I just got back from the RIT show and I must say for a rather small layout I was very impressed. They had very nice detail and great scenes (My opinion). The coolest thing though was how they operated. They used radios to call the dispatching tower and the yardmaster. Really cool. The best part though was when I got upstairs to the show they had a scanner set up with speakers so it really sounded like you were listening to the transmissions from a very active mainline. Then there was a person there with telegraph equipment set up so you could actually see how it worked. He even had a “Bug” or Vibroplex model which is the semiautomatic key. His computer was connected to a sounder so you could hear some real morse code in action. It was actually spelling out an essay at 25 WPM. The funniest thing had to be the Prince Albert amplifier. Just some really neat observations and afterwords we went over to see Niagra falls.
I was there yesterday also, and their layout is pretty darn good! I am not inot “STRICT” Operations like they were, but it was a good show that they put on.
I was surprised at the Number of Vendors in the Vendor Area. Got some good deals on some Locos. I was surprised that NCE was not at the Show. I would have thought that being a local manufacturer that the Train Club would have wanted them there. I did notice that all the layouts were running with Digitrax Controllers, so maybe there is something else going on behind the scenes? I don’t know.
Got to watch a Santa Fe Steam Loco running on the temporary layout. I think it was a BLI Loco. It sounded GREAT! It sounded so good that I forgot to look at what the Engine was!
The reason for Digitrax is Loconet. NCE doesn’t have some of the signalling capabilities that they wanted and they got tired of waiting. They said they did use NCE before. I talked to them a bit and they took me up into the tower.