An annoying little update about the show:
We held a very successful raffle. Various vendors donated six very nice prizes and we added a President's Choice train set. I personally contacted all of the winners and they were very pleased. However, when I went looking for the prizes to deliver them they were nowhere to be found! We know they were still at the back door of the hall waiting to be loaded when the show was over. They never made it to the clubhouse.
We checked with the last few vendors to leave the show in the hopes that the prizes might have been picked up by mistake, but that was not the case. I can't imagine that any of our members would have walked off with them.
That leaves us in the situation where we will either have to buy replacement prizes or give out cash equivalents. That is going to cost us several hundred dollars.
Life is never simple!
Dave
I'm just a dude with a bad back having a lot of fun with model trains, and finally building a layout!
rrebellNo, it is you. You are willing to hear criticism and when you don't agree, you don't take offence but calmly explain your position, you are a true leader!
Oh jee golly gosh rrebell, I'm truly flattered. I do enjoy my role as President of the club despite the fact that sometimes it is like herding cats. Fortunately, those occasions are relatively rare. I truly want the club to succeed. I look forward to the day when I can run my trains on our new layout.
Thanks!
hon30critter This thread has exceeded 45000 views! I am amazed, and flattered. We got some really good news (hopefully) for our February 2020 show. Our hosts, Bradford Green Houses Garden Gallery in Barrie, are going to change the area in their greenhouses where they host shows. The new area will be bigger than what has been available to us for the past few years. The old space wasn't quite big enough to accommodate all of the vendors who wanted to attend the show, but that problem would seem to have been solved. As a bonus, it will meet all of the current fire safety and electrical requirements, both of which have been a challenge in the past. What we don't know is whether or not the rental cost will go up. Please cross your collective fingers in the hopes that the price won't be prohibitive. No show, no club. It's as simple as that, and there aren't a whole lot of other spaces big enough to accommodate us in the vicinity. Dave
This thread has exceeded 45000 views! I am amazed, and flattered.
We got some really good news (hopefully) for our February 2020 show. Our hosts, Bradford Green Houses Garden Gallery in Barrie, are going to change the area in their greenhouses where they host shows. The new area will be bigger than what has been available to us for the past few years. The old space wasn't quite big enough to accommodate all of the vendors who wanted to attend the show, but that problem would seem to have been solved. As a bonus, it will meet all of the current fire safety and electrical requirements, both of which have been a challenge in the past. What we don't know is whether or not the rental cost will go up. Please cross your collective fingers in the hopes that the price won't be prohibitive. No show, no club. It's as simple as that, and there aren't a whole lot of other spaces big enough to accommodate us in the vicinity.
Hi Folks!
The club just wrapped up our annual Train Show and Sale and I can tell you that it was a huge success! We had almost 900 more people through the door than last year's show!
There are several factors that contributed to that, although it is hard to say how much each one affected the turnout.
We went from 24 radio ads on two stations in 2018 to 72 ads on four stations this year. We managed to do that without spending any more money on radio advertizing. I won't go into the details of how we did that here, but if anyone is interested just ask and I will post an explanation.
We also got both advance coverage and live coverage of the show on CTV Barrie (CTV is a major Canadian broadcaster), and in the local newspaper and on line news services. All we did was notify them of the event in advance and invite them to attend. CTV Barrie put us on the 6:00 pm news on Saturday night!
We also had some major support through Facebook thanks to several modelers who told a few people, who told a few people..... with the result that we had 12,000 hits as of Saturday morning! Incredible!
It didn't hurt that the weather was beautiful. The weather in Barrie, Ontario in Feburary can be pretty nasty. Indeed, earlier in the week the weather was horrible. However, Mother Nature must like model trains because she has cooperated with us for four years in a row.
The show wasn't without its challenges. The local Fire Marshal made us jump through hoops, which we did. The biggest problem was that we were in a large greenhouse with no sprinkler system and the emergency exits had sliding doors as opposed to hinged doors with crash bars. That meant that we had to place people on each of the doors to open them in the event of an emergency. That used up a lot of manpower but we worked it out. The rules are there for a reason. They save lives.
Here's hoping that next year goes as well. It will be our 50th annual show!
You are a pure genius, Rich .
Dave might have better luck with volunteers if they also set up a stand
Oh wait, another permit.
Mike
My You Tube
hon30critter We had a couple of curve balls thrown at us regarding the show. The building manager wants us to get a permit for the cafeteria. Okay, that's reasonable, but she has waited until the last minute to tell us so we were scrambling to apply for the permit and figure out what we need to do to satisfy the regulations. Turns out the application is easy and we need to do very little different from what we have done in the past. All we are serving in the way of perishable food is hot dogs. The other curve ball came from the Fire Marshal. We don't have any problems meeting the aisle width requirements etc., but he wants us to station a person at each of the emergency exits for the entire duration of the show just because they are sliding doors and no longer meet the code. If the doors are not covered he has stated quite plainly that he will shut down the show. The problem is that we don't have enough bodies to cover the doors and do all of the other things that need to be looked after. I'm trying to recruit volunteers. Anybody want to come to Barrie in the middle of February? Kevin?? Fun, fun, fun! Dave
We had a couple of curve balls thrown at us regarding the show. The building manager wants us to get a permit for the cafeteria. Okay, that's reasonable, but she has waited until the last minute to tell us so we were scrambling to apply for the permit and figure out what we need to do to satisfy the regulations. Turns out the application is easy and we need to do very little different from what we have done in the past. All we are serving in the way of perishable food is hot dogs.
The other curve ball came from the Fire Marshal. We don't have any problems meeting the aisle width requirements etc., but he wants us to station a person at each of the emergency exits for the entire duration of the show just because they are sliding doors and no longer meet the code. If the doors are not covered he has stated quite plainly that he will shut down the show. The problem is that we don't have enough bodies to cover the doors and do all of the other things that need to be looked after. I'm trying to recruit volunteers. Anybody want to come to Barrie in the middle of February? Kevin??
Fun, fun, fun!
As I understand it, you will be serving hot dogs to your guests and, at the same time, you need enough bodies to cover the doors. You can find everything you need in the Diner. Get Flo, Chloe, Bruhilda, and all the other waitresses, to set up workstations at each door where the hot dogs can be served.
Rich
Alton Junction
Sorry but there isn't much progress to report on the new layout. We have been preoccupied with getting the portable layout ready for the club's big show in February, and preparing for the show itself. (See the Events calendar). About the only thing that we have done regarding the new layout is to come up with a list of scenery landscaping supplies. Our hobby shop, Cedar Creek Hobbies in Kingsville (formerly Action Hobbies) will be very happy with the order.
The portable layout was in need of a lot of work, some of it to make the track more reliable, and some of it to just clean and repair the scenery. Any self respecting home maker who viewed the layout in the past would have recognized immediately that there were no female members in the club. There was dust on everything. Some areas like the roads are being repainted because the dust is so stuck down.
As anyone who has done it before will know, getting ready for a show takes a lot of work. We have 42 vendors and a dozen layouts attending. It takes up 18,000 sq. ft. That's not huge when compared to the big shows in the US, but it is the biggest show in central Ontario. This will be our 49th year! I am glad to say that everything is in place so all we have left to do is the grunt work.
One of our concerns about the show is always the weather. Lots of people are reluctant (read 'flatly refuse') to travel to Barrie, Ontario in the middle of the winter. I will admit that Barrie weather can be rather nasty, but in fact we have only had one bad day in the past 10 years, and even that didn't hurt us much because everybody showed up the next day anyhow. Our fingers are crossed!
Cheers everybody!
There's a more recent one where the boats are actualy radio controlled so you can have crew positions that drive boats instead of trains, but I know of the one that you are referring to. That had to be a HUGE pain to maintain, not only because of the water, but to incorporate the mechanism that moved the boats which had to either work submerged or work through the base while being leak proof. Today I could see a mechanism that used magnets to couple a moving arm located below the layout to the boat int he water on top, but I think this one was fully mechanical.
--Randy
Modeling the Reading Railroad in the 1950's
Visit my web site at www.readingeastpenn.com for construction updates, DCC Info, and more.
Remember only one layout where real water worked, they accually had a boat running on rails beneath the water to a dock. Even the owner said it was a pain to maintain as I recall, but it did work.
Live water almost never works on a model anyway. Physics doesn;t scale, so the ripples and motion of the water just look 'wrong' in relation to the size of the trains and other identifiable items on the layout. And having something wet just encourages mold and mildew formation.
Hi guys,
Thanks for all the input. Lots to think about.
I think that we have discovered why the foamcore was warping. When we lifted a couple of sections up we realized that there had been very little glue used to hold the pieces down. Whoever installed it only put a couple of lines of glue down the middle of the foamcore pieces with nothing applied to the outer edges. Then they painted the foamcore on the top only. We believe that the combination of lack of adhesion and the shrinkage of the paint caused the foamcore to warp. In any case, regardless of the cause of the warpage, we are going to replace the foamcore with 1/4" baltic birch plywood, and we are going to glue every square inch of it down so that hopefully it won't warp.
We actually made a lot of progress on the portable layout on Tuesday night. We ripped out several areas where things were coming loose, and we removed almost all of the dust that had accumulated over the years. I personally took great pleasure in removing some sphagnum moss from the tunnel mountain that looked deader than you could imagine. Fortunately it wasn't glued down. It still had the original dirt attached to the roots.
We also decided to do away with a live waterfall that used real water. When it worked it looked sort of okay, but if you didn't keep a constant eye on it the water would leak or evaporate, and if the pump went dry there was a risk of the pump going up in smoke. It also made putting that part of the layout together a real PITA. We can do a much more convincing waterfall with silicone and modge podge.
Sorry, I forgot to take my camera so we won't have a record of the 'before' layout.
railandsail So you are saying to use matt medium to attach ballast,...in all cases?
So you are saying to use matt medium to attach ballast,...in all cases?
I applied ballast to adjacent sections on my old layout (built on cork roadbed on pink foam board), one side using white glue, the other using matte medium. I diluted the white glue with 70% alcohol, because I've NEVER had the drop of soap in water thing work, we have very hard water around here.
Once it all dried, there was no difference in appearance and no difference in sound as locos and cars moved from one part ot the other. The only difference is that the matte medium cost a lot more. PVA white glue (Elmer's) seems to dry somewhat rubbery when mixed with alcohol instead of just diluted with water.
Another Foamcore detail posted by that same fellow...
Prof_Klyzlr Dear Foamcore Curious, Was just re-visiting the website for my local Foamcore supplier, and noted the below in their description. "... FOME-COR® BOARD The Original Paper Faced Foam Board The original and still the best quality lightweight foam board consisting of an extruded polystyrene centre core, bonded between white clay coated printing grade paper stock on both sides. Suitable for short term indoor graphic applications such as poster mounting, picture framing, point of sale displays, screen and direct UV inkjet printing...." Now, I've added bold to the important bit, but it's worth fleshing out: - This stuff is the original Name Branded Foam-Cor, as developed by Monsanto, passed to International Paper, and now manufactured by 3A Composites. I'm under no mis-illusions that there are other generic "foamcore" products out there, but it may partially explain the differences in performance seen by some modellers. - The "white clay coated printing grade paper stock" comment raises a flag for me. Clay coating gives a visually smoother, satin-y texture to the paper faces. I have seen (and used) "glossy look/smooth texture" foamcore, and (never consciously used) "matte, looks like typical computer inkject-type paper texture" surfaced foamcore, but it rings-a-bell that clay coatings can add a degree of "water imperviousness" to sheet papers. Not sure if this is important or relevant, but it sounds possibly related???
Dear Foamcore Curious,
Was just re-visiting the website for my local Foamcore supplier, and noted the below in their description.
"... FOME-COR® BOARD The Original Paper Faced Foam Board
The original and still the best quality lightweight foam board consisting of an extruded polystyrene centre core, bonded between white clay coated printing grade paper stock on both sides. Suitable for short term indoor graphic applications such as poster mounting, picture framing, point of sale displays, screen and direct UV inkjet printing...."
Now, I've added bold to the important bit, but it's worth fleshing out:
- This stuff is the original Name Branded Foam-Cor, as developed by Monsanto, passed to International Paper, and now manufactured by 3A Composites. I'm under no mis-illusions that there are other generic "foamcore" products out there, but it may partially explain the differences in performance seen by some modellers.
- The "white clay coated printing grade paper stock" comment raises a flag for me. Clay coating gives a visually smoother, satin-y texture to the paper faces.
I have seen (and used) "glossy look/smooth texture" foamcore,
and (never consciously used) "matte, looks like typical computer inkject-type paper texture" surfaced foamcore,
but it rings-a-bell that clay coatings can add a degree of "water imperviousness" to sheet papers.
Not sure if this is important or relevant, but it sounds possibly related???
Brian
My Layout Plan
Interesting new Plan Consideration
....from that other forum link discussion I provided above,...
Dear ???
I regularly use wet-on-dripping-wet scenery techniques with all-foamcore modules... (that is literally pooled 50/50 water/PVA mix giving a white look to the ballast on "Toorong")
not a hint of warpage to be seen... (and I have examples dating back over 15 years which are just as straight as the day they were assembled).
As for "ultra-thin" cross-sections, foamcore is functionally just like any other sheet material. To be strong in all 3 axis + longditudinal twist requires at least basic engineering principles to be applied, and appropriate levels of structural assembly. A 50mm/2" thick "domino" is well do-able, and capable of supporting most typical HO and even O scale trains...
Happy Modelling, Aim to Improve, Prof Klyzlr
PS: Over 20 years of continuous Show/Touring-layout use, and many 1000s of road kilometres, Foamcore has not yet failed me in either wear-n-tear or liquid situations. As posted earlier, I use wet-on-dripping-wet scenery techniques exclusively, and have had modules exposed to actual rain during show load/unload situations with no ill effects. Indeed, there are documented examples of all-foamcore layout surviving full-immersion in flooded-basement situations, and living to operate another day... ;-)Prof Klyzlr
I think I know the problem with the foam. You used the typicaly recamended blue or pink stuff. This is relativly smooth. I used beaded foam which has larger holes so the plaster cloth has something to grip and is less likely to warp long term. As for the ballast problem, white glue has little give as it ages which dosn't mater much if it just sits in place but any movement will cause what you discribe. One of the advantages of matt medium is it remains flexable to some extent (remember it is formulated to adhere to very movable canvases).
I think you're right about that, the only way to really fix the ballast would be to clean out the bad areas and redo it. Just filling in, it will probbaly crack out again in the same way.
Silly question but, some extruded foam comes with a thin plastic layer on one side. That would really cause issues with glues adhering to the foam. Did this particular foam have that and someone didn't peel it off, or didn't peel ALL of it off?
I should have provided more details about the construction of the portable layout modules.
The 2' x 4' modules have a 1x4 outer frame with a plywood base about 3/8" thick. The 2" foam sits inside that frame so it is well protected. The modules are quite sturdy and reasonably light weight. When on display they sit on three tables about 2 1/2' x 6'.
The problems seem to be caused by whatever is on top of the 2" foam not sticking to it properly. For example, in the past couple of years we have attempted to repair some of the ballast that was breaking loose. Those repairs had varying degrees of success. I personally did about 8' of mainline and I soaked the new ballast until it was literally almost swimming in glue. That ballast it still as hard as a rock. Other areas that were done by different people didn't get as much glue and guess what? They are breaking apart. Now the question is if we simply pour more glue into the cracks and add some more ballast to fill them, will the ballast in those areas crack and come loose again? I suspect so, but I'm only one voice in the repair process.
railandsailWas the brand you chose to use, a good brand or just dollar store stuff??
Hi Brian,
I haven't a clue where it came from. Before my time. I do admit that I'm a bit confused by why it is warping. The only reason I can think of it the possible shrinking on the paint used on top of it combined with a less than satisfactory bond with the foam underneath it.
Ultimately the source and quality don't matter. It has to be replaced.
This gentleman over on another forum appears to have EXTENSIVE experience with foam core construction, and appears to be quite happy with the results,...
Klyzlr foamcore site:model-railroad-hobbyist.comhttps://www.google.com/search?q=Klyzlr%20foamcore+site%3Amodel-railroad-hobbyist.com
I think he uses primarily a 3M brand
I tried using the foam core board for a couple of projects, not actually railroad related, just some architectual models, and a poster type display board, explaining the models. Scapped it all, as it warps bad enough that I would have needed to fasten it wood frame work.
It warps worse with paint on just one side.
Doesn't matter what the brand is.
Mike.
Build your modules out of 1x4, maybe 1x6 would be better yet so you could profile the front in places without loosing stability and inset the foam set inside the modules. You can use WS Flex-Paste to blend the two (worked great for my front masonite to foam bead on my last layout, never a proublem. My modules could be lifted with one finger but were very rigid. I developed a way to make plaster rocks with real plaster that were lightweight also and made a mountain with a high steel trestle on it. It was 4'x4' and could be lifted with one hand when compleated.
Plain old foamcore is kind of just heavy paper sandwiching a thin foam center. Probably less than ideal with varying conditions - temp and humidity changed cause the paper to want to curl. Either the wood, or something liek Gatorfoam is probbaly more long-term stable. Although there is the one group who builds their actual modules with a lot of foamcore, and carries they around to shows. Light weight but very strong.
Extruded foam for a module - I think it would be fine IF it was surrounded by wood - say a thin wood fram sort of like a slt bed frame where the foam sits down in, protected around the edges, so the mating edges of each module are wood, not foam. Foam alone won't stand up to that. The tops should be fine, anything bashing the top would also bash whatever structures, scenery, and track were on top.
We don;t have any pure foam modules, but most of the new ones incorproate extruded foam for scenery and are built a lot lighter than the older modules. But they also don;t get carried in people's cars and trucks, we have rolling racks that go into three enclused trailers we use to transport the layout. Storgae - they stay in the trailers, and the trailers are parked inside a large former industrial building as sort of a garage, but unheated/uncooled. Just protected from rain, snow, and sun. SO far so good, getting on 10+ years doing it this way now, sure beats the old way where the modules were stored and transported in racks built in an old school bus. Setup and teardown time has greatly improved - the old way, it took at least 2 people to carry just one module, after working it out of the school bus (funny how they seemed so big when you went to elementary school). Now, two people can move a whole rack, consisting of as many as 6 modules. And the racks are organized by where each module fits in the layout. In some venues, it's even possible to park the trailers close to the setup location. All the racks are rolled in, staged in the space allocated for the layout, arranged as to the location of the modules they carry, then we start unloading from the racks and setting up. Goes quickly - couple of hours to set up 27x150 and have trains running.
Foamcore ?
So the layout is only 6 years old,...and experiencing problems with foamcore?
There are other problems. For example, the town area was built on foamcore which is now coming loose and curling at the edges. We are going to remove the foamcore and replace it with 1/4" baltic birch plywood. Getting the buildings loose from the foamcore will likely result in some structural calamities.
I was recently giving some consideration to utilizing this material for mounting 'removable structures'
Was the brand you chose to use, a good brand or just dollar store stuff??
Good publicity, Dave.
Yes, it was.
Having the reporters cover the show at the library was great, but it was also a bit of a wake up call for me. The reporters came to us. We didn't know that they were going to cover the show until they showed up or called us a couple of days in advance. We should have gone to them well before the event to make sure we were getting coverage.
We also need to be more proactive with monitoring the various websites that list our club. We discovered last year that we were getting exposure in several places that we were unaware of. Unfortunately some of the listings were out of date so we will have to keep a closer eye on them. It's a bit of a challenge because these websites generally don't tell us that they are going to list us. We have discovered most of them by doing a general search for our club. We will have to do that on a more regular basis.
Always more to do!
hon30critterWe also got onto Barrie CTV local news.
The bloke torked funnie!!!
"One difference between pessimists and optimists is that while pessimists are more often right, optimists have far more fun."
Hi folks,
Over the past week we have been having a close look at our portable layout. The layout is about six years old and it is suffering a raft of problems. The list we made is four pages long (landscape view). It is done by module and there are nine modules, so some of the entries like cleaning and dusting are listed more than once. Many of the items will only take a few minutes. Others will require some major work.
The biggest problem is the fact that the layout is built on 2" foam. Foam is fine for stationary layouts but it doesn't hold up so well when it is repeatedly being bounced down our often bumpy roads. When track starts to come loose it is very hard to get it to stick back down unless the track is totally removed and re-laid. Fortunately there are only a few areas where the track will have to be torn up.
We also desperately need to redo the scenery in many places. It it just plain ugly. Somebody used sphagnum moss on top of one of the mountains. It is totally bleached out and actually looks more like road kill than bushes.
Somebody molded some rocks for the mountains, but instead of using commercial rock molds with some texture, they used plain, round, smooth rocks about 3" or 4" wide that do not resemble rock formations in any way, shape or form. Then they filled in the gaps with a putty knife and every stroke that they made can still be seen.
Somebody decided at one point that we needed brightly coloured flowering bushes everywhere on the layout. They look totally unrealistic except around the houses in the town, except they didn't put any bushes in the town! Go figure!
Somebody decided to go nuts with static grass so they painted the entire yard area, tracks and all, with brown paint and grassed the whole shebang! We have spent hours trying to get the grass out from between the tracks to no avail. The yard is essentially useless.
I'm going on too long here so I'll quit. I will try to get some before and after pictures so you can all have a good laugh (at the before pictures only please).