# GARDEN RR TOUR PICS LANCASTER, PA AREA



## FJV (Dec 21, 2008)

Photo's taken today (10/11/09). Six railroads were on tour.


http://home.comcast.net/~fvas/GT/PIC2.JPG

http://home.comcast.net/~fvas/GT/PIC4.JPG

http://home.comcast.net/~fvas/GT/PIC7.JPG

http://home.comcast.net/~fvas/GT/PIC8.JPG

http://home.comcast.net/~fvas/GT/PIC10.JPG

http://home.comcast.net/~fvas/GT/PIC11.JPG

http://home.comcast.net/~fvas/GT/PIC13.JPG

http://home.comcast.net/~fvas/GT/PIC15.JPG

http://home.comcast.net/~fvas/GT/PIC18.JPG

http://home.comcast.net/~fvas/GT/PIC20.JPG

http://home.comcast.net/~fvas/GT/PIC22.JPG


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## markoles (Jan 2, 2008)

Frank,

Thanks for posting these pics! Looks like the other railroads were putting on as good a show, if not better, than ours!! Got to get together with those guys!!

Later

Mark


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## Randy Stone (Jan 2, 2008)

Great pics of some very nice railroads Frank. Thanks 

OK Mark, where's the pics of your layout during the tour?


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## Robert (Jan 2, 2008)

Thanks for throwing those up. Some real diveristy in layouts. Bet that made for an enjoyable day of touring.


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## markoles (Jan 2, 2008)

Hi everyone, 
What a whirlwind the open house was this year. Between getting ready for the event, installing REVO's, doing interviews for the local magazine and newspaper, I am really exhausted!! 
Mary Beth managed to take a few photos during the event this year, and these serve to give you a flavor of the event. She didn't take many 'train' photos, mostly crowd shots, which is fun, too. In more or less chronological order:

1. The Welcome Table: I put out the Wedding Train and #36 Jerome and the "MB SUPERMODEL" F3A, along with a binder full of history and images of the railroad through the years. I also had my "Guest Book" on this table. 










2. Getting started is always the most stressful time. Here you see two of my four guest engineers, Jerry Huster (left) and Jim Miller (right), checking out the Merchants Limited as it makes its way around the layout. Jim made me some shims for the guides on my wide radius switches. We were checking these out as well. They worked perfectly and we didn't have a single derailment as a result of those guides. 










3. One of the key features of the Open Houses here has been to have a Kid's railroad. This really helps to satisfy the little ones' need to be hands on. Here you see my son Luke with neighbor Beverly, relaxing watching the Eggliner zoom past! I mounted the kids track (8' diameter curves) on 1x6's (curves) and 1x4's (straights). No reported difficulties from the track itself. 










4. People started showing up and I lost track of time. The next few shots are of the event as we were underway. Here I am talking talking talking to my guests. (Note the new FA-FB pulling Chris's NH heavyweights and my MRR coach and observation. My engineers would blow the horn/whistles at me as they came around this curve!)










5. Another shot of me talking. The Merchant's Limited is parked on what was the Yellow Dog terminal. Since it is only a single siding now, I don't think it could be called a terminal. I did raise it up about 8" this year. 










6. New Haven FA-FB set pulling the Business Train past Jim's California Zephyr. 










7. Tom Parkin made the drive up from Delaware and MB caught him talking to Chris:










8. Another shot of the crowd. In this photo, the woman in the brown outfit is Gary Armistead's daughter Janet, who was in town from Burbank, CA! Gary contacted me via MLS to let me know she was coming. Large scale folks are some of the best! Extra points if anyone can tell what we're running at this moment.










9.I like this shot MB took. This is the view I think she'd most like to have of the railroad all the time!! Need to plan the back and forth "Beverage Service" railroad.










10. This shot makes me laugh. I think that the 3 year old in everyone at the open house was making this same face when they first arrive:










11. My brother in law, Vince, spent the entire time as the engineer of the Kid's railroad. Here, Vince is making sure that the trains are re-railed properly. Forget keeping this train on the track!!! Didn't get a shot of any of the doozies, but there were a few! That's why I love this size train!! Takes a beating but still runs great!! (BTW, we used LGB Toy Train starter set and a Bumble Bee Eggliner. The Eggliner is nicknamed the Busy Bee by some and the Busy Guy by Luke). We had as many as 4 trains operating at once, including this railroad.










12. I did get my hands on some engines: Here I am loading or unloading the FA-FB from the mainline. Not sure what's happening and there's no way I can recall what was happening at this exact moment!! 









13. Luke was so overloaded that he went down for a nap about 12:30 and didn’t wake up until about 3. My sister in law, Amy, took her two kids and Luke to the nearby Landis Vally Museum’s fall festival to get them out of the mix for a while. When they got back, Luke made a bee line for me! Here we are, posing for mommy, while trains circle behind us!








14. About 6, most of the crowd had gone home. Exhausted, but happy, Chris and I sat and ran 5 locomotives with four controllers, getting all the horns/whistles/bells going at once and creating quite a racket! MB managed to get this low light shot, which shows Lucia in mid stride and the FA-FB crossing the long, slow moving freight. I should have taken a picture of the 36 car freight train I hung behind mallet 3177, just to see if she could handle it. No problems. What a brute!









Once again, I need to thank all of my guest engineers, Chris, Jim, Jerry and Vince. I also need to thank my wife Mary Beth, Sister in law Amy, and Aunt Kathy for helping with the behind the scenes and Luke sitting! Hope to be able to do this again next year!
Also, thanks to everyone who showed up. If no one came, it wouldn’t be the same, either!

One last thing: Stats.

I made my own guest book this year. We counted 315 people accounted for in the guest book. Based on past experience, a little more than half the people who come sign the book. I asked some questions of my guests: if they have trains and what kind. I was surprised at the number of folks that had large scale. I will compile and post the results here. Many more had O and HO gauge, but it was interesting to see. I was also interested to see how people found out about the open houses. Most were either the newspaper or the railroad museum itself. Not many of the 50 neighborhood flyers we handed out were mentioned in the book itself. But I did see a lot of neighbors walking around, so I know they were here! 

Jim was taking videos of the trains as he operated them. Hopefully, he will post them soon. 


Mark


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## jmill24 (Jan 11, 2008)

Here is a video

http://www.youtube.com/user/trainma...44PTmS1bNM

And some pics
http://picasaweb.google.com/Trainma...orRRMuseum#

Jim Miller


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## Randy Stone (Jan 2, 2008)

Great pics and a very nice layout Mark


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## Randy Stone (Jan 2, 2008)

Great video Jim. Seeing three different trains running the same mainline was really cool. 

Thanks for posting


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## Gary Armitstead (Jan 2, 2008)

Great pics of your open house Mark. My daughter Janet really enjoyed seeing your layout. Now she knows that her Dad isn't the ONLY "train crazy" person out there.


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