March 2013
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March 2013 |
World's Greatest Hobby on Tour Show - Del Mar, CA! The World's Greatest Hobby on Tour (WGHoT) arrived at the Del Mar Fairgrounds (San Diego, California Metropolitan area) on February 9-10, 2013. This was their forty-second show since they begin operation in Edison New Jersey in 2004. This was their second visit to the Del Mar Fairgrounds, having appeared there in 2008. The WGHoT continues to introduce the general public to the hobby of model railroading in an exciting, family-oriented atmosphere. About half of the people that attend WGHoT state that they have NEVER been to a train show before, exposing this hobby to thousands of new potential model railroaders. The show is normally a great success due to the advertising methodologies employed by Competitive Intelligent Advertising, a firm founded by the founder of both companies, David K. Swanson, who still serves as Chairman Emeritus of the show. WGHoT is currently owned and chaired by Randy Bachmann, a graduate of the old Great American Train Show (GATS), which was a fixture in the hobby from the 1980s until 2001. WGHoT shows are managed by Train Show Inc., Carol Stream, Il 60188 and are normally a success due to the amount of advertising done for the show. They ensure that full color ads are in magazines such as Classic Toy Trains, Model Railroader, Model Railroad News, O Gauge Railroading and Railroad Model Craftsman. They normally obtain over 270 thirty-second spots on local TV stations. In this case, KGTV (ABC), KFMB (CBS), KSWB (Fox), KSND (ABC), XETV (CW), XDTV, and KUSI. Newspaper ads are normally employed, this casein the San Diego Union Tribune and direct mail and email is also used. An advertising budget of over $85,000 were expended for this show alone. Their attendance figures are noteworthy since most shows are conducted during the October-March time frame when some very bad weather can be present. But even during the worst blizzards or downpours, at least 12,000 visitors manage to find a way to get to their shows. Since inception over 1,030,000 visitors or an average of over 25,000 per show have seen the WGHoT. Twice WGHoT has had over 40,000 visitors, Philadelphia (Oaks, PA) in 2009 and Washington D.C. 2010. The Washington D.C. attendance stands as the largest known attendance at any model train show world-wide. Show hours are normally 10:00 AM to 6:00 PM on Saturday and 10:00 AM to 5:00 PM on Sunday. What distinguishes this show is that the major model train manufacturers have booths and display their products. Shown next is the Bachmann display, which was impressive:
We noted a very interesting PCC car on one of the shelves, a model of SEPTA car 2117 along with a Los Angeles "Fruit Salad" PCC:
This is the same model that was forced to be pulled from the shelves in the 1980s when a model of a similar car 2100 was brought out by Bachmann without SEPTA's permission. Those older models sold on eBay for some really high amounts. What a difference a few years makes. To avoid that "swap meet" appearance, all dealer tables are required to be covered and draped. We really like their dealer business card size dealer identification tags. Many manufacturers such as Kato, Athearn, Lionel and Walthers had presence at the show. Click on their names to see their displays. Broadway Limited had samples of their their soon-to-be-delivered PRR T-1 4-4-4-4 duplex steam locomotives on display:
Other major players in the model train market appear at these shows with huge displays. Some of these were MTH and Piko, Trolleyville was represented by Holland Traction Supply and Custom Traxx who was showing the prototype of the Bowser New Orleans 900 series streetcar. Of course, there was one very annoying event, caused by some state government bureaucrats. This show had been scheduled for months with the Del Mar Fairgrounds. Included in the attractions was a Thomas Train Ride, which was on a small track indoors. This train has been used all over the country and is heavily supervised and has never been involved in any mishaps. The state agency controlling such rides waited until the Friday before the show to notify the Del Mar Fairgrounds staff that they needed some sort of license to run the ride. The next photo shows some of the disappointed visitors taking photos of their children in the state-idled Thomas train.
Could not someone have approved this ride in time for the public enjoymen? How long would this have taken? Obviously not in the cards for this show. This was not a Fairgrounds decision but they were stuck having to explain this nonsense to the crowds of Thomas lovers. The good news is that the problem was worked out in time for the recent Sacramento show and Thomas will be available for the San Mateo Show this weekend. A Decoder for a Double-End PCC Car! We had been working with Train Control Systems (TCS) for a decoder that would allow us to give the double end PCC cars the same lighting and start-stop sequences available for the Bowser single-end PCC cars. We had obtained some of the resin cast "Torpedo" shells occasionally offered by a suburban Philadelphia firm. After testing our car, we can now tell you to do this starting with a simple TCS KAM4, KAT14 or M4P decoder. After you install your lights (Installing lamps or LED's require a lesson all by themselves. We used the LED's and resistors supplied by TCS!) and decoder, do a factory reset (CV8 = 2) and then set up your car for the trolley features (CV8=12). Then change the following values: (CV3=5), (CV4=5), (CV33=1), (CV34=2), (CV35=4), (CV36=4), (CV49=0), (CV50=16), (CV51=30), (CV52=14) and (CV61=137). That should do it. It worked for us! |
Bowser Manufacturing gets their first article of their new New Orleans streetcar!
More views of the shell and the detailed under floor are shown below:
Bowser has developed a new 4' 10" power truck for this car and the prototype was on display also along with the Brill 76E sideframes. This truck uses the same gears used in the current traction mechanism. It is expected that the first operational prototypes should be at the Southern California Traction Club test track to begin testing within a month. New Manufacturer of Replacement Traction Drives ! Fred Gurzeler has been a member of the Southern California Traction Club (SCTC) since December 2003 and has been closely working to try and solve some of the drive problems that plague HO scale traction lovers. The SCTC is primarily a running club as they go to six to eight shows every year and run traction under live overhead wires for hours at a time. Fred decided to form a little business, Maximum Traction Depot, (MTD) to design some brass floors to fit certain cars, furnish them with a reliable motor and flywheel and pwer trucks and begin testing. Such was provided to us in the form a a drive for the HO scale Pacific Electric 100 series city cars, imported some time ago by Hi-Country Brass. Some of the SCTC members have had difficulty in getting cars equipped with vertical can motors to run smoothly. They are not normally equipped with flywheels and as such, brief power interruptions when operating under overhead wire are very noticeable and more frequent with such cars. The TCS "Keep Alives™" would solve the problem in the DCC world but would not help the DC operator, so when MTD brought us a test drive, we were eager to try it.
We had some difficulty getting the unit into the car as the unit is longer than the hole in the floor provided. There has to be some maneuvering to get the chassis into the car. Once installed it ran noisily at first until broken in and lubricated. We feel that that placement of the flywheels may be a problem. Currently accepted practice is to mount flywheels on the motor shaft, otherwise they tend to emit a vibration which translates to noise, especially at higher operating speeds. MTD also gave us a drive/chassis for a Pacific Electric "Hollywood", series 600-759, car for evaluation. We chose to install it in one of our "Valley Seven" units that were imported by the OriginalWhistle Stop. These units also came originally with vertical can motors. The new MTD drive chassis is shown in the next photo:
We tested the unit on Thursday, February 28 and it ran very slowly but exhibited the same noisy qualities until the unit "broke in"and was lubricated. As with the former unit, cars with these units installed could use some weight added. Our unit tested at 6.8 ounces after the MTD drive was installed and the unit was taken to the SCTC test track for evaluation.
We noticed that some of our other Hollywood Cars weigh about 8.9 ounces after they had been remotored but the MTD unit is eight-wheel drive versus the four-wheel drive of the other units. So additional weight will be a consideration just as it is in other drive upgrades. We are telling you about this company NOW because when the few 'bugs" are worked out on these drives (and they will be), these will be high quality, great performing units.
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