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Post by christoff on Apr 12, 2016 18:21:29 GMT -5
I'm also very excited for this show it will be my first time seeing a z scale layout in person. Now im even more excited due to the fact there will be 2 layouts there not just one and also that I'll be going both days. Now boxcarwilly you threw another curve ball at me I may be able to purchase some new hoppers from Intermountain. I'm very excited for this boxcarwilly is going to impress his mentor and I'm going to go and hopefully meet mine. It is a shame azl will not be there perhaps one day as the line grows we will see azl here in Calgary. By the way boxcarwilly I have that MtL track packed up for you if I forget it on Saturday then remind me when I see you to bring it on Sunday.
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Post by christoff on Apr 16, 2016 11:30:36 GMT -5
Damn I slept in... Owell supertrains Calgary 2016 here I come. Better late then never.
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Post by christoff on Apr 16, 2016 18:39:35 GMT -5
All I can say is wow Boxcarwilly has a fantastic layout it truly is beautiful and I managed to score a bit of z scale from a few vendors On a side note tho I spoke with Intermountain and the man I spoke with told me they will no longer will be producing z scale.... What a disappointment
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Post by boxcarwilly on Apr 18, 2016 11:34:02 GMT -5
Well it's over for another year and I have to say I'm exhausted. That's too much work for an old man and too much money to have to shell out. All in all though, it was an excellent show and extremely well attended despite the economy here being so bad. Everyone who came to my layout was impressed all the way down to their socks and as Chris says, I heard a lot of fantastic, and amazing and very well done and excellent and on and on and on. Unfortunately no awards though which I expected anyway since the Supertrain committee is prejudice against Z Scale. All awards handed out always go to the larger scales, N and up. But I'm not in it for the awards, but for the enjoyment of those looking at it. I won't be bringing my entire layout anymore,from this point on I'll stick to my main module which is where it all started. Good to see my mentor there with his layout. Had a very brief visit with him. I also got a chance to rake Intermountain over the coals for ending production of Z scale cars. I told that moron that I had over 1000.00 worth of pre-ordered cars with them, but he said the pre-order response to their 3rd run just wasn't enough to warrant production. That's a load of crap! They should be thinking more about customer service and not whether it's cost effective to do a production run. Same holds true for AZL, MTL and everyone else. Customer service and giving customers what they want is what it's really all about. Intermountain and others need to wake up to that fact. But it was a good show and a bit bigger then last years. More individual layouts this time around and some from junior modellers. This is always good to see. Next stop, Railway Days at Heritage Park In September. My son took some videos of my layout while he was there and is going to post them to U-Tube and I'll post the link here as soon as it's up. Chis took a bunch of pics too and is going to put them up as well. Watch for them. Cheers.
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Post by markm on Apr 19, 2016 11:36:46 GMT -5
I'm looking forward to seeing the images of the show. The one's from last year's show seemed so static.
I was sorry to read about Intermountain and glad you gave them a piece of your mind. They have some very nice products, even more for you with their interest in unique Canadian cars. I don't understand the company. Their latest press release still list the cars in preorder stage as do at least a couple of online retailers. When I visited their in 2012 they seemed to be enthused with producing Z. IMHO some of that enthusiasm seems to have disappeared since the 2013 flood in Longmont.
Mark
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Post by christoff on Apr 19, 2016 12:51:36 GMT -5
Mark when I asked Intermountain if they will produce z scale again if the market picks up they told me that they still have all the molds and artwork and will not be getting rid of them so the possibilities are there for more production. so as long as companies like AZL and Rokuhan keep expanding our market and people like boxcarwilly continue to show the model train community the endless possibilities of our small scale( he modelled the spiral tunnels and it's truly mind blowing ) then I can see them wanting back in bit it's still the fact they let is down that I don't like. I'm sure we will see Intermountain back in a few years.
As far as the pictures and video I took of willys layout I will be posting them as soon as I get home from my work trip and figure out the forum posting thing. But I can tell you right now I'm no photographer and they will not show you just how amazing his layout really is. I tried to capture some pics of key detail areas as well as a video of the layout from end to end. But it's hard when you can barely use a camera and there's people in the way. I may be a young cat at 22 years old but I still suck with technology.
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Post by boxcarwilly on Apr 20, 2016 10:53:50 GMT -5
Chris: not to worry too much about posting the pics. and vids. I'm sure there are lots of folks here who will be able to assist you in that, so long as you don't get the same messages I do about copy write crap. On a side note, I had a chance to speak to a rep from MTL who was sharing a booth with NARC and I asked him why they were still producing the same tired product lines but just repainted. His candid answer to me was, they just don't have the interest that they used to in this scale since the change in ownership and the lost of the engine manufacture in China. I asked him about the possibility of sharing the engine manufacturer with AZL and, well the comments I got after that were not exactly favourable to that idea. I won't go any further, you can draw your own conclusions. I told him that I wasn't happy with some of my MTL SD40's and GP 35's especially the couplers and he told me that they were no longer making repairs to those engines since they didn't possess the tooling and anything that was wrong with either of those engines I was in a sense, ON MY OWN. Now can anyone tell me what the hell is going on here? It seems that some of these Z Scale manufacturers have thrown in the towel and are just not that interested in producing anything new or sourcing new manufactures. If this is true, here is the perfect opportunity for AZL to pick up the slack and do what MTL obviously doesn't want to. Rob, take the hint. In my own opinion, I think it all comes down to laziness or lack of interest. I wonder if MTL would be interested in selling?
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Post by boxcarwilly on Apr 24, 2016 9:56:07 GMT -5
12,700 people visited Supertrain 2016. I think that's a record for the show and surprising given the Alberta economy right now. But for 10.00 per adult, it was a good deal for a few hours of fun and excitement. If anyone is interested in photos and award winners just go to the Supertrain 2016 website and go to the bottom of the page, and click on 2016 winners. There are also videos taken by different groups that participated posted on U-Tube and again you can see them by putting in Supertrain 2016 in any search engine. I don't think I'll be there for Supertrain 2017.
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Post by boxcarwilly on May 1, 2016 15:36:52 GMT -5
OK. If anyone here is interested in seeing a very small part of my layout as it was set up at the Supertrain 2016, I found a video that someone posted on U-Tube. Whoever took this didn't do a very good job of shooting this video as he didn't get a lot of my layout in, only a small portion, what I refer to as the upper half. But what he did get gives some indication of what my layout looks like. Here is the link to it. As soon as I can get a hold of my son who also shot a lot of video of my layout, I'll gently kick his ass and get him to post it and I'll send the link so hopefully you'll be able to get the full scope of what I've done. Hope you enjoy. If this link doesn't work, Go to U-Tube and search for Supertrain 2016. There are videos of almost everything there at the show.
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Post by boxcarwilly on May 1, 2016 15:47:56 GMT -5
BTW, the guy behind my layout in this video is me.
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Post by christoff on May 1, 2016 20:56:53 GMT -5
sorry about the poor video skills guys but it shows you just how big this layout is
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Post by christoff on May 1, 2016 21:06:21 GMT -5
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Post by christoff on May 1, 2016 21:29:37 GMT -5
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Post by christoff on May 1, 2016 21:36:38 GMT -5
well i guess we can post pics of your layout now boxcarwilly
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Post by boxcarwilly on May 2, 2016 11:43:44 GMT -5
Thanks so much for these Chris. In retrospect, I should have had a longer hopper train behind the 4 GP35's. It would have been impressive as hell to see the front of the train appearing out of one tunnel while the rear as disappearing in the other. Oh well, I had to keep the trains short to fit inside the bottom reverse loop. Good shot of the entire layout too.
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