Yesterday, I had a peak experience as a model railroader. I imagine many of you have had similar wonderful experiences, all of which can be shared here.
My wife and I hosted an Open Mic barbecue at our home yesterday. For those of you who may not know what that is, an Open Mic is a musical event in which there is a microphone and amplifiers, and people are invited to perform songs by singing, playing a guitar that can be plugged in to amplify the sound, singing karaoke, etc.
Except for 2 fellow train buddies, one of whom is musical like me, everyone else (about 30 people) at my home yesterday was not involved at all with trains.
One of the songs I performed was an original written by me about model railroading. If you want to hear it, you can go on YouTube, put my name in the YouTube search box, and then find and click on the video/song entitled: Who Am I ( Rollin' By). I played this song to whet the appetites of the attendees to see my trains later on.
After each performer did 2 songs, we took a break and then I invited everyone into my basement to see the trains. Beforehand, in addition to performing my model train song, I mentioned to a few people my passion for trains while chatting with them in my yard, and said they can get a peak at my layout by looking through my basement window. They were amazed at what they saw.
My layout is scenicked pretty well, but not museum quality, and moderate in size at best. It's about 50% postwar including Lionel O Gauge tubular track, 022 switches with many Postwar accessories, and 50% modern. IMO, my layout is full of fun but not at the level that the train magazines, including OGR, is interested in publishing an article about. I know this for a fact because I know I'm a very good writer and submitted 2 well-written articles about my layout to the train magazines, but both were rejected.
No sour grapes, I share this to prove that my layout is not that great when compared to those of more committed, talented and skilled model railroaders who have written published articles about their layouts.
However, to all of the uninitiated, unfamiliar with our hobby, like the Open Mic people who came to my home yesterday, my layout was the equivalent of the Citi Corp. model railroad empire and masterpiece built by Dunham Studios many years ago. They were astonished by what they saw in my basement and thanked me profusely for sharing my trains with them for about 10 minutes.
I will share a couple of recent photos of my layout in a few minutes.
If you have had a similar experience like the one I had yesterday, please tell us all about it on this thread.
If you haven't invited non-model railroaders to see your layout, I encourage you to do so. Such sharing is good for promoting our hobby, and is very likely going to result in a very positive experience for yourself and your audience.
Don't let any pre-judgment about the quality of your layout stop you from sharing it. Chances are, if you are a regular Forum member and have a few nice trains that run on a layout of any kind, your audience, especially the non-model railroaders, will love to see what you have. Arnold
