvania Ave, Washington DC. We have not been at the Sakura Matsuri for a few years due to increased costs and COVID, but this year they contacted us and said they missed us! The Sakura Matsuri is now 2 days, but we were already committed to Martinsberg Train Show on Saturday, but they said doing just Sunday would be fine. Come join us for the huge festival at the heart of the nation’s capital.
 

I hope to debut mini onetrak at this event!

 

https://sakuramatsuri.org

 

cheers,

[Tony Galiani]

Is that location near a Metro stop?  Looking at the route maps, it appears that it might be near the Archives station - but I am not completely sure.  Thinking of running up to DC for a day trip.  Not wanting to drive right into the city though.

Tony

[cteno4]

Wow Tony that would be great! Beware it does end early at 4pm on Sunday.

 

this year it is not clear where we will be yet. But both metros are sort of at either end of the usual blocks of Pennsylvania ave the festival is on, but the faq this year says it will be on Pennsylvania and constitution between 3rd and 7th, which would put archives closest. It’s not far but can be slow going sometimes w.in the festival as crowds can be dense at places.

 

cheers

 

jeff

[Tony Galiani]

Thanks.  I will keep you posted.  Would like to come up if at all possible but we shall see.  Originally had thought about making a weekend of it but I am playing Saturday evening so could not come up until Sunday in any event.  Early closure not a bad thing as getting the Princess of Procrastination moving can be a challenge - this way she would have no option not to leave!

Tony

[cteno4]

Just beware (you probably know) 95 between Richmond and dc can be a @#$&% at just about any time… At times there can be many hour delays.

 

it is a fun festival, lots of food, cultural presentations, performances, etc. Will be interesting how it is as a 2 day event. It can be pretty big crowds. At least they now don’t put booths in the center of the streets so it’s much more open for big crowds. I’m hoping it will mellow the crowds at the food carts, lines can get long.

 

jeff

[Tony Galiani]

Quick update - I will have to miss this.  I forgot I was playing Saturday night so was thinking of driving up on Sunday morning when I got a performance request for Sunday morning as well.  So two gigs is the space of about twelve hours.

 

Anyway, hope you post pictures and that the event is a big success.

 

Ciao,

Tony

[cteno4]

Tony,

 

sorry you can’t make it, but understand! Glad more gigs coming in. That sounded like quite a loop for a one day trip! Hopefully this marks us coming back to the festival in the future.

 

jeff

[cteno4]

Well the Sakura Matsuri was great! Luckily the rain hit for like 45minutes on Saturday while we were at martinsberg so that was lucky. Even with a tent dealing with rain at an outdoor event is, of course, our nightmare! luckily weather was perfect on Sunday.

 

the festival is now 2 days long and crowds felt as big on Sunday as when it was only a one day event. It was great to be invited back and the event generously covered the cost of our 10’x20’ tent and tables rental (not cheap at events like this). This year we did not need a power hookup (which is also quite pricy) as we bought a lithium ion power supply to run the throttles and get rid of finding power source, then snaking an extension cord to it from the layout (always my greatest fears someone would trip on a wire and sue us as extension cords are one of the top trip and fall lawsuits for insurance companies). It was a good thing we had it as the power cord behind our tent and a few others apparently sorted out sat evening after the rains and they could not get it repaired! I wish we had this power supply years ago! We ran 4 throttles for 6 hours Saturday and 2 throttles 7 hours Sunday and it was not even half way drained! Nice small unit and not very heavy at all.

 

the crowds were very constant through the whole day and it’s super fun at this cultural event to see folks see the layout for the first time, they get such a big smile or O face. Some get a smile that makes them look like a 7 year old and you know you’ve tossed them back to their childhood playing with trains. We did a ton of encouragement about folks getting back into the hobby. I wish I would have had mini onetrak ready to present at the event but was not quite there yet, but I talked about the idea to many newbies and they agreed it sounded more like something they might jump into—it was encouraging. But folks were just really excited to see the layout and chat.

 

we got to meet the new JR East staff as they turnover back to japan every 2-4 years. We are hoping to get to do more things with them. One of the previous head of all the US offices that had gone back to japan about 7 years back (and gifted the club several Japanese train sets) had told the current staff to look us up, so was nice to be remembered by him. Unfortunately the JR Central guys packed up early before we got a chance to go and talk to them. Covid kind of severed our relationship with the JR groups some so we need to rebuild them.

 

only one disaster on my de15 dolphin engine. It was hauling the sushi train and when some cars uncoupled one of the members tried to get it recouped but something happened and the engine ended up nosediving onto the pavement (one of the issues with Ttrak with track right next to the edge of the modules and modules right at edge of the tables). Bottom section of the chassis broke and two and 2 axle truck exploded and one coupler broken. Luckily all parts including I think all hand rail bits were recovered off the pavement remarkably! I sort of got it running but it needs some more work and the chassis glued back together and coupler replaced. Oh well those happen now and then.

 

one of our members who had recently moved down to Richmond VA (about 150 miles away) was able to come up on Amtrak for a good bit of the day to join us,

 

All and all a great event and we hope to get back to doing this event again regularly!

 

cheers

 

jeff

[bill937ca]

I presume the tent is too small for the full size layout.  Would it take more power for the full size layout? I'm presuming it would.

[cteno4]

We don’t have the sectional layout 2.0 anymore (sold it to one of the club members for their home layout), but when we did take it to Sakura Matsuri we had a 30’x10’ tent. Prices started to skyrocket a few years pre covid for the festival so it was getting very expensive for the festival doing the big tents gratis for us. This was one reason we designed layout 3.0 to fit in tighter spaces (it could expand for larger spaces), easier to setup and transport (smaller modules), and be more graceful setting up on very uneven surfaces (like the side of a street which can have quite a slope on two directions even with a flat street). We did do a temporary setup of layout 3.0 at the 2018 Sakura Matsuri in a 10’x20’ tent, the one and only time we displayed layout 3.0 (other than it’s prototype for the NYC japan week at Grand Central Terminal). Sadly we just could not get that layout finished as we were down to just one house (mine) where we could set it up to work on it and super hard to schedule work sessions, and fewer very active members, it just got too complicated. But during this time between layout 2.0 to 3.0 we started 33mm Ttrak (we had a small 25mm Ttrak for streetcar before for small events with limited space.) and so we’re doing that in 2019 and did Ttrak at the Sakura Matsuri in 2019. The  covid hit and we were very fortunate as folks could continue on Ttrak at home! Since then we have kept focused on Ttrak. Not sure if we will ever get layout 3.0 together. The whole pile is still in my basement, maybe some day!

 

the 16’ of table was about the right amount of Ttrak. We were able to pack it all in one suv and for most of the public viewers it was about the right amount to take in and in that length we could get a good variety of modules in there. Many clubs here strive to see how big they can get the Ttrak setups and it ends up overwhelming the visitors at times and they don’t tend to spend more time, and sometimes less. We are trying to keep focused on details to draw folks in and get them looking closer and then talking and then talking up the hobby.

 

cheers

 

jeff

[bill937ca]

Unfortunately, clubs can easily become one-man shows.

[cteno4]

Well we luckily have about a half dozen active members, we had more in the past but several moved away and then covid also kind of got in the way of recruiting new members. Doing a complete layout does take a critical mass of active members. Hardest thing is not having a “club house” to work in. Didn’t want to turn my house into the club house. That is probably our biggest hurdle for layout 3.0.

 

but Ttrak works well for us as well, so that’s been good. In some ways it’s a bit more versatile and lets folks work on their own module or create club modules that the club reimburses them for all the needed structures and supplies.

 

jeff