I Hobbies Expo Pictures

[Anonymous]

I spent six very enjoyable days at the I Hobbies Expo last week (two days of set-up, four days of playing with trains.

I want to make a point of thanking Matt Jackson, John Pignatelli, and Ramon Garcia of AGHRS, as well as Glenn Passmore, Al Vierich, and the entire TTOS Layout Crew for assistance, above and beyond the call of duty with set up and, especially tear down.

We operate under the dual banners of the So Cal DCS Demonstration Team and The TCA Western Division Layout.

The I Hobbies Show was excellent. There were all manner of hobby products: Trains, R/C Airplanes, Helicopters, Ships, Cars, Rockets, Plastic Models, etc. R/C Planes and Helicopters were flown inside the building within a huge net.

On Friday I was honored to meet Charlie Nassau.

Truly a nice guy, and extremely knowledgeable. It was extremely interesting talking with him.

There were multiple layouts present. Here is the TTOS Southwestern Division Layout:

These guys are incredibly well organized and can build and disassemble this layout, with all of its accessories, in a few hours.
They were, by the way, running DCS (you knew I would work that in there...).

Here is a shot of the Lionel Layout, provided by Cal Hobby. It was, of course, running TMCC:


Here is a shot of the MTH Layout, provided by the So Cal DCS Demonstration Team:

Five loops of track, 10 PS-2 Engines Running in Command, 1 Lionel Engine running in TMCC Command through DCS, and one conventional.

Veiw of the front portion of the layout. The MTH Reproduction Airplane and Airport, as well as the MTH PS2 PCC cars running on the new K-Line Superstreets:

In the foreground are an original Lionel Culvert Loader and Unloader, operated, of course, through DCS.

Here is a shot of John Pignatelli and Matt Jackson operating the layout. John has just handed his DCS Remote to one of the children at the show. She seemed to enjoy using it.


Matt is running 12 trains at once in this photo, while flying the airplane with his feet:


Repro MTH Ives 3243 R is streaking towards him.

A Large-Nosed DCS Fanatic showing that anyone can use DCS. Again running 12 trains at once, this time through one remote.


Running 12 trains simultaneously is not hard at all with DCS. You can see what you are running from DCS through the display in the Handheld, and with the synchronized speed control in the DCS/PS2 locomotives and the "All" command, you can start up and run all of the PS-2 locomotives simultaneously. The only ones which required individual attention were the conventional and the TMCC locomotives. The TMCC locomotive operated here was a Standard Gauge Commodore Vanderbilt, running on the same track at the same time as an MTH PS2 408E Passenger set (on the very large outer loop).

The most unusual landing of all the aircraft at the show was performed by Professor Jackson:


As far as the reliability of the electronics goes, everything worked beautifully throughout the show. The MTH Premier Yellowstone ran all day, on each of the four show days, racking up around 500 scale miles. The MTH 408E and the Lionel Commodore Vanderbilt did also. The PCC cars never really got a break, as I just let them run by themselves during lunch breaks.

All of the equipment: DCS, TMCC, the PS2 locomotives, the TMCC locomotive, and the conventional locomotive, all ran extremely well.

Next stop-Cal Stewart!