Sue and I were delighted to be able to visit Pat & Jean's Hodgson Valley RR on Friday. Also on hand were my brother, PRRBill and his wife, Freddie, John & Jeri Devlin, and Brian and Lynley Thinnes. Pat & Jean had visited us and seen my layout, and it was really great to see theirs.
I'm going to post few pictures just because I ought to, but in a shameless shill job, I will tell you to get OGR's Great Layout Adventures #8. Rich did a great job of taking the video of the layout (Pat said it was a blast), and it is well worth seeing. The pictures I'm posting just don't do it justice. In addition to the pictures and video, Pat now has Dave Hikel's app for controlling the layout on his iPad and iPhone. I suspect what Pat has is still in beta, but it is really one cool app. And yes, I've seen it at York. But there's something about seeing it ACTUALLY WORK on a complicated layout.
I want to thank Pat & Jean who were wonderful hosts. We had a great time and Jean put out a great spread for dinner.
The GREATEST thing about this hobby is the wonderful people you meet, and Pat & Jean are at the top of the list. On the video, Pat talks about how the Forum and internet have changed the hobby into a much more social hobby, and I think the change is wonderful. There are just so many wonderful people (most of whom seem to be about my age, so I have NO problem with the average age of TCA members).
On Saturday, Sue and I went to the TCA convention, saw part of the Lionel demonstration, met with Stu Rankin who is getting METCA ready for next year's convention and I bought 2 shirts for 2015 to support METCA. We're looking forward to the TCA convention in northern NJ next year and having a lot of people join us at the NJ Hirailers.
Gerry
