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Great American Train Show 2004

Galleries

Scott Sanburn

Stefan Garcia

Amy Hughes

Report

Friday - November 5th, 2004

This was a difficult show to get ready for, as a number of things happened to me a couple of months before the show was to happen, which is my usual busy time before the show.

First, my boss, Larry, collapsed at work, and we found out it was brain cancer, so he was unable to work anymore. I had to work a lot of overtime in order to cover everything. Second, Tony Hedglen got a job down here in Indiana and hade to move the weekend before the show, so that was a factor as well. Needless to say, we were not totally finished with the layout, but we decided to press on and get as much done as we could. I took my vacation early so I could have a few days to work on my layout, and while not everything was 100%, I felt we did fairly well.

Tony and Grace came over Friday morning, and we packed up our newly acquired trailer and headed off for Fort Wayne. David Kohrman called me on the way down, and I think we arrived around 4:00 or so. We had a rough start putting up tables, but we did as much as we could that night, and took off for the hotel. Tony, Grace, and I drove back home, and prepared to get going early the next morning.

Saturday - November 6th, 2004

Chad Smith decided to come to Fort Wayne as well, so he drove over in the morning, and we took off to get Tony and Grace, and drove back down to Fort Wayne. We arrived shortly after 7:00AM, and started working.

We had some modules that did not survive, so we had to try to rebuild them, Chad had some fun trying to build as well, as one of the corners was not right in our plan and we had to change it. Tony and I had to try to direct people to get things finished up. As usual, we were not totally ready by 11:00AM, but we did manage to get things going shortly afterward. Chad's family stopped by, so it was nice to see everyone again. Tony had a hard time getting the wire channels for the remote switches fixed up, but we eventually succeeded. We were once again well received, and the crowd was fine to work with.

I finally got around to rebuilding some of the warehouse area, I did my first brickroads and they came out neat. I even got a turn lane! : )

Once again, we had our dinner at Pizza hut after the show, and we drove back to South Bend. I was so tired that night that Tony was nice enough to drive back, I stayed up too late, as usual, and it was showing Saturday night.

Sunday, November 7th, 2004

Sunday morning I got to sleep in a little more, and headed back. Chad could not come with us, so Tony, Grace and I headed out for the final day. I tried to work on the sheds and some more details, and the show was back in full force again. During the day, I decided to build a back semi trailer for my custom rigs, so I worked on that while people came and asked me questions, and the results were pretty good. We ended up getting third place in the show, which was understandable considering how many problems we had. : )

We ended up tearing down again, and being the last out of the door, and finally getting home around 11:00PM or so. It was a good show, but we will do better next time!

Thanks

Chris Leach - For letting us borrow track!

Tony and Grace Hedglen - Thanks for all of your efforts!

Thanks to all the other members for their help and contribution - Chad Smith, Amy Hughes, David Kohrman