New JRM Layout at the 2010 National Cherry Blossom Festival's Sakura Matsuri

[Guest ___]

Well, when you come out be prepared to be flooded by the members. We're a friendly bunch that love fellow modelers.

[Martijn Meerts]

Well, when you come out be prepared to be flooded by the members. We're a friendly bunch that love fellow modelers.

 

Sounds good =) Much better than visiting a regular weekly club meeting and being ignore by everyone the entire evening.. Only talked to 1 other person who I knew from before, the rest was too busy bragging about how superior their Marklin layouts are compared to everything else ;)

[cteno4]

Martijn,

 

sorry to pop your bubble, but we are a pretty stuck up bunch of guys that will rarely lower ourselves to even acknowledge the existence of lower train modelers! you will be ignored by us completely. but that said, please come!

 

yes trying to see much of the US in a week would be tough! best to select a bit at a time, its a big place! its only 3hrs to NYC from DC on the train. nother 5 to boston from there.

 

cheers

 

jeff

[Guest ___]

Martijn,

 

sorry to pop your bubble, but we are a pretty stuck up bunch of guys that will rarely lower ourselves to even acknowledge the existence of lower train modelers! you will be ignored by us completely. but that said, please come!

 

yes trying to see much of the US in a week would be tough! best to select a bit at a time, its a big place! its only 3hrs to NYC from DC on the train. nother 5 to boston from there.

 

cheers

 

jeff

 

Yeah, lord forbid we actually talk to those frackers in the Z-scale club, N-trak, or the Lego guys right *sarcasm. (I feel that I know those guys almost as well as our own club, and I'm not even a member of those clubs, but see them so much at all the shows)

 

Sorry Martjin, a week to see the US is... rough. I've entertained foreigners from all over the world for years, and most of them still can't grasp how big the US is. My gf, Elise even after now has trouble grasping that it would take a week to drive between NYC and LA.

[KenS]

The DC area is a great place to visit.  I spent a week there a couple of years ago, just going to museums, and could have spent more time if I had it. In DC itself, check out the historic trains at the National Museum of American History, and there's a mail sorting car you can walk through in the very small National Postal Museum next to Union Station. Heck, the subway stations are worth a visit just for the design.

 

If you add in places like the B&O museum (which is great) and the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania (a 2.5 hour drive from DC, and located across the street from the Strasburg Rail Road with its operating steam trains) and the small but nice National Capital Trolley Museum (which I haven't seen since it moved to its new location), it's a good place for a train fan to visit.

[to2leo]

Hmm with all this talk about Washington DC and its many sites, I might come over to visit too!  Though the date maybe conflicting with my planned trip to Peru with friends in Apr.  But if Peru did not work out, I just might switch my 4 weeks vacation to Autumn for Asia Pacific and my 2 weeks in Spring in the US Northeast.

 

Though this will be my 3rd time to the US capitol, I think the excitement of meeting some of the members, their club and layout will surely make this an interesting trip to remember.

 

Ken S or Shashinka, to book a clean and affordable hotel room, should I stay in Virginia or Maryland?

 

@Martijn, if I only have one week, I would go to DC and then off to NYC.  You also need to factor in the time difference ( jet lag) when you arrive.

[Martijn Meerts]

Martijn,

 

sorry to pop your bubble, but we are a pretty stuck up bunch of guys that will rarely lower ourselves to even acknowledge the existence of lower train modelers! you will be ignored by us completely. but that said, please come!

 

yes trying to see much of the US in a week would be tough! best to select a bit at a time, its a big place! its only 3hrs to NYC from DC on the train. nother 5 to boston from there.

 

cheers

 

jeff

 

Yeah, lord forbid we actually talk to those frackers in the Z-scale club, N-trak, or the Lego guys right *sarcasm. (I feel that I know those guys almost as well as our own club, and I'm not even a member of those clubs, but see them so much at all the shows)

 

Sorry Martjin, a week to see the US is... rough. I've entertained foreigners from all over the world for years, and most of them still can't grasp how big the US is. My gf, Elise even after now has trouble grasping that it would take a week to drive between NYC and LA.

 

 

Hehe =)

 

Most countries really need several months worth of holiday to see them. It's funny though, before I moved to Norway I went there on holiday several times. During those times as a tourist, I saw more of the country than during the 9.5 years I lived there. On the other hand, during my 9.5 years in Norway, I probably saw more of the Netherlands (as a tourist in a way) than during all the years I've lived there.

 

I have to wish to live in Japan for a couple of years, to be able to more easily see the sites there, but judging from experience, if I end up getting a job and living in/around Tokyo, I probably won't see much other than the areas surround home and work ;)

 

 

Of course, the week I'd go to Washington would mainly be about trains and meeting JRM people etc, and not so much about seeing (parts of) the US :) Of course, a shopping trip to NY seems interesting if it's about 3 hours by train from Washington (I guess it'd be half an hour if America actually managed to get some high speed trains set up  )

[Guest ___]

We know what you're really here to do; ride metro and possibly have a pizza with Obama at We the Pizza.

[Martijn Meerts]

We know what you're really here to do; ride metro and possibly have a pizza with Obama at We the Pizza.

 

Yes, and eat hotdogs, drink beer, and wave with a foam finger at a hockey game =)

[Guest ___]

few more picts

 

 

 

Hmm, looks morel like Goji is trying to hump the Capital than anything else.

[scott]

@Martijn, if I only have one week, I would go to DC and then off to NYC.  You also need to factor in the time difference ( jet lag) when you arrive.

 

FWIW, I'd say DC itself should be plenty for a week. Why run yourself ragged?

[Martijn Meerts]

Plenty to do in DC it seems, lots of interesting museums and such to visit. The jetlag won't be a problem going TO the US, going back home will be a lot worse ;)

 

The plan for now is to stay in DC, but take a day trip by train to NY as well. But, still need to take care of a ton of stuff first ;)

[keitaro]

goji is law.

 

Would be interesting to see if could get a japanese layout here in sydney to the japanese festival this year.

 

i'd take mine if it were half decent and larger

[Guest ___]

You know Kit, a large portion of the member base active on here are from oz. It might be worth trying to come up with something like a Japanese club liek the JRM over there. We have a module layout so set up is pretty easy that could work if you guys were to start a club.

[cteno4]

goji is law.

 

Would be interesting to see if could get a japanese layout here in sydney to the japanese festival this year.

 

i'd take mine if it were half decent and larger

 

there is one in Melbourne! they started around a japanese festival and have spun out to other events.

 

http://japanrailmodelers.org/pages/modelingjapan/ajmrg.html

 

you just need that nucleus of a few guys. jrm started with about 6 guys, Brian did it by himself in Denmark. Both Brian and JRM started by doing a temporary layouts with unitrak on the table top and just put down bits of scenery, buildings, etc. we used colored construction paper at first to give perceived areas of cement, dirt, grass, etc. later we did more realistic scenery bits on pieces of formica between many of the track sections.

 

so you can start simple and grow. getting out into the public may find those others in your area that want to do the same things and hopefully also spark newbies into getting interested and then involved. AJMRG has really grown, picking up lots of members!

 

cheers

 

jeff

[keitaro]

would like to if I had the time and money 

 

would be better to just get a group of us maybe to go and tak our own layouts along if there moveable by car that is like mine it fitts in my car.

 

That is when i'm finished with it and receive my missing mail package