Took the dare!

Charlie "encouraged" (dared) us to share our hobby so I took up the dare and shared the Richlawn Railroad with my 9 year old Granddaughter for a session of running trains.  We just did the "round and round" and she enjoyed using the horn and bell.  It was a blast and I believed I enjoyed watching her more than actually running a train!

Rick

That's the plan!

When I hold the Golden Spike Ceremony, the plan is to invite friends and family for the event, as well as hosting annual open houses and hopefully some of those who are not already interested in the hobby, might join in the hobby!

Ken L

Thank you, Eric

Thanks for sharing your passion. The video was a real treat. That Broadway curve was real interesting - kind of an indication where the general public is thinking when it comes to the railroads.

Thanks again, Eric

Yeah - I must have blown about 2 hours watching videos back in mid-November when I thought I might make it to Bloomington (on the edge of L.A. County and San Bernardino County) and afterwards. I was disappointed when my plans got changed, but the videos of leaving Cheyenne, passing through Colorado and others were entertaining. In the mid-40s, I lived for a while with my grandparents and the house was about 1500 feet from the mainline coming out of Pasadena through Arcadia and Monrovia, so I got to hear those old steamers a lot - actually felt them ' cause the house shook quite a bit and the whistles could not be missed. I got to see some of them crossing over Huntington Drive on the Second St. overpass in Arcadia a few times.

soapbox

I totally agree Charlie. Model railroads are to share with friends and to operate. I know of one person who built a you beaut fully automated layout in his shed that operated a time table all by itself at the push of a button. Once he had built it there was nothing left for him to do. So it just gathered dust until he dismantled it and sold everything off and is no longer a model railroader.

Ken

Co-operative automation

My goal is working out to automate the "left-over" rest of the trains on my under construction Pacific Electric layout.

A city needs too many individual commuter trains, interurbans, streetcars etc., running simultaneously for there ever to be enough operators.  So the automation will simulate the missing operators and allows even a single person on their own to still have as much fun and run in the middle of a full busy schedule.

Andy

Co-operative automation

I'm planning to build a West German prototype layout where the passenger trains pretty much ran like streetcars as well, so I had the same thing in mind; automate almost everything while leaving the "more interesting" operations to manual control.  It will be possible to take over an automated train if you want to run one of them too.  It's going to be an interesting challenge to get all of this working.  I have seen some really impressive layouts on You Tube which have this capability and the movements of the automated trains are quite realistic.

Andy, Pacific Electric

@Proto87stores (Andy Reichert)

Do you have anything to share yet on your Pacific Electric progress? I would be interested. I am an L.A. County native and rode the trolleys often when they were running. I lived near the "car barn" in West Hollywood for a few years. Please do share anything you may have done, if you are making any progress.

Not for everyone I guess...

Ken H,

It's a shame that this person you speak of wasn't more of a social animal, apparently all of the fun for him was in the building. I am mostly into the building of the layout myself, that's where I get the most joy, out of the sense of accomplishment one gets when something you built comes out well. But I also like to operate, and see how well the trains perform on my creations. So I have found a pattern developing, I tend to work on the layout during the day, and operate it at night. So I have made the conscious decision based on that observation to design my scenery to be more of a night time scene. But I could never imagine a day when my layout will be "Finished", there seems like there will always be something else to do to it no matter how nearly complete it might get. And if that day ever comes, I will just build an addition if necessary and continue to lay more track! I just cannot imagine a time when I would declare the layout finished and stop construction. So I cannot understand what would go on in a man's mind to have the talent to build such a fine layout to one day do just that, just stop and call it quits. I guess it's not for everyone, but it would seem he would have discovered that long before he got that far along. To each his own, but it's beyond my comprehension. His loss, because as you said, Model railroading is meant to be built, and enjoyed! Even if this man no longer cared to work on this layout, he could have at least invited others to come and enjoy it while he stood back and watched them, even if he didn't care to join in. What a waste to tear it down due to neglect.

Russell