On Friday, May 16 South Carolina celebrated National Tourism Week as well as the 4oth aniversory of the state's Welcome Center Program. As part of the festivities I set up a small garden railway at the Hardeeville Welcome Center on I-95 just north of the GA border.
First of all, I owe everybody on the forum a big thank you. Your tips helped make the exhibit a success. It was well recieved by the traveling public and some of the other exhibitors. Thanks for all your help.
The layout consisted of a 6'x9' loop of aristocraft track, a few buildings and some battery-operated Thomas the Tank Engine toys all of which ran well with onyl a few minor hicups. I added a few buildings and some brochurs about South Carolina's railroad attractions.
On another positive note, the children who watched the trains were very well behaved and not one of them touched anyhting. In fact the only one who touched something and caused a problem was a parrent wanting to show his daughter that "Thomas wasn't dead" because he was on a siding at the time.
I also managed to learn a few things about public displays:
1. Use hook & loop couplers. Yes they are unprototypical and butt-ugly but they are rock-solid reliable. In addition, they can be secured with plastic zip-ties, which makes theft virtualy impossible.
2. Run a short train. Short trains = fewer problems.
3. Always have an extra scotchbrite pad.
Modeling the Pennsylvania Railroad in N Scale.
www.prr-nscale.blogspot.com
Hey, Ya done good! Yes, you educated folk about garden railroads and other railroad attractions in your area; but most importantly, you learned some things. Any day you learn something is not wasted!
Rubber bands can also be an integral part of doing a temporary display. They work on lots of things from holding track sections together to quick temporary coupler repair!
Good show! Yes, there are different rules when showing trains to the public, reliability is what they remember, not zip ties or rubber bands. 99.98% of the viewers know nothing about trains, model trains, couplers or anything else for that matter, so do what you need to in order to make a reliable, interesting and educational display.
Once again, good show and thank you for bringing this segment of the hobby into the public eye.
The Dixie D Short Line "Lux Lucet In Tenebris Nihil Igitur Mors Est Ad Nos 2001"
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