Jim,
I was talking with a man who used to own a hobby shop and his feelings
were the opposite. His feelings were that if we keep the trains away
from the kids they will think of them as a display only and not
something they could actually touch, play with and own, hence the demise
of kids wanting trains. It actually makes sense to a certain degree--if
you slap hands and scold a dog or a kid enough they won't touch. Then
we wonder why kids only come to a trainshow to watch and then leave with
no desire to own them.
To be fair this gentlemen is now surviving the economy by repairing
trains so maybe he sees more business repairing those dropped trains.
Our club often uses PVC stanchions with two layers of ropes to separate
the little guys from the layout. We generally follow this procedure
with the larger shows or at malls. We do a couple of smaller shows
where most folks are railroaders and less likely to do damage so we
don't use them. I've never had a issue with folks lightly touching the
scenery and I also have a pond that people just love to peck at--I guess
it's really just human nature to some degree. Anything more than that
and then we have issues however. It's a matter of patrolling the layout.
I think we made a big mistake on our layout in that it was built to
operate from the inside. Many of our turnouts are controlled via fascia
mounted rods and in DC days we had two cabs. We also had some fairly
high 'sky boards', so mostly viewers could only see the top part of us,
and in my case being somewhat height impaired, only my head.
After observing some other clubs who operated out front, I tried to push
for that. We installed some DCC sockets on the outside and when I built
new modules, I installed DPDT slide switches that can be operated from
either side. It now helps bring us up front to talk to folks, walk with
your train and is an added security measure. The radio controlled DCC
throttles allows that to happen very nicely. I find it much better to
be near the kids than to yell at them from across the castle walls. We
have also found that if you position 2 members outside at opposite
corners they can effectively watch an entire oval type layout.
I've attended several 'sales' seminars and most of these presenters ask
the sales force to not hide behind their table but be out front and
actively be engaged with the public. Since we are selling S this might
be a good way to go. I think it works, although some of these shows get
pretty tiresome by the end of the day.
Bob Werre
PhotoTraxx
Hi,
I understand Andy's predicament. Many of the PVMR crew is alumni of
NTTM in Strasburg, where everything is behind Lexan that can be. The
biggest problems we ( PVMR ) had the first yrs were children grabbing
and knocking trains, trees, crossing gates, you name it over or down.
Sometimes parents corrected them, sometimes they looked to see if we
saw them, sometimes they just walked away. As quickly as we could
afford to, we bought 4 X 8 sheets of 1/4 in. Lexan from a local glass
contractor, who willingly split it into 3 --16" X 96" pieces. Took
us a while but we now enclose 2-- 8 X 16 ft layouts PLUS our little
THOMAS 4 X 7. NO more damage (normally, altho we have one patron who
breaks or steals one little piece each yr ) no more smacked fingers
and the resultant tears. Where the Lexan is open, the kids play with
a '56 flyer Barrel Loader and well over 90 % of them request
permission to reload the barrels. The Lexan is heavy, etc, but well
worth every penny it cost ( and the trips up and down the stairs to
move it ).
Jim " building the NEW "S" world with PVMR " Lyle
In a message dated 8/15/2013 1:16:23 P.M. Eastern Daylight Time,
[email protected] writes:
Hi All,
I have accepted the fact that any shows we do that someone is most
likely going to touch the resin water on the wetlands/swamp. Not
to be sexist, but it is most often a female. It used to drive me
nuts getting the finger prints off.
I discovered that a cloth for cleaning eye glasses works
beautifully. No scratches and the grease comes off well.
I don't know if it got finger printed at the convention yet
because I am cleaning the RR room before I set things up again.
It may take a while because I am cataloging blueprints.
That is part of being a public display. You have to deal with the
public in all their shapes, forms and levels of respect for other
people's property. A polite reminder with a smile can be given
when someone is doing something unacceptable. Usually they back
off. If they don't, set your phaser to stun and remember that
Klingon phasers have no stun setting.
cheers,
Andy Malette
