August 2008
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August 2008 |
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The Derby City Express & the World's Largest Modular Model Railroad Display - June 28-29, 2008! Despite the lure of many summertime outdoor activities, around 14,000 visitors chose to attend this train show and Trolleyville was there on Sunday, June 29th. This show was presented along with the 2008 N-Scale Convention. As can now be expected at a Worlds Greatest Hobby on Tour Show, all the major model railroad manufacturers were there, some with grandiose displays. Included in the list was Athearn, Atlas, Bachmann, Bowser, Con-Cor, Digitrax, Lionel, Kato, MTH, Walthers, Woodland Scenics. By now, anyone interested in model trains must know that if you want to see the latest products, the WGHoT is a show never to miss! Several new traction products were seen at the show including the following O scale products:
One of these days, some of these manufacturers will learn how to display trolley poles on a model trolley. This "Who Framed Roger Rabbit" treatment of trolley poles with them just waving in the air needs to go away and fast! That being said, the distinguishing feature of this show was the huge model railroad display put together by one N-scale group. The project manager for this magnificent display was Paul Downs, a 46 year old family man from Louisville. He has been in the hobby for over 30 years and is a member of the Kentuckiana Society of N-scalers (KSONS). Paul is seen below with Trolleyville reporter George Huckaby in front of the Milwaukee club display.
KSONS has experience in assembling large N-scale modular layouts. They hosted a 100' x 80' N-Trak layout in this same hall on January 11-12, 2003. Clubs from Kentucky, Missouri, Indiana, Ohio, Tennessee, and Illinois all came together to assemble over 110 modules totaling 13 scale miles of track per line, all running Digitrax DCC. The display had 116 miles of mainline track with Milepost 0 at the model of Louisville Union Station:
We were told that it would take over four hours for a single train to traverse the entire layout but we were unable to find anyone who had actually done it. The layout was so large that the vendors booths were in a U shape surrounding it. N-trak, the organization that is the basis for this activity, was conceived in 1973 to provide a way to assemble very large layouts with small individually built units. The organization provided documentation to allow all modules to simply "plug together". There are over 150 clubs in the United States, Canada, England, Europe, Japan, Australia and New Zealand. This concept explores the true advantage of N-scale, the ability to assemble and operate trains of prototypical length. There were many very long trains and we observed no major derailments and every though we are a trolley oriented publication, we could not overlook the ease with which several long trains traversed their way around this huge layout. It literally took hours to walk around the entire layout. What is remarkable abut the World's Greatest Hobby on Tour shows is there is something for kids of all ages. in fact, it can be said that this show may be the only model trains entity currently aiming advertising at the younger folks. There is a huge Thomas area for the younger kids, shown below before they arrived:
But it doesn't take long for this area to be well used:
For those a little older, there are the self-propelled trains:
This ride was constantly used all through the show. In all, we observed more families with younger children at this and other World's Greatest Hobby on Tour (WGHoT) show than any others so manufacturers who intend to be selling model trains years from now would be well advised to attend this show and from the list of vendors provided, most of them are on the team! The lesson here is that if you hear of a large N-scale layout being assembled at another World's Greatest Hobby on Tour show, do not miss it! No matter what type or size of trains is your specialty, it is worth the cost to get there, even with the recent rise in travel costs. |
The Big Train Show This is the same show that was a legend on the Queen Mary for sixteen years. A few years ago, it became obvious that the Queen Mary was not being maintained at a level desired by On Track Productions, so the show was moved to Ontario. This was the second year that the show was in Ontario, so Trolleyville decided to check out the show.
The major large scale displays were there, including the Del Oro Pacific, Arizona Big Train Operators, Door Hollow Shortline, Sundance Central and the Live Steam Operators. Large Scale Model Train Manufacturers were there, including Accucraft, Aristo-Craft, Bachmann, Hartland Locomotive Works, LGB, MTH and USA Trains among others. This show has often ben the place where new and exciting products are revealed. This year was no exception! The big traction news was the preliminary views of the Aristo-Craft 1:29 scale Pre-War PCC Car under development. Lewis Polk was at the show and explained the car to Trolleyville.
A nice touch at this show was the Hall of Fame display dedicated to the pioneers of model railroading, some of whom are shown below:
Lew English founded Bowser Manufacturing which later acquired Pennsylvania Scale Models (PSM). PSM is the source of the four metal trolleys, now offered by Bowser, that were the staple trolley models used by HO scale traction modelers for many years. Bernard Paul, founder of AHM, produced the only HO scale model of a U.S. Light Rail Vehicle ever offered to this day, the Boeing Light Rail Vehicle.
H. Lee Riley was one of the main forces behind the HO scale Bachmann Peter Witt introduced to the modeling public last year. and last but not least, Lewis Polk is currently introducing the large scale model of the PCC shown earlier. Another new handy product from Custom Traxx! In response to those modelers who were repowering older brass models with the Bowser's 1999 traction mechanism, Custom Traxx recently made new Bowser sideframe spacers available. These items, part number 1341, are transition mounts that allow any brass or resin sideframe to be attached to the Bowser mechanism.
The above photo shows two different views of the spacer.
The above photo shows the spacer mounted on a Bowser truck with 26" NorthWest Short Line Nickel Silver Wheels. Because they are made of different material from the Bowser truck, on occasion, some sort of adhesive may be required to keep the mount secured to the truck.
The final step is to firmly adhere the sideframe to the mount, using ACC or Walthers Goo, after perfectly positioning the sideframes relative to the wheels. Custom Traxx was evaluating the new sideframe for their coming CLRV model when these photos were taken. For more information, see Section V of the Custom Traxx on-line Catalog. |
Next issue . . . . The Anaheim, California National Train Show!!! |
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The car is based on the 1001-1099 series PCC cars delivered to Brooklyn, NY in 1936. Car 1001 is widely accepted as the first production PCC car. The cars ran until 1956 and car 1001 has been preserved in a museum and is currently operational.
