The Mike Phillips N Scale Weekend is scheduled for the Blair County Convention center the weekend of Sep 14-15, 2024. Always a good show in a great venue. I have scored some great deals on N scale model RR stuff here in the past and expect to do likewise this year. So, in addition to packing up my trains, I am also packing some cash. See you there!
I will be there with the Combined T-Trak layout folks. I'm one of the electrical coordinators. It's a love / hate relationship being a coordinator.
Bummer, better luck next year. Mike, I hope to bump into you sometime in the weekend. Altoona and Springfield are my model train roadtrips of the year.
A couple of shots of Capital PenNScalers getting it together. We're set up between BANTRAK and Cantington.
Had a great time at the show and it was great seeing some folks I've not seen in awhile from the different groups. Also picked up some great stuff and was even surprised to find a few items on my list that sold out quickly a few years ago. Best part is, I didn't pay an arm and a leg for them, they were reasonably priced.
Finally made it over to the FreeMon layout Sunday. (above) Last couple of shots of the Capital PenNScalers NTRAK. (below)
You guys are probably wondering where the heck are MK's pictures???? Well, a ton of crap has been happening since I got back from Altoona. No calamity or bad news, just life getting in the way. Unlike last year, I took very few pictures this year. The first road block was electrical issues with the Combined T-Trak layout. It was myself and another club member who were the "electrical guys". It is the norm to have electrical issues when multiple clubs come together and the modules haven't been used together to see if there are any issues. These are often resolved rather quickly. T-Trak after all is a "standard". LOL!!!!! Not this time! We started setup on Friday but just couldn't get the layout working. Kept getting shorts and just couldn't trace it down. The convention center had to close by 5:30pm so we left without any resolution. We continued the next morning at 8am, an hour before the show starts and the public comes streaming in. Well, it took us three plus hours to finally figure out what was the problem. It came down to just ONE bad module. I know this will make people ask, it took that long to figure it out??? Well, it was a pretty extensive layout. Here's the rough draft of it. Each square box is 1' x 1'. After it was resolved it was lunch time and then the afternoon was one of those situation where you just wanted to go home having the entire morning "ruined". I was totally exhausted! While the two of us were crawling under tables, running around the layout, grabbing all sorts of diagnostic tools, etc. people just sat around rolling their eyes, looking grumpy because they couldn't run trains. No one offered encouragement or even some humor to get us two going. And here's the kicker, only ONE person thanked us afterwards and told us that he realized what we went through. Once the layout was working everyone just piled on and ran trains. Total congestion! But that's okay. I expected this whenever you have unknown modules combined for the first time and hoping they would work with each other. It's not the first time nor the last time. Thinking about upcoming Amherst gives chills down my spine!
Which is one of the reasons I prefer to not participate in any large combined layout. There is too much of the "good enough" modeling. Now I don't expect museum quality craftsmanship on everything but as a minimum, I do expect established standards to be adhered to.
Years ago I was at a show featuring a large DC HO layout and all was at a standstill with a short. There was much head scratching and talk before someone found the culprit. The lighted observation car in a member's train had its rear truck spun 180 Deg. and that somehow did it.
It's a double edged sword. If you don't participate and overcome some of the "negatives" of a combined layout, where would you have access to an extensive layout to run (long) trains? I can't imagine the electrical guys for the 2026 NMRA Convention in July where they will attempt to break the record with a 100' x 100' combined T-Trak layout. I think I'm going to show up a day after the event starts.
Continuing on... Saturday evening, a bunch of us went to the tracks to do some rail fanning after a good dinner to calm the nerves. No,, no alcohol was involved. It was a convenient 15 mins local drive. These tracks lead to and from Horseshoe Curve. A few members had scanners so we knew when and what type of trains were coming. There were some traffic but not as much as was two years ago where trains were going left and right every 10 mins. Maybe back then it was playing catch-up after the pandemic. I couldn't get more pictures because soon there wasn't enough light for clear shots. You can start seeing that in the second picture with the blur. We were there until 9pm when it was pretty much totally dark. It was a great time had by all. Even the younger generation enjoyed it, which is a good sign for us older guys. The hobby is not dying.
Good of you to note that. I see many young railfans these days, most preferring videos to traditional photography. They are far better informed than I am about modern railroading. It's indeed a great thing to see.
Funny thing is HE was one of the two who had scanners! He's actually a fairly new member of my club. A REALLY nice young man and extremely polite. Just started his Freshman year in high school. Joined the club last year with his father and it's not his father taking the lead. He's barely interested in trains. He's just the driver, taking his kid to all the shows the club goes to. The kid knows a HELL lot more about 1:1 trains than a lot of us. You're right. He does a lot more videos than photos - thus the tripod and filming in the dark, possible for video, impossible for photos.
Are they using their smart phones for video? Almost everyone has a great quality camera/video camera in their phones today. And it's always with us/them. No developing, instant, and can be shared just as quick. It's amazing really! Who knew?
I know... That I hardly ever carry my eighth-generation Digital Rebel anymore, which is a shame because it's a really good camera on which I can only do the basics. Even my not very smart phone takes decent enough photos, witness the ones below that are off topic (taken at Genesee Junction, where the Livonia, Avon and Lakeville interchanges with CSX's "West Shore" (that name a reference to the original New York, West Shore and Buffalo Railroad of which is this is one of the remaining pieces). And that despite my taking hundreds of photos at the National N Scale Convention in Nashville in 2022, the "feature photo" in the article I wrote on the event for Railroad Model Craftsman was taken by Colleen... with her iPhone.
