railroadedOne feature that I noticed really packs 'em in is the animated models of amusment parks with all the rides lit up & working with blaring music.
I've seen a couple of those at shows around here. They are really well-done models with working rides and plenty of lights, and lots of figures to make the scene complete.
A couple of other popular modules I've seen are the circus, complete with a Big Top and a circus train, and a corner module of the Disneyland Cinderalla palace.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
Hi dale8chevyss
And that sums up your argument better in the first five seconds than you or I could with words.
Some one needs a boot in the backside untill there nose bleeds for that.
First off some one or more should have done propper model bill board cars
and like you said where are the run of the mill ordinary cars.
I know what I think but this is a family forum so I just can't put it into words
regards John
I would have rather seen some handouts or stacks of business cards on a table or signs on the walls instead of all those business cards on the train. I think it really takes away from the layout and the running train display. The club layout looks really nice except for the business cards and advertising boxcars.
Just 1 opinion.
Not my video
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=R1qOkhtUjsE
Modeling the N&W freelanced at the height of their steam era in HO.
Daniel G.
Hi daleBchevyss
I think an over supply of local advertising at the expence of normal cars would bother me to.
I still have a City Models box car and bill board that was specialy done for me as they helped me put together a layout, I once took to exhibition, they went above and beyond the call of duty to help.
This was done as a thankyou to the hobby shop and the proprieter did the bill board as he was a model railroader as well.
He even spoke to a friend who worked for the local phone company to find out how many numbers to take off the phone number to have it fit in and be in keeping with the rest of the layout.
The box car was done as a propper one (no stick on business card) would have been done so that did not stick out like a sore thumb.
Although some people noticed them and some comented the adverts where not all over the place.
The biggest laugh I got was when some one told me the phone number on the bill board was wrong and I had to explain that the number was right for the period modelled
In the end I had to very politely suggest he took it up with the maker who was on stand what ever the number was over there.
When asked why, I said because he had made the bill board to suit the layout not to advertise his business not strictly true, but it explained the apparent anomaly in the phone number to the member of publics satisfaction.
That hobby shop has gone the way many have now and I still have a quiet chuckle about the phone number thing now and then.
Wish I knew how I could restore the bill board it's very tatty now and its a one of there only ever was one made and it was not made to be a perminant fixture
The card was not shelaced so it's in a pretty poor state
dale8chevyssBy this I mean they have box cars wrapped in ads for local denists and box cars that have auto parts business cards on them.
While I agree with you losing interest in the club ,I wonder if the club needed the funds?
Larry
Conductor.
Summerset Ry.
"Stay Alert, Don't get hurt Safety First!"
I agree about stuff moving. There also needs to be a mixture of trains- IE I'm a steam guy and a show that only has Diesel doesn't hold my interest. I enjoy seeing the Diesels though, just not as much. Also, run consists that make sense. I went to an open house where they have people that sponsor train cars and they only run those and not normal model train cars. By this I mean they have box cars wrapped in ads for local denists and box cars that have auto parts business cards on them. Totally lost my interest in the place as a model RR club.
Bayfield Transfer RailwayAbout twenty minutes later I looked up and every vistor in the place, including the little ones, was clustered around me watching my every move
Been there and done that over the years. Like I said earlier switching fascinates the public and I will add always did always will more so then mindless lap running at Mach 5.
The questions I have been asked over the years was interesting as was my answers about blocking cars for certain distentions,how interchanged of cars worked,this was after being ask why a PRR car would be in a C&O train.
I'm going to go against the general trend and say that realistic operations interests most of the general public.
Years ago I was helping at a Tech Model Railroad Club of MIT show. There were four or five trains orbiting the layout. I got bored and had been working on switch list software, so I randomized the cars in the freight yard, printed out a switchlist, and proceeded to sort the freight yard for my own amusement.About twenty minutes later I looked up and every vistor in the place, including the little ones, was clustered around me watching my every move. I asked with some surprise "why aren't you watching the trains running?" and everybody said "This is more interesting, you're actually doing something."
Disclaimer: This post may contain humor, sarcasm, and/or flatulence.
Michael Mornard
Bringing the North Woods to South Dakota!
Atlantic and Hibernia think the lesson for us is that if we really want to know what works best for the public's enjoyment of the railroad, take off the engineer's cap and mingle with the visitors as they tour the layout.
Exactly and be willing to listen what they say with a open mind and not fall into that curt reply of "people want to see trains run" should you be asked about switching.
Remember this.. If the club has a donation jar the donations will be bigger if you are friendly-let's face it..Nobody likes stiff shirts with a frown.
If you're not a people person then learn to at least acknowledge when you're spoken to. They won't bite you,so what's the harm?
John Busby Hi Dave I would have said liabilaty was with the parents for failing to control them. Unfortunatly there is always some one who acts first and thinks afterwards Oh! and it's never thier fault. The concern I have with "high" layouts is the kids then climb on the barrier the smart ones put around to protect thier layout and keep a clear acsess way around the layout. Climbing to see the layout that I think would be a larger concern. I have seen propper ramps clearly marked for the mobilaty chalanged to see jambed up with Kids that just won't move. So how do you get it right if you hope in good manner you get it wrong If you try having rules it becomes your fault you can't win you are damned if you do and damned if you don't. Just ask any body who has done the job of club exhibition manager. regards John
Hi Dave
I would have said liabilaty was with the parents for failing to control them.
Unfortunatly there is always some one who acts first and thinks afterwards
Oh! and it's never thier fault.
The concern I have with "high" layouts is the kids then climb on the barrier the smart ones put around to protect thier layout and keep a clear acsess way around the layout.
Climbing to see the layout that I think would be a larger concern.
I have seen propper ramps clearly marked for the mobilaty chalanged to see jambed up with Kids that just won't move.
So how do you get it right if you hope in good manner you get it wrong
If you try having rules it becomes your fault you can't win you are damned if you do and damned if you don't.
Just ask any body who has done the job of club exhibition manager.
my dad shows his layout high because n scale looks more realistic to adults at eye height. For many years I worked in a grocery store, I watched human behavior and I can say there are a lot of idiots out there. You post warning signs or rule sign and they do it anyway. When you confront them they say they did no see it. This is when they are standing by it and you just watched them read the signs.
I am the show co-chairman and show cordenator for the green county train show. I try to predict what might happen and solve it or plan for it before all our shows. Most of our worst incidents happen because of stuff that should be common sense.
justin
SouthPennSouthPenn wrote the following post 12 hours ago: What I have noticed at train shows is the layouts are too high for kids to see well. Holding a child up so they can see the trains becomes a real pain. Why doesn't someone put some steps in various places around the layout that the kids can stand on? Keep the kids interested for a few minutes lets the parents get interested.
Several years ago I suggestted the same thing at a club I belonged to. Many of the memberss were afraid of legal liability if a child fell into the edge of the layout. I don't know if that concern is valid in Canada, let alone any place else in the world.
When taking my grandsons to a show, I used to take a rubber maid step stool for them to stand on. On one occasion a "lady" shoved them off because they wern't sharing with her daughter.
Just my nickle worth.
Dave
This spectacular module is often seen in New England as part of the Northeast N-Trak group:
There is always a crowd in front of it. The main lines from the adjacent modules run through, of course, but the other levels are also kept active by hidden loops behind the module.
My interest in my own layout is scenery, so when I go to shows I generally concentrate on those layouts which have the most effort put into them to set the "stage" for the trains to run through.
John BusbyThat really bothers me because it tells me builders are not taking the time to produce a quality exhibit
And one should take time to study the great outdoors. One of my gripes is seeing a beautiful waterfall that dumps into a farm pound with no where to go..Why not make a stream and have it to flow off layout instead?
The Appalachians is not the Rockies so,no need to make tall mountains... Nor is a mine over a railroad tunnel.
Take care in doing industrial areas and industrial scenes and remember for security reasons shipments is not left on the dock. None of the forklift drivers I worked with would sit a loaded pallet on the dock since it doubles your work. Once you grab on to it take the pallet(s) inside and sit it down in the receiving area so,it can be process.
In short pay attention to real life detail.
Hi guys
Well thats one surprise. no one has mentioned my bug bear.
Which is when I look at a layout that was built by adults and the the first thing I think is "thats %$&^ work I can do better than that!!"
That really bothers me because it tells me builders are not taking the time to produce a quality exhibit
I am definatly not a Big name famous modeller but seeing a layout of a lesser quality than I can produce bugs me.
I don't care if its a work in progress but I want to see quality and care in it.
What I have noticed at train shows is the layouts are too high for kids to see well. Holding a child up so they can see the trains becomes a real pain. Why doesn't someone put some steps in various places around the layout that the kids can stand on? Keep the kids interested for a few minutes lets the parents get interested.
Setting cars out on a siding and doing yard switching is only interesting if you are the one running the engine. It is really boring to watch.
With all the computer control, why do the trains just run in a continuous loops? A passenger train can't stop at a station while another train goes by in the other direction? A steam engine can't stop at a water tower? One train pulls into a siding so another train can pass on the same track? Why can't the trains slow down going through a town or at a grade crossing?
With radio controlled throttles, why don't the club members mix with the crowd and let the public run a small train? The last show I was at there were plenty of layouts with trains going in circles, and the club members sitting in the middle drinking coffee.
After just a couple of minutes, the constant blast of horns and whistles really gets annoying.
South Penn
For about twenty years I took part in five or six shows in High School gyms, arenas, etc.
My experience was that most people wanted to see trains rolling thru scenery.
Doing switching only worked if someone was there to answer questions, indeed half or more of mine time at show was spent standing outside our club layout, name tag on, looking I was interested in answering question (I was).
Tunnels impress all children, and many who recently learned to count enjoy counting train cars going by.
In my estimate, in small towns, three quarters of visitors to a show will not be model railroaders. Of the new to the hobby railroaders, if they are met in a friendly fashion some will join the local club. Be friendly, please.
Every year, I go to the Western Pennsylvania Model Railroad Museum to see what they've done since the last time I was there and to just watch the trains run on a pretty massive (40x100) layout. I listen to what people are talking about around me. Given that it models real locations, a lot of people are talking about how it reminds them of a place or that a scene looks like the real location or they'll start talking about some memory triggered by one of the locations.
I've been to lots of railroad shows held at the Ohio State Fairgrounds and most of them will have large modular HO and N scale layouts and occasionally and S or O layout. They are all set up pretty much the same way. A lot of modules creating a continuous running oval. Double track on the HO and triple track on the N. They will have a large staging yard where trains get parked after taking a good long turn "on stage". Trains run in opposite directions and they are usually prototypical length on the N layout and nearly so on the HO. Not sure what limit they set on the number of laps each train runs but usually after a while one train will park and another take it's place. The modules usually are from clubs and it looks like they allow for some switching when the club has operating sessions but at the shows they pretty much just run trains.
narrow gauge nuclear Local club shows will certainly have more questions asked as one-on-one time is available due to a more limited audience.
There are exceptions such as public shows at fair grounds.. Every year the public walks through the club and some even make 2 trips around the layout and will stop and ask questions.
The toughest questions comes from teenagers asking about DCC.. I even removed the shell from a Athearn BB GP38-2 and showed the steps of adding a decoder. The kid wanted to install a decoder in his older BB GP38-2. Apparently he had a Bachmann DCC train set on a 4x8.
When I looked up there was 3 adults listening.
A lot depends on the show and its size. Local club shows will certainly have more questions asked as one-on-one time is available due to a more limited audience. Shows with thousands in attendence is another matter. Layouts are bigger and more varied in nature scale, gauge, type, etc.
The trains usually run at 200+ mph are the O gauge lionels with 6 inch radius curves and S gauge American flyer. There are exceptions in O and S, but it is rare to see a high scale S or O modular layout even at a big show. Most large N and HO layouts are higher detailed scale and trains are typically run at more realistic speeds. All 100 car trains are typically N, but occasionally you might see a 50 car HO train.
One cool modular that I was most fascinated by at Timonium a couple of years ago was a true operating cantenary, trolly line. very realistic with a ton of overhead wire.
Few of these large modular layouts, (mostly diesel), get more than a glance from me as I am busy buying and searching out deals in the limited time I have at the largest of the shows.
Richard
If I can't fix it, I can fix it so it can't be fixed
The average attention span is far, far less than 5 minutes, even for someone who enjoys what they are looking at. If there isnt something new or different to be seen every few minutes, you risk losing your audience. The key to keeping folks in front of your display, is having multiple points of focus, preferably active in a rotation every few minutes. The best displays I have seen take the show beyond the trains. Artwork on the facia, colorful club members/operators, sound effects, interesting signs, etc.
Think of it like this, half of your audience wont be really interested in your display. Spouses who are not railfans, children who don't know what they like yet, a friend who got dragged along because of the need for a ride, etc. These folks likely are not really interested in the craftsmanship or may not really like trains, but if you can keep their attention, you have a great display and may create a new member of the hobby.
I don't know how many American groups have operating-oriented exhibition layouts such as you often see in British and Japanese magazines. Often in those groups the members have no home layouts, so their layout is assembled at gatherings of such layouts and they shunt cars, make up trains, and do the things modelers do at true operating sessions.
More often in American, the club has a permanent layout for genuine operations, to which the public might or might not be invited, and a traveling display layout that is taken to trains shows and shopping mall events. Often those traveling display layouts have a degree of whimsy or "find the hobo village" aspect that they would never incorporate in their "real" layout. The train shows themselves might mix toy trains layouts, including toy train races, with scale modeling traveling display layouts, all cheek by jowel. At Trainfest in Milwaukee there are also guys doing on site clinics, demonstrations, special displays, and the like. The attention span of a visitor to any one layout is brief so the trains had better be running -- it would not do for the visitors to not see trains running, although at a prototype-based operating session trains might not run for considerable periods while the yards are busy or whatever.
And the American members likely have home layouts as well. So the traveling display layout in American often has no compelling need by a member to satisfy a desire to be operated in a serious prototypical manner. They go to the club for that, or have sessions at their home.
Dave Nelson
justinjhnsn3The worst thing to me to see at a show is the same layout with little detail year after year with no sign of anything new on it.
That and running the same locomotives pulling the same cars every year. They remember trains like a long coal drag,a autorack train or a stack train.
During the week of the county fair I switched between SCL and Family lines locomotives and switched cars out in the train consist on a daily bases..
A word that may not be to popular..Tone down the sound on your locomotives.. I have had people to ask me how I could put up with that sound all day? They're not impress with overly loud sound.
About those engineers hats..Ditch 'em and wear a regular ball type cap with your favorite road name. The public can identify with that.
My one gripe is that so few Ho modular layouts will run Steam engines. I like steam engines so to see diesels almost all the time is not to my liking.
All I own are steam engines, they are not that fragile to run on a modular layout. Yes some older steam like brass and some others should not be run all the time. I run the more modern steam from BLI and MTH when at any time be it the modular club or my home layout.
I have not had a layout of my own for years. I also tend to shy away from Model Railroad clubs because most of the groups I have witnessed tend to be a lose conglomeration of members that barely tolerate each other. When I attend show and visit club layouts, I tend to look at the scenery. I like to see scenes that are very realistic. It doesn't matter if it is a countryside scene or a town block, if it looks realistic, I am hooked. I will check out the details and then wait for a train to come through to add to that scene. I grew up in rural western PA and we had two single track lines through town, the Pittsburg & Shawmut, and the Pennsylvania/Conrail/Redbank railroad. Double tracked (or more) layouts built in an oval with numerous trains whizzing by is unrealistic to me. I think this is why the single track Free-Mo set ups appeal to me more and more.
Robert H. Shilling II
Since all the train show visitors are allowed to do is look, you'd better incorporate something entertaining in your layout to catch/keep their attention. Put a throttle in their hands and see just how interested they'd become in switching trains! One club at a recent show actually did that for a couple of hours, inviting kids to take a throttle (under supervision of course) and try running the trains. Not only did that club hook a number of future model railroaders but they got to see how truly interested visitors became in the operations instead of the "show."
Hornblower