Today, I attended a modular railroad display show. This happens every year around the same time inside the California State Railroad Museum for 3 days. I was expecting more tight layouts set up, but no. [:(] One “good” layout of the bunch. My reason for going is to see models run on a layout with wide curves and longer straights than mine. And hopefully witness a mammoth articulated in action. [:)] Yeah, so I was there and saw a Spectrum SP heavy 4-8-2, an IHC SP 2-6-0, Proto WP GP-9 (7?), and a miriad of modern diesels operating with long trains each.
I got really excited when I saw they had a Trix Big Boy getting ready to run. When I saw it run by me, I was kinda dissapointed. [|)] The idea of the Trix 4-8-8-4 seemed cooler than the actual thing. Sure it is very powerful, but did not captivate me. I thought it would be more thrilling to see.
What is the point of this? Don’t know. I’m just blabbing. [:)]
After doing my research on the Trix Big Boy, I found it to be an overpriced vile of snake oil. The 1997 Rivorossi retooled one is just as good, for half the price.
As for RR display events, I am planning on putting one together for CHristmas in my area for next year? Anybody else have similar plans?
As soon as I have an operational line, I plan on doing an
OPEN HOUSE. Looking at May 2004. I am planning on
making it a periodic costume party for the anniversary of
the golden spike. Really working hard to get my layout
running without problem to celebrate it properly.
Had a chance to check out the display layouts on Sunday. The HO modular layout was nice, I’ve seen them a couple of times before. There were a couple folks with some lovely O-27 tinplate stuff, and a live-steam display in what I think was roughly G scale.
If I have it ready in time for next year’s Thanksgiving weekend, with a little luck I’ll have my “downtown Sacramento” module finished, showing two blocks of the downtown area with trolley lines, and hopefully be able to display it at next year’s CSRM small layout event…
I’ve seen one of the Marklin Big Boys (Marklin and Trix make the same models, but Marklin makes them to 3-rail AC and Trix makes them for 2-rail DC). It look kinda cool - and sounded amazing - a very impressive sound unit!