Comments on the national convention?

[Rene Schweitzer]

This is a few days late, due to the forums being down. Anyone care to comment on last week's national convention?

I thought it was great. I saw Jack Verducci's railway for the first time, and never realized how large it was! Wonderful work. Also saw Bob Brown's garden railway and On3 (indoor). His wife was so friendly and gave me a tour of where they produce the magazine (Narrow Gauge & Shortline Gazette, for those of you who don't know him).

It was also nice to see a variety of vendors in the hall this year. A couple had items for kids and jewelry for the ladies. Something for everyone. I haven't heard any attendance numbers, but my guess is that it was well attended. They added a sixth bus to the railway tours by the end of the week! Wow!

Rene

[Rene Schweitzer]

No one has any comments. . .my post is feeling lonely. :(

[Anonymous]

I had a great time.
 


You can see my short article here: http://www.ddavid.com/schwarzburg/2006/07/22nd-national-garden-railway.html

[Tom The Brat]

Comments?

You want me to say, "It should have been in Illinois again?"

[Anonymous]

No way, the weather was beautiful and there are 350 garden railways in the Bay Area.

[Anonymous]

My wife,son and I drove down to the convention from Santa Rosa.  We found the hotel ok, but the trip from the parking lot into the exhibition hall via the ticket booth was not readily obvious to any of the crowd of people who were wandering past doors with train signs on them that only led to empty rooms, gathering in little confused groups and talking to each other in an effort to gain entry to the hall.  The 20 or so people around me would all agree that the directions/signage could have been improved.  Once in it was great.  My wife later said she enjoyed watching me.  That I was like a kid at Christmas. My 12 year old enjoyed the kids area and the running layouts.  My wife said that after walking around the big layout she then understood better some of the things I have been talking about. As most of the hobbie/train  stores around here have closed, this was a great opportunity for me to see the products up close and personal. I ended up buying 4 cars and a caboose in 1:20.3 and a GN15 mine car.  This is  first rolling stock for my, soon to be, garden RR.  It now occupies pride of place on the mantel.  We also got in on the slide show presentation on starting a garden RR.  Good stuff.  Nice guys. Great day.

[gallopinggoose]

Well Rene, we are back in the UK after our epic voyage to California, and yes we both enjoyed our visit to the Garden Railway Convention packing in as many of the railroads on the tours as possible in the time allowed (although we didn't manage everyone on the first day, we missed on, we then planned our visits for the next 6 days). Some of the instructions in the brochure where a little out to say the least, one said turn right when it should have said turn left!!??

The Abate Bros was the hightlight of our tour, oh yes and the ex-Japanese Garden (they know who I am talking about), was fantastic.  Although they were all very good and Malcolm has more ideas than I can cope with for our "small" railroad in the UK!!??  AFter 5 days of perpetual garden railways though I was a little "railway lagged" (now I am jet lagged) and I was happy to have a couple of days in San Francisco before we came back home.

It was great to meet you (Rene) and Vance also Marc who was a little pre-occupied being the first night open for the dealers etc., but we managed to buy quite a lot of railway items to bring back saving us quite a lot of money compared to UK prices or if we had to have the items shipped out.  My favourite part of our trip, I am sorry to say was a balloon trip over Napa and I apologise for being so "non railway thrilled" (NOT) . Malcolm however has taken hundreds of photographs of the Garden Railways we visited and we did meet some very nice people, and some very interesting ones too!!!

We have promised two of our new friends that we will try and make the Colorado Garden Railway Convention in 2009 (?) but we hope to stay in contact with ALL the new friends we met during our week in Santa Clara.

We would invite you all to our humble Garden Railway in the UK if ever you are over here, so please let us know!

Carol Ravensdale

[gallopinggoose]

Not many replies to this one Rene, we can't have been the only one to attend can we ???

We have been in touch with some of the lovely people we met on our tours of the garden railways so now waiting to see if they will reply (some people give out email addresses but have no intention to keep in touch like they say they will)  WATCH THIS SPACE as they say

[tomgb]

I'll add my bit from another viewpoint - a day visitor. My wife and I came up Sunday from Santa Cruz for the vendors' displays. Having belonged to other hobby associations that have conventions, we've discovered that the "live" product displays add quite a bit more information to an advertisement we see printed in a magazine and, quite frankly, it's nice to have the instant gratification of making the decision to buy and taking your newfound treasure home with you.

The display hall was well laid out and we enjoyed looking at everything. We actually made purchases at 4 different vendors and seriously considered products at 3 others. The charges were piling up so I managed some spending limits. Everyone we talked to was very nice, helpful and surprisingly cheerful considering it was near the end of the convention and taking down and packing the remainders up to return home was just a few hours away.

I know this is a lot of work for the vendors but it really helps to be able to see the product and then be able to ask the sales representative some detailed questions, especially if a major purchase is being considered.

Not to be overlooked - the big operating displays were also a treat. Thanks to all who brought their module dioramas for viewing.