hate to be a complainer but i did not think the festival was worth the time and money.the layout was detremental to taking photos and the lighting in the tents was horrible.couldnt take any photos with out someones big head in the way.also was disappointed that no railroads were present with any modern equpment,a great advertisement benefit was missed.
Ha HA![(-D] And to add to that… 1225 went down…[:(]
Sorry to hear you were disappointed.
I thoroughly enjoyed the whole thing, including the shower of coal soot I got late Saturday afternoon.
Yes, there were people there - thousands of them, which is a good thing for the Institute - 1225 is due a 15 year inspection and lost some flue pipes, from what I understand. I was told 14,000 attended on Friday alone.
I’m not sure where they could have put more locomotives - almost all of the tracks were full to the extent that moving them around for things like the evening photo shoots, or even their turn pulling an all-day excursion would have been problematic. That said, there were a couple of new loco’s there - just not the latest and greatest.
While the lighting in the tents wasn’t suitable for photograpy, it was fine for viewing the layouts and browsing the numerous vendors. Maybe it’s something they can improve on if they do this again.
Did you get a chance to check out the 1.5"/foot stuff ? I loved the 2-4-4-2 articulated, and the Northern was pretty impressive, even it it obviously wasn’t done. The RS-3 wasn’t smoking though - which it should have been to be prototypical.
What really fascinated me was the tiny live steam - we’re talking in the range of “O” guage, here.
I think you’ll find that a lot of people were there because of the steamers - I can see an SD70 or a GEVO almost any day…
The sights , the sounds and the smells alone made it wort it . The people are always going to be in the way , you have to work around that . Plus all those people make events like this possible . With everything there is always a better way , but I think they did a great job !!!
Actually I wasn’t expecting 1225 to be under steam, but it was. The engine was getting close to its timely inspections. The event is to help support its flue replacement program and re-inspection. 1225 wll be back in steam for sure
I agree the tents coulda been better lit. Still plenty to look at and enjoy.
And heck, how do ya get all that great steam power in one place. Its a one time fun thing, better enjoy it.
yeh, somethings bound to happen, 4449 derailed, thats railroading for ya, oh the excitement…
I hope they look at the criticisms and next time one up it all.
4449 - that’s what happens when you put just under 100 feet of locomotive and tender on a 100’ turntable. They just dropped the lead axle of the pony truck off the TT - it was back on in no time.
The list of “lessons learned” will be quite extensive. The next one will be that much better.
Larry, in all fairness to Zinger, he lives in Traverse City–he doesn’t get to see SD70s and GEVOs up there.
But it’s also obvious that some people have different reasons for going to these things. Although the sights would have been impressive, the crowds would have been frustrating to me. My solution: catch the 4449 elsewhere, and be satisfied with other folks’ recountings on this and other forums.
Yes, the next one should be better–both from accentuating the positive and eliminating the negative.
It seems this was billed and hyped as a steam event. If you expected micro chipped locomotives and oversized cars, then you misread or misunderstood the advertising.
My wife and I went on Sunday. While the weather was cold for July, thank goodness, we had a great time. This was billed as a Steam Festival, so that is what I expected. To have the model train layouts was just a bonus. The fact that they were set up in tents with gravel floors was impressive. Probably a big problem getting it level. I look forward to the next festival. The people I spoke to were not sure when the next one may be. Hopefully soon!
John
It kills me to say this, because I thought the whole thing was a wonderful idea, but I considered it a wasted afternoon.
The rain was pretty bad while I was there. Walking around wet trying to fight through crowds generally is not my idea of a good time. If they doubled the available space, it would have been a lot better.
I agree that the 1’6" gauge was pretty interesting.
Does anyone know if they found the 9-year old boy who went missing? That didn’t brighten my day either.
Gabe
Both missing kids were located. What screwed everything up was that they locked the place down until they were found. Wise move, but definitely a monkey wrench in the goods. Add to that a description that initially left a lot to be desired. Do you know what your kid is wearing right now?
Saturday’s rain definitely screwed things up for a while - you couldn’t move in the tents… Still, once it stopped, they were back on the grounds in droves.
I’m not sure they have the space to expand to, short of pitching tents out on the street.
Reading some of these descriptions reminds me why, if I ever go to a museum RR, I always pay the extra 10 clams or whatever it costs to ride in the locomotive and not the heavy-weight passenger cars. It’s not that I hate kids - I just hate being around them (a high-pitched wail from some kid whose sister kicked him in the shin sets me to panic mode). I can put-up with a crowd at a ball game, for example, because you’re pretty much stationary for 3 hrs, but at a railroad expo you’re constantly bumping into people every 3 steps. When I visited the RR museum in Monticello, IL the engineer of the WAB F7 was pretty darn peed-off when he came back from wipin’ an ice cream cone off the side of the locomotive that some kid threw.
Meets, fan days and fan trips, and museums and tourist lines! Love what they do…preserve what was in equipment, et. al. For the uninitiated sometimes, boring to the longer tried fans. If they didn’t do it, nothing would be left!
On the reverse side of the coin, I like trains and railroad operations: the natural, daily grind of schedules, meets, misses, connections, speed and delays. That’s why I like to go the the NYC or PHilly metropolitan areas and ride. And take along anyone willing to help pay the frieght. Subways, trolley cars, electric trains, diesel electric, diesel trains, one-two-three-four-five-six-seven-eight tracks wide, 10 mph and 90 mph, historic and old long distance routes, new commuter routes. Its a day of what railroading is and always has been: moving people and things from here to there and back. Its a full day of fun and fanning often for less than $60 including gas, parking, fares and food! Join me sometime or create your own day.
After reading the posts to this thread I’m halfway convinced that I went to a completely different train festival. The one I attended from Thursday through Saturday of last week was held in Owosso. It was billed as a steam festival and a check of Google maps before I signed on indiciated it was going to be cramped no matter what showed up. Crowded - yes it was - basically what you would expect for a successful event. Could you get good pictures if you wanted - of course - best bet - be there at the opening gate - and head straight for your engine of choice - if you did this it was very easy to get a picture of the engines without a single human being in the frame. The layout in the tent was very easy to photograph and if you had any kind of equipment at all it was easy to frame your shots and get correct exposures. If you wanted more pictures of 4449 and 765 and 110 then you should have come to the festival with a good road map of the area and a car and joined those of us who chased these engines during their excursion runs. Granted, every grade crossing was swarming with photographers but, for the most part, everyone was well behaved and was more than willing to make a little more room for anyone who wanted to join the photo line.
As for 1225 not being able to run - 765 stepped in and did just fine. The derailment on Saturday night out by the coal pile, while it kept 4449 out of the night photo shoot lineup, also gave anyone who is even mildly interested in the way things really get done on a real railroad when things go wrong a ring side seat and a photo op beyond price. We were allowed to form a photo line out of everyones way and take pictures until we couldn’t stand the thought of taking another one. The fact that 4449 was out of the Saturday night shoot meant that Leviathian, which had been placed on an outside shop track for the Friday night shoot, was allowed to join the lineup
Don’t get me wrong, I understand your thoughts.
But, I really hope this line of thinking is discouraged. Some people see kids bumping into them and throwing an ice cream cone at a locomotive as interferring with their hobby. Some see this behavior as kids being kids. I, however, see this as the future and perpetuation of our hobby. Without kids enjoying the hobby, there will be no hobby and, to the extent people agree we have a duty to perpetuate the hobby, I hope we can all try to help kids be more involved–even if they are annoying.
Gabe
Well Gabe I am dissapointed because we didn’t see you!!! We came to the grounds and saw the 4449 come in on friday and saw the 765 go out and come in on Saturday.yes it was crowded on saturday.Yes the rain didn’t help either.But can someone tell me when the 4449 is going to be back on this side of the mississippi? Does anyone know how many legos it took to build that layout? How about those minature trains you could ride? With a little patience matt myself and mamma had a great time.I also turned around about a hundred times when someone said “Hey Deshler”.So yeah we will defineately come back again.
stay safe
joe