By Ed Ives

The Hi-Railers attended the 26th annual Maple Valley Train Show. This show is a not for profit event and any excess monies will be used for those in need within the district.

Set up for us started about noon on Friday October 18th. This is not the easiest venue for set up and tear down as all equipment must be carried in and out through one set of doors. Nevertheless we got our 24 modules in place in short order thanks in large part for the plea for help from within the group. So great was the help that the layout was assembled, running and the scenery complete within 2 1/2 hours, a far cry from some of our 7 hour exercises.  A few of us remained as guardians of the layout and running trains for an exercise, while other groups moved in.

The show ran from 10 am until 5 pm on the Saturday and 10 am until 4 pm on Sunday with about 300 attendees per day, or about a usual number for this event. The public were generally enthused with our efforts. 

Garrett, always one for pushing the limits, at one time had three trains running concurrently on the outer track, all controlled with his smartphone and without a hiccup, that is until he switched out one locomotive for a Pennsylvania centipede, with the whole consist drawing in excess of 200VA and triggering the circuit breaker on our power supply. It’s been a while since we last did such a thing. Other than that this exercise showed that one had to be quick and agile, something that we are not noted for, in entering or leaving the layout through the personnel bridge as there was always the train either on the bridge or approaching the bridge. Garrett was a real asset over the weekend with his participation and the public enjoying his multi train operation.

Toby, a potential new (younger) member brought his candy train complete with candy. The train would slow as it approached  children, and some adults, so that they might sample some of the delights. The children were very respectful of the train taking one candy at a time with no derailments or other accidents. Touching the trains is not something that we usually encourage but this was different and quickly became quite popular with children and adults alike.

Teardown on Sunday went at quite a fast pace and low and behold we were packed and ready to leave in one hour or as Wayne said, 58 minutes, a far cry of four hours in the past. We left the HO modular group and the N-trak modular group in our dust.

Ed