Show Report:
by Tom Morse and Ken K.
Setup
Tom:
MichLTC participated in the annual Rails on Wheels Train Show -
Saline, Michigan. Tom met Chris at his house at 11:00 a.m. to pull
the trailer for this show. Setup was from 12 noon to 2:30 pm November
29th Tom, Chris and Lester set up tables and base plates along with
some other small items. 8:30 am to 10 am on November 30th the rest of
the members finished the setup just in time for the show with a small
problem with the outer loop of track not working well. It's time to
have a cleaning party for the club tracks.
Ken:
We had a devil of a time getting one track to run.
Jim got one of the rail-cleaner 'erasers.' (Some WD40 was put to use as well! - Ed.)
I know several folks were scratching their heads
for a while and we were unable to run Spencer's trains
(note - that was a separate issue: a clearance problem caused by the length of Spencers train cars - Ed.).
It seems worth noting because it was the most difficult time I can recall....
The Show
Tom:
The one day show went quite well; the crowds were in abundance. The
MichLTC train layout was perhaps the most popular layout at the
show. Our layout is in the back corner of the show yet we seemed to
have the largest crowds. Steve Grant's rock concert had a lot of
comments including adding some music to the show. At the kids
building table I saw a small girl with a Lego crown on her head that
was very cute a photo was taken of her and I hope we can post it. A
one day show seems like it's over before it began, but it's still
great fun.
Steve Grant's Guns N Roses concert rocks the people of Bricksburg.
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The Hogwarts Express magically stays on the tracks as it steams past some large buildings.
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Ken:
The rock concert was indeed a big hit. There was one guy that
came by in the afternoon and he just was mesmerized by the concert.
He called folks over to look at it and just kept coming back. I think
that MOC is great because it has so much going on in one place. You
can stand there and pick out detail after detail without moving.
In most other places the display was light on cars and to some extent
people. I neglected to bring any people and few vehicles (in part due
to our recent move). Chris is converting over to 6-wide vehicles so
the 4-wides are being disposed of/parted-out etc. Another factor was the
second MichLTC display going on at FOT (Festival of Trees in Allen Park).
Greg Kramer stopped by for a visit. The crowd did seem larger than in past years at this show.
(I heard that they sold 600 tickets by noon, a higher total than usual - Ed.)
That's always nice.
Teardown
Tom:
Teardown began at 3:48 pm on Sunday because the weather was getting
bad and the attendance was low by the end of the show. Due to the
good participation from MichLTC members, we had everything taken down
and stowed away by 4:34 p.m. The trains were still running during
teardown because we started a little early and we had a train crash
before finally stopping the trains at the end of the show. Tom, Chris
and Sandy took the trailer from this show over to Festival of Trees
show because that show was tearing down at the same time. As for what
happened after that refer to the Festival of trees report because I
am not going to repeat it. After what happened that night I did
manage to make it home on time to watch the Extreme House makeover
airing of the show that the club participated in. I hope that I can
be trusted to pull the trailer in the future.:)
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