JRM to show at Grand Central Station NYC with JR East for Japan Week in March

[cteno4]

We have been invited to go to New York City's Grand Central Station in early March to show off japanese model trains with JR East as an exhibit they are putting together with Japan Week celebrations up there. They wanted us to show off some sort of japanese model train layout in a 10'x11' area so the regular layout wont fit in that space unfortunately. So, we are doing a quick custom layout with a double viaduct shinkansen line and two ground express/local/freight lines. We will do the track work as loose unitrak and just add in buildings and scenery bits. Its going to be a mad dash. We got light weight framed foam panels made last week that interlock with dowels and can just be plopped down onto small tables. now its getting track work all sussed out this week and then its scenery making. going to be a tomytec building spree i think here at the house!

 

JR East is paying for our travel expenses and lodging for the 4 days in NYC for three of us to setup and run the layout. Should be quite fun to show off Japanese trains to a new crowd!

 

We will be there March 6-8th i believe like 11a-8p. So if you are in or are going to be in the NYC area then come on down and visit!

 

Hopefully we can do more with the JRs in the future. They have slowly been becoming more interested in what we do over the years. JR east and JR west booths now flank us at the cherry blossom festival now and they see how much the model trains draw in the public and excite their imagination and wonder and are a great starting point to talk to folks about japanese rail technologies, history, etc! Plus they just have fun and we were the highest for most remembered and loved when they did an exit survey one year so thats what JR can use!

 

cheers

 

jeff

[Vato]

We have been invited to go to New York City's Grand Central Station in early March to show off japanese model trains with JR East as an exhibit they are putting together with Japan Week celebrations up there. They wanted us to show off some sort of japanese model train layout in a 10'x11' area so the regular layout wont fit in that space unfortunately. So, we are doing a quick custom layout with a double viaduct shinkansen line and two ground express/local/freight lines. We will do the track work as loose unitrak and just add in buildings and scenery bits. Its going to be a mad dash. We got light weight framed foam panels made last week that interlock with dowels and can just be plopped down onto small tables. now its getting track work all sussed out this week and then its scenery making. going to be a tomytec building spree i think here at the house!

 

JR East is paying for our travel expenses and lodging for the 4 days in NYC for three of us to setup and run the layout. Should be quite fun to show off Japanese trains to a new crowd!

 

We will be there March 6-8th i believe like 11a-8p. So if you are in or are going to be in the NYC area then come on down and visit!

 

Hopefully we can do more with the JRs in the future. They have slowly been becoming more interested in what we do over the years. JR east and JR west booths now flank us at the cherry blossom festival now and they see how much the model trains draw in the public and excite their imagination and wonder and are a great starting point to talk to folks about japanese rail technologies, history, etc! Plus they just have fun and we were the highest for most remembered and loved when they did an exit survey one year so thats what JR can use!

 

cheers

 

jeff

will meet you

[Claude_Dreyfus]

Exhibiting Japanese trains at Grand Central station! That is about as cool as you can get!!

 

Serious envy.

[lurkingknight]

hmm... that's only a 400$ flight down to nyc from here... but dat manhattan hotel.

Edited February 11, 2014 by lurkingknight

[Martijn Meerts]

Jeff, that's really cool, would've loved to have seen that live, but it's a bit short notice =)

 

 

Really cool that JR-East is picking up the transportation and hotel cost. While it's peanuts for them, it does show they're interested in Japanese model trains outside of Japan. Who knows, maybe either JR-East or JR-West (or both) will ask you to do a small layout for their own booth so they can show off new shinkansen trains. Pretty sure it'd make their stands a lot more interesting at least :D

[Jcarlton]

If you need help I will be there.  I take the train in frequently.

[kvp]

This is really great! I wish i could just go and visit the show.

[Vato]

Jeff, id you need help, I'm free saturday 03.08 let me know

[cteno4]

Thanks everyone, its been a fast thing here. we were only contacted a couple of weeks ago and took time to get everything set and arrangements made. It will be great to have some visitors from JNS come by, wonderful to meet folks in person!

 

we set up late wed evening and i think tear down sat night. should be pretty easy, only difficult part seems getting stuff up to the van! i dont think we can use any sort of rolling dollies so we have to pack up into boxes big enough to carry a lot but small enough to carry easily. driving in, finding the unloading area and driving out will be fun!

 

Ill keep folks posted as we know more of what the scoop is as it gets closer. 

 

jeff

[cteno4]

Small update.

 

Layout is progressing along. Last week we made 1" styrene foam modules framed with 1x2 (0.75" x1.5"). there are 4 middle sections at 2' x 3.5' and 2 end sections at 4.5' x 2'. These are attached together by 2 dowels between each module joint and these are just solid enough to hold them together w/o any extra fastens. The layout makes a donut layout 11' long x 4.5' wide with a 6' x 0.5" hole in the center. we prefer the hole in the center to break the scene up more and not create one giant scene.

 

these module bases just rest on tables then that should be provided (we will have portable ones in the van as backups though!). The top has a layer of heavy brown paper on it as a neutral base to draw the track pattern on as well as building placement if we wish. on top of this we will glue down printed roads, different colored construction papers for cement etc and then also plunk down small scenery sections on top of that along with buildings. Since this is a totally borrowed layout from club members collections we are not going to go the full route of a built up layout like the regular jrm layout (thats too big to fit in this space).

 

we have most of the basic buildings placed and scenes set so now members will be working on different bits of scenery for specific scenes. also have a 60" double wide kato shinkansen station built up. was going to be 8' but its too cold here to do the contact cement laminations needed to make my own station plates. we have two ground lines one a larger outer oval and the inner wanders with a crossover for a twice around. Shinkansen is just a large 11' oval of kato viaduct. Its a limited space so we kept is simple. 

 

Scenes will have

 

- high rise area with large boulevard

- shinkansen station entrance plaza

- suburban

- suburban with small temple and festival

- old town

- refinery and tank loading

- small container yard and transfer

- local/express overhead station, 

- spa resort area

- larger temple

- small harbor with fishing boats and warehouse and boat yard

- rice paddy and farm houses

- mountain temple

 

so we got a nice spread of scenes going on. ill snap some pictures at our next work session this week and get a dump of the final track plan posted. tomytec building boom is going on here to fill in some holes!

 

cheers

 

jeff

[loulasalle]

Looks as if I will have to take NJ transit into Penn Station and then leg it over to Grand Central. Are the dates firm 3/6 thru 3/9. I know that you will be looking for a large turnout, but I hope that I would be less than the crowds that showed up for the Terminal's Centenial last years.

 

Back in the late1960's, I recall visiting a display promoting Japan, and it's products also in New York City. It was held onboard a ship docked on the West Side in the Hudson River. Very enjoyable, but I don't recall seeing any trains.

 

I am new to JNR railroading, and this forum, and I look forward to meeting you folks and viewing your handiwork.

 

Lou La Salle

[cteno4]

Lou,

 

were are there 6, 7, 8th. times are not totally clear yet, but looks like late morning thru early evening.

 

I have no idea of what to expect for the turnout, could be wild or mellow. Im pretty sure its in the main exhibit area at one end (i think south end) of the station and with normal art exhibits its mellow. this is more like a show with people there to talk with and a variety of stuff and is part of Japan Week events so it might get a lot more folks driven there than the usual art installations do. Also just the masses that go thru the station, can never tell how much a draw you will get from that. so who knows! We have done everything from sleepy train shows on a superbowl sunday (how not to have a crowd come to your train show) to the DC cherry blossom Sakura Matsuri festival with 150,000+ and crowds that felt like you were on stage at a rock concert with the crowd rushing the stage (first year we did it, almost a disaster at one point), so we are ready for anything.

 

Hope to see you there! Will be fun to see jr modelers in the NYC area. Would love it if we could do a dinner or something, but I dont know if we will have the time depending on schedules of the event. there are only three of us coming up so its going to be all hands on to do the show stuff.

 

jeff

[cteno4]

ok I just checked and it looks like we are in Vanderbilt hall at the south end of the station.

 

the official times are

 

March 6 is 11am - 11pm.
March 7 is 10am - 11pm.
March 8 is 10am - 7pm.

 

but im not sure how late we are going at night with it, they said some others might be closing earlier so we may do the same if totally wiped out.

 

jeff

[Melandir]

I'm happy for you Jeff :) have a good show and take some picture to show us please

[cteno4]

Thanks Melandir, should prove to be an interesting one for sure! Whats fun is it will be grand central station and interacting more with JR East! 

 

jeff

[cteno4]

Ok the van is all packed! actually not all that bad for a layout of 10'x4.5'! lots of fun scenes, we focused on doing simpler track work and more on a lot of fun scenes. sorry i wasnt taking the picts tonight at break down (and it was in really crappy lighting anyway, so ill start snapping picts thurs at the set up in grand central and hopefully get them up maybe thrus night if im not dead by then (we drive up to nyc wed and then have to load in at 4am and be set up by 8am and show goes 11 to 11 then yeuch!)

 

So if can pop into grand central station thrus, friday or sat, come say hello! we are at the south end in vanderbilt hall.

 

http://www.eturbonews.com/43348/japan-week-2014-comes-grand-central-terminal

 

we are listed as japanese train enthusiasts!

 

cheers

 

jeff

[Vato]

will be there

[cteno4]

Well we kicked ass at Grand Central! The layout we pulled together for this show was great and was a huge success with the audience! we had crowds all the time! Folks loved it and even the other exhibitors (mainly more trade show sort of presentations) loved it and even one exec came over and thanked us for holding people in the exhibit area so long! Was super nice of him to say this. The organizer of Japan Week who wanted something fun came in and loved the layout was way more than she was expecting! 

 

Was quite the event getting in at 4am, unloading everything on the ny sidewalk outside grand central, bomb dog sniffing over everything first! set up was delayed but we were ready before the opening ceremony. about 700 pieces and all made it fine except for the city sidewalk with about 100 people got all slammed off the side walk in the drive up, but was fine, we had to have one thing go bang.

 

Vatato and Bernard both made it in and was great to de-virtualize them! Had a great time chatting with them!

 

Today was too nuts to do much photography, and im pooped. ill get some picts up friday.

 

cheers,

 

jeff

[lurkingknight]

this thread is worthless without pics :D

[Vato]

I was very happy to see you guys. evening was pleasant and interesting

[Melandir]

We want pics :) :) I'd like to see you and your layout

[cteno4]

sorry i have been running on overdrive up here at the show and have not been able to take many pictures as too many people to deal with and folks coming to visit! today miyakoji came today for a visit! 

 

Im going in early tommorow before the show so i can pull the crowd barrier back and take some picts before the public hits!

 

also been managing the web site for an 144 scale modeler convention this week so having to spend what little before bed time uploading the next days stuff for that! 

 

I PROMISE lots of picts will come!

 

cheers

 

jeff

Edited March 8, 2014 by cteno4

[JR 500系]

Oh man ¬¬ Sounds like fun! We'll never have a train show here....

[miyakoji]

I had a good time speaking with cteno4 and viewing JRM's layout.  It looked great and there was constantly a crowd to view and photograph it.  I'm looking forward to the Cherry Blossom Festival in DC.

 

The cold noodles were excellent as well, for better or for worse I could probably eat 3 more bowls of that in under 5 minutes.

[Bernard]

The JRM's  layout is the hit of the Japanese Expo in Grand Central Station! There was always a crowd around the layout....in my opinion it was the busiest kiosk at the exhibit....It was also great to meet the JRM members in person.....I had a great time!