Michigan LEGO® Users Group

Attendees:

Layout:

• Greg Gallup
• Jim Garrett
• Ken K.
• Trevor K.
• Greg Kramer
• Chris Leach
• Sandy Leach
• Spencer Rezkalla
• Steve Ringe
• Steve Weiser

Overall Picture Galleries:

Show Report:

MichLTC put up an impressive display at the annual Great Train Expo in Novi, MI. This event is usually "the big one" for the club to pull out all the stops. This year, however it will merely be the dress-rehersal for the NMRA National Train Show which will be held in July 2007.

Chris Leach designed a complex 17.5 by 27.5 foot layout that included a large city, two suburban areas, an army base, a large freight yard, a farm, and even a small naval base. Chris said this was one of the most difficult layouts to plan especially in the city area where streets were planned to allow views of the buildings that were farther from the outer edge of the display.

While this layout included some old standbuys such as the Fisher Building and Spencer's Sears Tower, there were also a few relatively new structures such as Chris's high security tan office building and the elevated Detroit People Mover. My David Stott building, while almost a year old, did make its first appearance with the other skyscrapers. Ken's new naval base, situated in a small inlet and partially hidded under a large arch bridge, provides protection from rogue marine elements of nearby LTC forces. Steve Ringe provided a significant section of the layout including his drop section with moving cars and other mechanized tricks as well as the frieght yard. Steve also built a 3 foot long two track truss bridge that not only looked good, but also made it easier to get to the inside of the layout (thanks!) Greg K. provided a suburban section on one side of the city while Chris used 6 of the recent Lego house sets to build a typical tract home suburb on the other side of the city. Spencer (with Steve's help) also provided a small intermodal train yard.

The downtown was the largest that MichLTC has done to date. Three buildings exceeded six and a half feet in height and two more were at least four feet high. Few if any other clubs could put up a comparable number of tall buildings up on a layout. The quantity and density of the buildings provided many interesting photo opportunties. The size of the layout stretched our resorces to the limit. It was difficult to reach some parts of those concrete (or ABS) canyons for the placement of cars and people.

The GTE Novi show was well attended with hundreds of people arrayed around the layout at one time during some of the busier moments. There were two Lego vendors at the show, ready to cash in on enthusiam generated by the MichLTC layout. My observation is that they did a pretty good business (no small thanks to certain MichLTC members).

Mechanical Wizardry

Steve's drop section featuring the ever popular four wide cars driving around to the amazement of the kids. The automatic crossing gates complete with flashing lights are pretty nifty too.

Suburban Tranquility

Chris showed what you can do with six standard Lego sets (Creator Set 4956: House). Spencer's extremely detailed six-wide cars, trucks, and buses ensure that things do not remain too quiet.

Homeland Security

Ken's new naval base can handle any water-borne threat to the (largely) peaceful citizens of Bricksburg.