Starting a thread to share success and failure stories about your home layout tour this year.
1) Is this your first tour?
2) Were there new people touring?
3) What stage is the layout?
4) What special preparation did you make?
5) Share your expectations vs what actually happened.
1) We had our first home layout tour for 2) people who had never been to our house. I was nervous that the piles of boxes and tools and paints would ruin people’s experience. 3) The layout is less than half complete - a big chunk of track is not laid yet, preventing continuous running. There’s very little scenery - but there’s enough track down to run some trains.
Last night (12/17/2024) it was our turn to host a roving dinner - we had two couples over for dinner. So the layout tour was not the reason people were at our house - that helped reduce my self-inflicted pressure.
Started with the Christmas tree track circle upstairs when people arrived.
Downstairs we had the Lionel RR crossing bank with pennies outside the train room.
Once in the train room, we started at the back with the Disney monorail. Then I ran a steam Christmas passenger train from Marceline to Chillicothe (~70’ of mainline). Next up was a diesel freight train from the Grand River to St Joseph yard (~40’ run). Last up we ran the Disney steam train around the 5’x9’ Marceline loop.
4) I had staged the trains and practiced these runs twice, starting by powering up the layout just like I would for the tour.
5) I’m happy to report that the trains performed well, the monorail needed help getting past a couple of track joints, and the couples asked questions that indicated they were curious but not overwhelmed. I am very pleased with the result and look forward to sharing more and getting more track laid down. I am so happy with the tour that I wanted to share and hear about your tours this year.
Monorail starting the loop:
Arrived in Chillicothe:
Arrived at St Joseph yard:
