NMRA Open House

Jack Thompson (blue shirt on right) wearing his very authentic kepi.
Ron  Prillaman (in green striped shirt) and Jack were both long time civil war reenactors. 

 

I hosted an open house for the NMRA Potomac Division this afternoon. About 35 people came by including some of my wargaming friends.  

Charlie and his parents

Leonard White and Jack Thompson volunteered to run trains. They were assisted by Charlie Fastoso. He is a nine year old boy who was visiting for the first time. He ran trains for quite while and ended up making 3 round trips cross the layout. He quickly picked up the idea and was operating the turnouts and turn table on his own. I think he would have stayed but his parents had to leave.

I didn't see too many problems. Most of the issues came from folks forgetting to set turnouts to the correct route. Stub turnouts are basically derails when set to the wrong route. 

I was pleased to see that the intermittent shorts in Whiton's tender truck were not occurring. I added insulating washers to each axle to help avoid the shorts and they seem to have worked. I noticed Haupt was a bit balky at the start, but ran well. Perhaps it need some lube. 

After everyone left,  I test ran the General some. It runs really well. I discovered it needs several ounces of weight in the tender to pull 9 cars. I will take care of that as there is room in the tender for extra weight.