During the last week of Oct and running through November, a group of Model Railroaders of all scales in DE., NJ., MD., and PA. open their layouts to the public. This has been an annual event for at least 15 years that I can remember and started out as a “G Day” event. There will be 207 layouts that will be open this year. This will be my first time participating in the actual tour, although I have assisted others when they’re layouts were open. Check out the schedule, there may be a layout or 2 near you that you didn’t know about.
" the last week of Oct and running through November"
Just on the weekends or EVERY day?
According to the schedule most of them are Fri, Sat and Sun but there are a few open during the week.
Wow! That’s a lot of train running and open houses. Are they all open every week end?
Ric Golding said:Well, there's 207 layouts so most people just have an open house 2 or 3 nights/days. They try to group them in the same area on certain days, so you can visit more.
Wow! That's a lot of train running and open houses. Are they all open every week end?
Per the Home Page: " Our trend continues this year in keeping layouts in common geographic areas open on the same date. This allows people to see multiple layouts in one day. We have asked people over the years to attempt this if possible and this year’s effort has been great. If you look at the schedule you will notice that New Jersey, led by PJ Mattson, is open on November 4 and 10; Delaware, led by Joe Walters, is focusing in on November 3 and 18; Dale Ridgeway in Maryland has coordinated many open MD layouts on November 18 and Chuck Kadyk has done so for Central PA with a November 10 date."
I try to stick to just Delaware, PA, and northern MD, the closes ones . I doubt that anyone’s ever gotten to see every single layout that’s open, but some guys try.
That’s interesting and sounds like fun.
It’s been about 10 years since I was involved in it. After I retired from Verizon and started driving the 18 wheeler, I never knew exactly when I’d be around so I kind of lost track of this thing. About 2 months ago I ran into a guy in the supermarket who happened to notice the train shirt I was wearing and we got to talking trains and layouts. He clued me back into this and I’m kinda looking forward to it. I just hope the weather cooperates…
There are 3 HO layouts on this tour that I used to operate on, and a couple that I used to help out on during the tour. It was fun and got to meet a lot of people in the hobby. Since the driving thing kinda slowed down a bit I figured, what the heck. I’ll put my layout up for the tour and see what happens…
Good for you Ken. Your layout is definetly ready.
Very cool Ken. Make sure you take pictures.
Shawn said:Yes! :)
Very cool Ken. Make sure you take pictures.
David Russell said:I might be a little busy, but I'll try........;)Shawn said:Yes! :)
Very cool Ken. Make sure you take pictures.
Sorry guys, no pix, at least not by me…but I had fun, it was a half way beautiful day and everyone who came certainly seemed to enjoy it.
Kent, sounds like things cooperated for you, congrats… :0
Great that the weather co-operated, Ken…and it is always good to hear of you having fun.
Here’s some hi-lites from the Open House Tours.
The first one is Bill Kachell’s Pennsylvania RR. He models it from NYC to Pittsburgh, with the mainline from NYC to Harrisburg under catanary. Altoona to Pittsburgh features the Horseshoe Curve, which is readily identifiable in the video.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=nUdo-ceJWvg[/youtube]
The second one is Carl Huth’s Philadelphia & Reading RR. It runs from Pottsville through Reading and into Philadelphia with many side branches running to mines and other industrial area on the Reading RR. It’s a lot more scenicked then when I was last there.
[youtube]http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Lr76_y8lbc4[/youtube]
I visited about 6 layouts, but these 2 were by far the best. Carl’s I’ve had the pleasure of operating on along with one other one I visited.
Very cool!
I noted a few landmarks on both layouts.
…:)…