Our third year for our public display. We start setting up in October, and open up twice a week in December. This year there was a 4'x28' "summer" display, a 6'x24' "winter" display, and a 6'x10' Lego/Thomas layout.
The summer display ran two separate loops, the winter display had a single loop with a bump & go trolley, and the Lego display ran two loops.
Summer display featured the more realistic "scale" buildings, a bunch of 1:43 cars, 3 bridges, and an elevated line. We made many trees from roadside weeds, and incorporated some vintage lionel accessories from the 50's.
Winter layout was decorated with snow blankets, lite up ceramic buildings, and a recycled Polar Express mountain from last year.
The Lego/Thomas layout was a bit of a mix that would make rivet counters shutter in anxiety. We hosted a Lego contest in order to attract more kids. We placed all the entries on this layout. We had two separate loops with a Lionel Thomas & Lionel Percy running. This display had the hand held lionel remotes, and the kids had full control of the trains.
This is our third year we hosted a Trains in the Town Hall. Our Historical Society is inside our beautiful 1893 Town Hall. This was started as a "we should do something for Christmas" idea. Our 1st year we were thrilled to have 500 attend. The second year we were shocked to get 800, and we were floored when over 1600 came through the doors this year. Everything is free. No admission charge, free homemade cookies, hot popcorn, punch, coffee, (you get the idea). Our area is right around 43% poverty range, so having something that an entire family can attend was very important to us. We are not a train club. We are a historical society. Please keep that in mind.
Marketing was through press releases, handouts at the schools, a big sign in town and our facebook page, "Trains in the Town Hall". The local newspaper did a story as well.
We were open 10 scheduled dates, and twice for special private showings for the local church youth group and one of the local Amish parochial schools.
It was a ton of work. However, one evening a developmentally delayed child came in. He was completely overwhelmed with the display, and had never ran any trains before. Mom & dad were visibly on edge, but one of our folks went over to them & told them to relax & enjoy themselves. Watching this kiddo made our evening, and one of the older members of our Society came up to me, placed his arm around my shoulder, and told me "good job kid", (I'm 38). He also said, "Watching that kid- you can tell that this made his night". He was right, and that older guy had a tear in his eye as he walked away to refill his coffee.
You'll see a couple hundred photos and some videos on our facebook page. https://www.facebook.com/Train...all-664074977026673/
I tried to encourage visitors to write reviews on our facebook page. I would like to approach some local foundations, and would use screen shots in the narrative.
I will upload a few here, but I don't want to be redundant. This display was done with the trains that I've collected with some stuff from some of the other members. We didn't do this with a couple thousand in grant money, and this isn't a money making endeavor. Last year I had some OGR members send me their old 027 track, and the expansion on this year's display used a whole bunch of it.
