Bill, Dick, Richard, Rich and Carl meet at the layout at the Mall.

All-a-board!  for a busy Saturday at the Mall.  The Santa line stretched around our layout and little eyes and big eyes followed the trains with intense interest.  There was a lot to look at also.  Dick Rubin brought in some beautiful engines to run.  One was a serial numbered edition of LGB's famous Hudson Steam Locomotive and tender.  I just missed seeing it perform as I came in late in the day but heard it was "smoking" plus it was producing a beautiful sound.  But as prestigious as this engine is,  it still is Thomas that steals the hearts of the Santa Claus waiting line.  Thomas's cars arrived today but we can only hook up one at a time (the combination of tight curves and tight couplers)  Maybe next time we will change the 4 foot curves to 5 foot curves.   (That is not an official announcement but it is fair to say that both the Mall and MGRS  are very happy with the way this has gone.)
     Last night Bill Goodrich and his wife arrived from Massachusetts.  They drove from the South Shore area up to Portland last night and stayed over for what will be 2  days.  Bill is a great guy that loves trains and he met Grace and Dave last night and Carl and a bunch of the guys today.  He was having a good time today and it was great to meet him.  Plus he was dressed for the part today and looked great. Way to go Bill!  He took some great videos from track level and I hope we will be able to show then to you later on.
We had fun today with Circus trains, Novelty cars and by the way I did run 2 engines in opposite directions on the same track by using the polarity switch on the Thomas engine.  To me, that opens up a whole new type of track plan possibilities.  To others, that may be old hat.  Anyhow, that is the fun of hanging around the 'club house' at the Mall. I will not tell you why  Dick came back he said "I can't leave you guys alone for  a minute".  But, remembering these stories is why we are having so much fun together.   We are lucky to have a great group of people and this event is giving us a great chance to get together.

Remember to help out Paul Corbett, Saturday Noon if you can.

It is now late on Friday night.  Tomorrow Paul finishes up the Westbrook Festival of Trees display at noon time, Saturday Dec 11th.     I honestly do not know what his plans are but  I think that Paul would appreciate some help to break down his display right after it is completed.   Here is a map to where he will be located:
If you are close by and available,  I hope you can stop in and help him out.

Carl & Mac and Grace & David take over the Controls on Mall Friday

  Friday at the Mall.  Today's News was "Big News" but that is all I am going to say.  Carl will make the announcement a little later.  Perhaps Monday when the Maine Veteran Home of Scarborough visit us at the Mall when the display opens up.   There will be a brief presentation by Carl or possibly even from Santa Claus to the Veterans as they receive a Christmas gift from MGRS.

  Today the big trains ran solidly and sounded strong,  meanwhile Thomas proudly pulled three Disney Coaches as he winded through the elevated line.  (Note:  Thomas is exceptional ~ he has a "polarity switch" on his engine).  Now I think that means that he can run "head to head" with another engine.  If so, that opens up some new operating track plan options! There was once when Mac had to rescue Thomas (see today's pictures)

Click here to see pictures from today.

maine narrow gauge in small scale

here is a video from Model railroader...Maine Narrow Gauge

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fEEpO0Ybdo&feature=player_embedded

Stand back ~ Here comes Norm, Ernie, Andy, Jim, Doug and Dan ~

The Circus guys aided and abetted by Jim followed by the Mexican Hat Doodlebug crew ruled Center Court today.   And they were all reported having a great time entertaining the very appreciative and attentive audience.

A long Circus train plus Thomas and other engines including Doug's approximately one dozen eggs, I mean egg-liners delighted the kids both big and small.  Dan had a very nice lighted Christmas tree car that he made featured in a elevated Holiday train.  No doubt it was a fun day "topped" of by a very large sombrero mystery man identified only by his vest of many honors.  

OK,  You know that when we kid each other it is because we are all relaxed and happy that this display is turning out to be so good. It is absolutely true, we are having as much of a good time as the folks that are coming to watch,  and they all tell us that "this is great"!  Little kids and parents still love trains and older people remember them fondly.  And lucky for us,  lots of them travel to the Maine Mall.  Like Ernie said today "It is great to see the look on people's faces as they enjoy the trains".


Not a lot,  but watch a little video from today. 

Dick & Meridel and Ralph get to "do their stuff" at the Maine Mall.

I only did get one picture of Dick and Meridel and they look great and they said that they had a good time and everything went well. 

    I shared the late shift with Ralph and he is a "natural"  talking to people and  he is especially good with the kids.  Dick & Meridel handled the morning shift all alone and they did a great job, Meridel said "this is the place to be if you are a people person".  That is true!  Carl,Mac and I all showed up for the afternoon shift and each thought the other was coming in that morning. Ooops! my mistake. So Carl and Mac ran some awesome big locomotives and Ralph and I gabbed to folks.     On some other news Santa Claus left on a medical emergency but we are happy to report he is fine.  He has been working 10 hour days since we began and needs a little rest and will be back in another day.
  As I said it was a pleasure to see Ralph interact with the kids and the adults, he is a great ambassador for model railroading and for MGRS.   In fact he signed up to come back again next week and he was generous with his praise for both what the Club has done and what the Mall has done.  Thank you, we return the complement to EVERY member that has joined in and supported this event, it took that many people working together to accomplish what we have done so far. So lets keep up the good work and join together for a strong finish. 
  Again today we met so many people who worked on trains, or love trains and relate to what we are there for, it is fantastic! It is an under statement to say we have made a lot of new friends and I have to say that I believe no one has taken part and shared the experiences of this event and has left feeling disappointed.  It has been a plus for us all!
Please click here for more pictures and video clips:

Tiny and John at the Mall ~

 We had a good day!  The time went by fast.  Tiny brought in his Maine Central Number 470 Steam Engine with some very nicely decorated Maine Central passenger cars. They got lots of compliments!  We ran my new RS3 Canadian Pacific and my old B&A sound car on  the upper level with the clubs GP 38-2 on the "inner loop".  Our new Thomas ran great and is an instant hit with people.  We generally run it "on request" by putting it on the big outer loop along with what ever else is running.  One or two times around the layout is usually enough.  He is fast!  Today Paul stopped by and help Tiny clean one of his novelty cars.  Walter comes in almost every day and he is very helpful.  Carl and Mac came in early for the PM shift and that gave us a chance to all get together.  Last evening must have been a riot!  For a couple of hours it was "Pet day ~ take a picture of your pet with Santa Claus"   There were dogs and cats lined up to get their picture taken!    We get to see everything and we are having fun.  New applications are coming in,  lots of people are meeting us and learning about G scale.  Members from way up north are coming down to visit.  Today it was Keith Knowlton who we had a good talk with and saw pictures of his layout which is very good indeed.  Click here to see a few snips and shots from today:

WW&F Victorian Christmas

   If you are near the Wiscasset, Waterville & Farmington Railway Museum on Dec 18th,  be sure to stop in and help them celebrate an old fashioned "Victorian Christmas".   It sounds like a very good event!  Here are the details and directions:  Please click here to view.

MGRS member Eric Schade is a volunteer there and works hard to support the museum.  Stop by and visit Eric and enjoy all the events of the day.  Maybe there will be just the right amount of snow.  Speaking of Eric and snow take a look at this video:  I know you will enjoy it and remember in G scale a half inch of snow would equal a foot of snow!  Click here to view:

Monday Night Quiz

A Rio Grande Alco PA and Baltimore & Ohio Express meet at the Gorham Station on Monday evening. What's wrong with this picture?

a. Rio Grande never came to Gorham
b. The B&O never came to Gorham
c. Poinsettias don't grow to tree height
d. Alco PA's never pulled freight trains (because P stands for passenger)

Answer
1. All of the above
2. None of the above
3. a, b, and c, but not d
4. a, b, and d, but not c

Monday 12/6 ~ AM Jim & Scott, PM Carl & Mac plus Walter and Hunk

  Monday was a great day to run trains at the Maine Mall.  Everything from Jim's Dockside Switcher which got him started in G scale to Carl's mighty Mallet, including Scott's PA-1 Rio-Grande which he saw in real life almost every day as a youngster in Colorado and the Club's new Thomas were just a few of the engines that entertained the crowd today. We met several interesting people today.  One man is an engineer who operates the Polar Express train now running at the Maine Narrow Gauge in Portland.  Many people have historic railroad documents of one type or another and other memorabilia.   I have not met any person near my age that does not remember Lionel, American Flyer or Marx as a kid and the big train layouts that we are honoring from the past.
 Click here for more pictures and video's

Our turn to PLAY trains

We had a fantastic time on Saturday. When we arrived, the line for Santa was almost completely around the train display. It's like having a captive audience. I liked when the people got so involved in watching the trains that they forgot to move the line along.

When the log cars on the trestle track derailed and dumped logs on the lower track, the AMTRACK special derailed in the middle of the layout. There was no way we were going to be able to reach the derailed cars. So, I said " we just need to steal a kid from the line and throw him up on the display!" And that's what we did, TWICE!!! Thanks Jesse for the help.

The highlight of the day was getting Betty (my mother) to operate the trains and to try to stop the passenger cars in front of the station. By the end of the night, she almost had the controllers

figured out.

One of the requests from a little boy was to see the "B&M Bubble Top"

Nice Sunday at the Mall

Wild Saturday was over and nice Sunday arrived.  The parking lot was back to normal.  Tiny, Hunk and Betty arrived as scheduled but Carl and Mac were already there.  Later on Walter, John and then Ralph Luby stopped by.  He signed up to come back later in the week.  Thanks Ralph,  that is exactly what we need!

By the way when we started there were 42 days to go, now there are only 19.  So we are feeling good about the whole event and thank those members that have made it possible!  Great Job!

    Today Tiny brought in his RDC car and a cute looking Santa Hand Car. I had my B&M Deisel and sound car working the elevated line and Carl had his Amtrak running well.  You can see them in the following photo album.  Take a look at some of the videos from today's action.  
   

Wild Saturday at the Mall

WOW!  It was a big difference from Friday night to this afternoon. The line for Santa Claus went around over half of our layout!  Well at least they had plenty of interesting things to watch.  The crew enlisted the aid of the kids as they were light weight and agile enough to scamper across the layout to help retrieve a car from the track when necessary.  Dick, Rich and Walter were relieved by Betty, Hunk, Terry and Sue.  I bet they had a busy night and lots of stories to remember.  I would be interested to hear if it quieted down later on.  I wish I had more pictures but I have a little video from today. 
Here is some quick clips of the Mall around 3:30 today.

Festival of Trees ~ Dec 4 to Dec 11th ~ MGRS Train Display by Paul Corbett

Paul Corbett is looking good and so is his layout as he begins another 8 day train display at the Westbrook Festival of Trees.  The event runs from Dec 4 to Dec 11, 2010.  Click here for the exact schedule of date and times:   Paul has developed a good following of people who look for him and the trains each year about this time.  It is an excellent place to put on a display.  The people appear generous also as he had a jar full of donations he collects for local charities.  Paul always has a lot of nice details for his scenery and dioramas.  I liked Harmon's Hamburgers which is a famous spot on RT 100 in West Falmouth.   Click here to see some pictures and clips of the Festival of Trees.

Looking Good!

MGRS gets its name up in lights~Looks Good!

Friday Night with David and John

Carl and Mac started off the day early and were there at 3pm looking strong and fresh when David and I came in at 3pm. to take over the evening shift.  Things went very well today for everybody.  We were pleased to see what Symon the Maine Mall Event Coordinator had done on the big message board (see above post).   Scott was there and he took some pictures on my camera for me.  Both David and I met and talked to more interesting people today.  It is all off  camera because that is when people like to talk.  I have a few seconds of a real Downeast train engineer saying his route is Portland Maine to Boston North Station.  We had folks from New York to Novia Scotia and every where in between.  They all love "talking trains" and watching ours perform.
 
Please see more from today - Click here:

Paul Corbett leads MGRS to another Festival of Trees

   
 As he has done so well in past years, Paul is heading up and taking care of the annual Westbrook Festival of Trees which begins tomorrow.   This is a beautiful event and one that is interesting to see.  You will not only see an up close MGRS train display which is a delight to children and adults, you can also see over a hundred beautifully decorated Christmas Trees.  All inside, nice and warm despite the weather.  Please click here for directions and the schedule that the trains will be operating.  

Iron Horse - Nov-Dec Issue available Online

We would like to draw your attention to page 7 of the latest issue of the Newsletter.  The Mall display has been a very big success.  But it is all done by volunteers.  Please help them finish strong by filling in on an open date remaining in December. 

Big and Small at the Mall

  Amtrak to Eggliners and everything in between.
Today Doug and Dan ran trains in the AM.   Doug brought in all his egg liners and had them running all linked together and in free style versions. He also had a very nice hardcover book very well done on "Gardens Man Style"  (or something similar to that).  The book showed some great pictures of his 2001 Vermont Railroad. It was very well done.  They were both kept busy talking to folks all day.
The PM shift were all representatives of the Circus Division and featured Norm, Art and Andy.  I missed seeing what they were up too but I am sure that it was colorful! I did hear a horse car go past which was making authentic sounds.  But then  I left to see a concert my grandson was in which was nearby.  Here is a little video from the day.  Click here:

BTW the rumor was that the Mall had upper management from 'away' come to visit today and we did see some special guests being shown our display as we tried not to do anything too outrageous.  Remember, I said 'tried'.  Actually. we think they love us, We will find out tomorrow when we ask if we can be put up on the Mall marque. :)

Arthur and Jim at the controls

    Art signed up for a complete double shift AM and PM and he started early and finished strong.  Very impressive!  Carl and Mac were there in the morning and Jim and John in the afternoon.  We all had a very good day at the Mall.  Once again we had the chance to meet interesting people, answer questions, learn ourselves and thoroughly enjoy the time spent there as the day flew by.  Here are some quick video clips from today as we start a new month.