hat a horrifically bad train show!

I woke up feeling good about going to a train show after all my missed-events. But then Sparky got pulled over while pulling the trailer and the cop demanded a roadside inspection and wrote us up for five infractions. And First Coast club took half our layout space! And then set up took two hours – how many ways can we put the layout together in wrong order? By the time it was up, attendees were standing around our build-area, silently watching like ghouls as we screamed at each other.

After that, there was the short that knocked power out to the entire auditorium. We’d only gotten back to running when that bomb threat was called in. Then the vendors formed an Anarcho-Syndicalist Commune and Charlie the organizer stormed off, swearing off ever holding another event. And then the layout fire…

The pipe-organ train whistles its way across the St. Mary’s bridge, passing from Florida to Georgia (Photo & Train: John DV)

And after all that, it was April Fools Day.

Seriously, all I can say (in truth) is we had a lot of people show up for build, we ran trains all day with heavy traffic, and we had a big crew of enthusiastic helpers for tear down. We earned our money and the promoter was happy (as always) with us. And Zack even got to run his Static Train. Everyone worked and we made a lot of money for the club. So thanks to everyone who came out for it and made the show what it was.

Even if you count the volcano in the parking lot.

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