Report from Train Days 2018

This past weekend we had an AsiaNrail layout setup for the 10th annual Los Altos Train Days event. As we have done before, the Peninsula Ntrak club also had a layout in the same room with the mountain division track on my Hot Springs Junction Ntrak module being one of the 5 branches of the AsiaNrail layout.

Here is an overall view of the AsiaNrail layout taken on Sunday morning before the show opened.  This layout was like a 4 point fork with the link to the Hot Springs module being the handle of the fork for a 5th branch.

With no connecting tracks to install the setup and tear down went more quickly.  We did have to play around in the beginning keeping the alignment of the rails whenever modules got bumped.  It seemed by late Saturday everything had settled in fine and we had no further derailments.

In past layouts with this configuration I had mounted the control panel on the front of the Hot Springs module but this time it got mounted on the back inside the Ntrak loop to keep the kids from messing with it.  One of the Ntrak guys would move the points when needed.

This photo is actually from the Hiller exhibit last spring but shows Paul's junction module which allows for two independent point to point operations or interchange.    For this layout one long point to point operation was between my Hot Springs and Mushahi-Koyama modules.

Besides Paul and myself, we had 4 other operators so a total crew of 6 which was just right for this setup. 

The public attendance was estimated by the museum to have been about 3,000.

Thanks to Junior Flores and Julia Jackson for letting me use some of their photos.

Update on the Kaigan module

I had wanted to test both the track and electrical interfaces on the new module with the Hot Springs Junction module.  When I was setting this up I realized that I had never installed the trolley poles on the small interface module and the scenery seemed a bit lite or faded compared the the main module.

So after a bit of work here is the view after adding a bit of greener scenery to the small interface module along with the trolley poles.

The track and electrical interfaces worked fine with repeated testing so this new module is ready for exhibit.

Last I had 1/4 inch Acrylic shields made for this module and attached to each side with 8-32 thumb screws.  These won't been needed in every layout setup but I wanted them for this next show as we won't have any rope barriers.