2023-08 Greenberg Train Show
Event Details
Location: Pittsburgh - Monroeville Expo Mart
Date: Aug 5-6 2023
Time: 10:00 AM - 4:00 PM Each Day
Admission: Door price set by sponsor
Sponsor: Greenberg Train Shows
Event Layout
- 30 straight modules
- 2 standard corner modules
- 2 medium corner modules
- 2 large corner modules
- 50 SME (Single Module Equivalents)
- 37.56 meters of track
- Image says approx 22ft square, but in reality, the tables made it 24ft square.
- the 20mm space at the top left was filled with a short question spacer
We had 3 things that we tried new this time around:
- Train Log — This was more or less a "signup sheet" for running trains. It assisted us to keep track of who was running (and more importantly when they started) as well as who wanted to be next. We had 2 "dispatchers" (for for the DC side, and one for the two DCC tracks) who kept track and were the final authority if necessary.
- DCC-EX — We used the "Development" version of DCC-EX to run all three loops. This allowed us to run the DC loop from our WiThrottles. This turned out to be a big hit, and we found it to be very successful. (Side note, Monday the DCC-EX team released "Version 5" into production — the the development version we used is no longer considered "development" ) We did seem to have some issue with a few different sound equipped locomotives, but we are not positive at this time if that was something related to the DCC-EX system, or an unrelated issue.
- Operations — We ran some Stress-free Simplified Wheel Reports Operations on our inner DCC loop. The loop had 2 trailing points spurs, and one facing point spur. This required the use of the two crossovers onto the red-line as a runaround. The combination of looking for permission to enter the mainline (i.e. red) as well as the facing point added a little bit of puzzle without making it anything too crazy. The wheel report was simple enough that you could stop and put it down if it got a little crowded, or if someone had a question, etc. At one point, I had given the controller to a young man (under 12) to be the "engineer" while I was the "conductor" and we did a pull and drop-off at one of the locations. He very much seemed to enjoy it.
