JRM: Fall 2009 Timonium Show (UPDATED)

[Shashinka]

The Japan Rail Molders of Washington DC will be displaying the club  layout at the fall 2009 Model Train show at the Timonium  State Fair Grounds on Saturday October 10h and Sunday October 11th, 2009.

Show information: http://www.gsmts.com/
JRM information: www.japanrailmodelers.org

[Bernard]

Congratulations, I looked at the program and that is one huge show!

I've been meaning to ask, who did the art work on "Got Shinkansen?" It's eye catching and clever.

[Shashinka]

That would be our current president, Mathew.

[Shashinka]

These are from today. I did not take many, and what I took was with the broken Nikon CoolPix cause I did not feel like messing with my camera gear. I go to shows to run trains, and talk trains. Spending time photographing them with my Nikon D2Hs is too much of a pain. I have a video to follow.

[Bernard]

The last photo for me is impressive. I don't know how you guys transport and set up such an intricate layout! 

[Shashinka]

<a href="http://www.youtube.com/v/szGSeJLqQHo" target="_blank">http://www.youtube.com/v/szGSeJLqQHo</a>

[Shashinka]

The last photo for me is impressive. I don't know how you guys transport and set up such an intricate layout! 

Not very easily. Hopefully the "all-new" layout will allow us to go from 5 men and 3-4 hours down to 1-2 people in 1-2 hours. I had hoped we would have the new layout ready by this show or Lion's club next month, but I don't expect it to be ready before Timonium next year.

[disturbman]

I think I spoted Jeff's piggy Volvo on the left side of the layout... 

Nice B Train running. 10 cars and close coupling.

[cteno4]

The last photo for me is impressive. I don't know how you guys transport and set up such an intricate layout! 

in a couple thousand pieces in about 50 boxes. not fun to store, transport, setup, but breakdown is pretty fast!

thanks, for the cheers, helps make it worth doing!

cheers,

jeff

ps i cheated on the street festival, they are all glued down to small strips of acetate to pop them out where ever we want them on a street.

[David]

Nice B Train running. 10 cars and close coupling.

I was ignoring the other trains in order to get a good look at that too. From the video at least it looked really good - did you get any comments about it at the show?

What couplers did you use? Are they the standard Kato replacements or something custom? What effect did it have on the turning radius?

[to2leo]

One amazing show.  I wish there is something like that up here in TO.  Are you guys planning to add Unitram too 

[Bernard]

in a couple thousand pieces in about 50 boxes. not fun to store, transport, setup, but breakdown is pretty fast!

thanks, for the cheers, helps make it worth doing!

cheers,

jeff

p

Where do you store the 50 boxes?

[cteno4]

Where do you store the 50 boxes?

stacked to the roof in the corner of my garage and anything really fragile or temp/humidity sensitive in the basement. really a pain to gather the ducklings and make sure i havnt forgotten something, but usually do forget something!

working quickly now on the new layout and hope to have just a few large boxes that the modules slip into and then should make storage and transport a lot easier!

stay tuned

cheers

jeff

[cteno4]

One amazing show.  I wish there is something like that up here in TO.  Are you guys planning to add Unitram too  

our original layout design years ago had a couple of point to point tram lines engineered in, but we ended up changing the layout design and getting rid of them also it was going to be hard to set up and wire them with the point to point controllers we had that required the broken rail wiring and thus lots of connections for each one.

the new modular layout does not have a tram, but we have the scene engineered along one side that has the large local and shinkansen station can have a strip of ttrak street car modules butted up against it to extend the scene and add to lines of point to point tram in the center of a 4 lane roadway. this may even turn onto the layout and stop in front of the station. wont be using unitram track as its really easy to create the streets you want cheap on straight track. i just build up with a layer of foam core then a topping of 020 dense black photo board that butts to the track. then print out your street the way you want it and paste on top of this. for between the tracks, 0.25" x 020 styrene topped with the appropriate printed paper road texture works great.

we hope to have other dioramas and maybe ttrak modules that can surround the basic layout modules to allow us to do different things and grow/shrink depending on the show.

cheers

jeff

[cteno4]

Nice B Train running. 10 cars and close coupling.

I was ignoring the other trains in order to get a good look at that too. From the video at least it looked really good - did you get any comments about it at the show?

What couplers did you use? Are they the standard Kato replacements or something custom? What effect did it have on the turning radius?

yes lots of folks were wondering what shinkansen had that short of cars! thats matthew's 700 btrain shortie he was given when he recently left japan to move back here to dc after 2 years in japan. the local hobby shop gave it to him. take a lot of sets to make a 12 car train (bandai knows how to sell trains!). didnt see the kids particulary asking about it though, only adults asked me questions about it!

the couplers are the rapidos on the standard kato trucks you can get for the shorties.

was cute to run the real and the shortie 700s next to each other!

[disturbman]

Maybe that's the deal, the B Trains are more appealing to the big childrens. But having interests, from anywhere, is allways a good thing.

What are the kids' favorites during the shows?

[cteno4]

LOL, yes and from what i could read in the google translation of the interview with the main designer of Btrain shorties small kids were the target, but they were early adopted and have been maintained by the big kids!

Dr Yellow is usually the most picked. so much so most of our dr yellows now have some problems and need overhauls due to the long time running over the years! 500 and 700 are also popular, especially when 16 car trains. Anime/painted trains are also a big hit with kids. at the cherry blossom festival a small kid wanted doremon to run and when i explained we just stopped him as he had been running for many hours, a few seconds later he took a round house swing (doremon was parked at the very front of the layout for display) and smacked the train along the layout. luckily all parts remained on the layout and no damage!

Godzilla is also a huge hit. finding more and more godzilla fans lately, i guess old goji is making a comeback with the kids! not having to explain godzilla (usually called a dinosaur by parents that dont know about godzilla).

cheers

jeff