We had a great time at the meet, connecting again with old friends.

Kevin describes the advantages of the drill guide

Kevin’s module end plate drilling template continues to be a big success. It’s a great idea, and if we can get more groups to adopt it, we’ll have a great ability to securely connect modules from many groups together, regardless of the spec. The next update to the MADmodules spec will include using the same guide pin and a bolt hole locations.

Newell Sage clued me in to another piece of track planning software. The only drawback I can see right off the bat is that it’s available for Windows only. I’ve loaded up the demo version on my Windows7 laptop, and am so far very impressed. While there’s no library for Micro Engineering track, there is one for the Light Iron Track/Fast Tracks HO track, and the geometry of the #5′s is close enough — and I may be using some of the LITCo turnouts where I need so special trackage.

#6 steams in the yard in Corinna

Les finished up #6, and it now fits right in with #9 & #10. #6 represents an older loco, and the C&S shops have had to make a few repairs to the old wooden cab. Les has #4 now, and will get #5 to finish up as soon as I get the Mount Blue wood cab built. Numbers 4 and 5 are the 0-4-4 Forneys which, once completed, will represent the oldest locos on the line.

I picked up the rest of the parts I need to build the engine house at Corinna, though I’m still not sure what I’m going to do about the turntable itself. I know what I want it to look like, but the locations of adjacent tracks are going to make the installation tricky — I probably should have cut the hole for that prior to laying the caboose/MOW track.

Speaking of track, I’ve stocked up on enough Micro Engineering track and switches that I should be able to get all the way around to where I expect the “upper yard” to be — and maybe into the yard itself. I also found a few more Maine railroad books I wanted for the library, one of Deerfield Laser’s newest kits and a few more of the Grandt Line SR&RL freight car trucks.

Finally, I got some great hints on tree making from the Connecticut Shoreline guys. I’ll post an article on how they make conifers and deciduous trees in the future.

We had a heck of a ride home — the weather was simply terrible, and got worse and worse the closer to home we got. In fact, within about 15 miles of the house, we encountered downed trees and power lines and had to detour around for almost 45 minutes across back roads to get around.

[UPDATE -- Turns out that the mess close to home was caused by a tornado!]

So that’s it for the show report, with one little exception. Someone mentioned that they had seen On30Guy wipers for sale, and that they thought that someone else was making them. If anyone out there knows anything about this, I’d appreciate knowing about it.

Having spent the weekend at the train show, I’ve got admit that, even though I did find a couple of bargains and our small On30 modular setup was well received as usual, I was very disappointed overall. I also overheard several comments from visitors to the show, expressing their disappointment in the very low vendor count — about half of the “vendor hall” in the south end of the building was given over to layouts usually set up at the north end of the building.

As I mentioned, our small modular setup was a great success. One patron flatly pronounced our little layout as “the best thing here,” and today I was absolutely elated as a child loudly announced that he liked our trains better than the rest. Our layout put the trains right at his eye level, and with no ropes to keep him back, he was able to put his nose right up against the fascia and be completely enveloped by the scene. He followed our little train around the layout a couple of times, while his father tried to convince him to move on the the “easier to see” toy train layout next to us.

Maybe there is hope for the hobby yet!

One thing that there may not be hope for is the “general interest” train show. I had a conversation with some dealers who have been finding that they have much greater success at the specialty shows, like the various On30 meet-ups or the prototype modelers’ events. The concensus among dealers is that this area can no longer support the Great Scale Model Train Show four times a year, especially with 3-4 Greenburg shows a year happening at the same location. In fact, the crowd was so thin on Saturday morning, one exhibitor were prompted to quip, “I hear they’re going to open the show up any minute now” — an hour after the doors were opened.

One vendor I spoke to today, while eventually happy with his weekend’s work, was really concerned yesterday morning when, by 11AM, he had sold exactly nothing. He usually enjoys fairly brisk sales early on Saturdays.

One highlight of the show was the combined modular layout of the Sipping and Switching Society of North Carolina, The Ohio Valley Sipping and Switching Society and Capitol Free-Mo. The layout stretched the entire length of the North Hall, and reached easily 30 feet into the room. It featured 750ft of mainline track, with a total of 4,100 feet of track. And, there was even some quite excellent modeling. But, for overall quality, I still think that the local Four County Society of Model Engineers display was much more impressive. While a big display is great, a great display is not always big. In other words, the emphasis really should be on quality, not quantity.

That said, kibitzing with the Sipping and Switching guys is always a great deal of fun, and we continue to learn a lot from them every time we see them.