Bill Ward's Brickpile » Train Shows

Wrapping up the Living LEGO-cy Show

Bill — Sat, 28 Jan 2012 02:18:35 +0000

The last day of BayLUG‘s annual “Living LEGO-cy” show and teardown took place on Sunday, January 15th. My pictures are available online. This is an event we do every year at the Museum of American Heritage in Palo Alto, CA, as a fundraiser for the club and for the museum. This year we had excellent attendance, with a peak of 841 people coming through on the 30th, which was the most people we’ve had in one day since we started keeping track (and charging $2 admission).

Here’s a group photo of club members taken during teardown. Click the photo to see the rest of the images, or view them as a slideshow.

Our next event is the Train Collectors Association Cal-Stewart Spring convention, open to the public on Sunday March 4th, from 10:00am-2pm. It’s a toy train show and one of our favorite events of the year. Two weeks after that is the Bricks by the Bay 2012 convention – the convention runs Friday through Sunday, March 16-18, and is open to the public on Sunday the 18th.

Nice article about BayLUG museum show

Bill — Tue, 10 Jan 2012 00:13:10 +0000

A local newspaper has a great story on their Web site about the BayLUG/BayLTC exhibit at the Museum of American Heritage in Palo Alto. The article comes with a gallery of photos and videos, and I’m pleased to report that three of the four videos show my models (City Park, Caltrain, and Scrambler). [Aside: I just noticed that the pages for those last two are out of date, and I never blogged about the Caltrain cars I've built... sorry I will update that soon.]

There are only three days left in the show: Fri-Sun, January 13-15. If you haven’t made it out there yet, best do so soon!

LEGO at NMRA 2011

Bill — Wed, 20 Jul 2011 14:15:34 +0000

Earlier this month I was involved in the LEGO display at the National Model Railroad Association‘s (NMRA) National Train Show held this year in Sacramento, California as a part of their annual convention. Members of the Bay Area LEGO Train Club (BayLTC), Sacramento Brick Builders, and Puget Sound LEGO Train Club joined together to put a large display of LEGO trains and other models.

Click either photo to see my pictures from this event or view them all as a slide show.

Bulkhead Flatcar

Bill — Sat, 09 Apr 2011 19:24:29 +0000

This Railroad flatcar with bulkheads was inspired by the NMRA 2011 official HO gauge car for this July’s convention in Sacramento.

Here’s a picture of the prototype I based it on:

A bunch of us are planning to put together a large LEGO layout at the NMRA convention in Sacramento this July. If you want to join the effort, check out the planning wiki and sign up to participate.

MoAH 2010 Opening Weekend

Bill — Wed, 15 Dec 2010 07:59:53 +0000

This past weekend was the opening for the annual “Living LEGO-cy” museum display by BayLUG (Bay Area LEGO Users’ Group) over the holiday season at the Museum of American Heritage in Palo Alto, CA. The show runs through January 9, 2010 and is open Fridays through Sundays except holidays.

Click the picture for all the photos or view them as a slide show.

BayLTC at San Jose train show

Bill — Mon, 29 Nov 2010 09:25:20 +0000

The Bay Area LEGO Train Club (BayLTC) just got done with a train show. For the past few years we’ve been participating in train shows over Thanksgiving weekend in Pleasanton, at the Alameda County Fairgrounds, but this year the show was held in San Jose instead. We put together a large train layout as usual, but since several key members weren’t able to participate we had a little difficulty filling the space. Still, I think it was pretty successful over all.

Click the picture above or view it as a slideshow.

BayLTC at TCA 2010

Bill — Thu, 18 Mar 2010 02:33:03 +0000

Last weekend I, along with other members of the Bay Area LEGO Train Club, had a display at the Northern California Train Collectors Association Cal-Stewart Spring Meet in Santa Clara, CA. This is one of our favorite locations to do a train show – the hall is beautiful, and the crowds are manageable enough that we don’t have to put up our “sneeze guard” plastic barriers on the layout. It was open to the public only on Sunday for four hours. Pictures from the show can be seen on Flickr (or view as a slideshow). Enjoy!

BayLUG Museum Show Open through January 17

Bill — Sun, 13 Dec 2009 19:27:26 +0000

This weekend, the Bay Area LEGO Users Group opened our annual “Living LEGO-cy” exhibit at the Museum of American Heritage in Palo Alto, CA. We’ll be open every Friday, Saturday, and Sunday (except Christmas Day, Boxing Day, and New Year’s Day) through Sunday, January 17. Admission is $2 (free for BayLUG and MoAH members and kids under 2), which is split 50/50 between the club and the museum.

Come on down and check it out soon before the publicity spreads and we start getting huge crowds! Last year we had 1500 people on the last weekend, with people waiting for several hours in the rain in a line around the block to get in!! We have our first TV interviews this Friday morning for a Spanish language station…

BayLTC at San Jose Train Show, Sep 2009

Bill — Sat, 05 Dec 2009 01:09:37 +0000

Oops, I forgot to upload these pictures earlier! We had a great time displaying at the Great Train Expo in San Jose in September, and the following weekend I went to Seattle for BrickCon, and somehow uploading the pictures from the train slow slipped my mind. Well, here they are! Click the photo for the set page on Flickr or view as a slideshow.

BayLTC at Pleasanton train show

Bill — Wed, 02 Dec 2009 00:35:19 +0000

This past weekend, the Bay Area LEGO Train Club took part in the Great Train Expo in Pleasanton, CA. We had a large train and town display – the largest we’ve ever done, in terms of square footage of table space, using all 28 club tables plus 3 more that Bruce made for himself. My pictures for the event can be seen on Flickr (slideshow).

Train show this weekend, then off to Seattle for BrickCon

Bill — Thu, 24 Sep 2009 23:55:06 +0000

This coming weekend, I’ll join members of the Bay Area LEGO Train Club (a subgroup of the Bay Area LEGO Users Group) at the Great Train Expo in San Jose. We’ll put out a large train layout, about 25×25 feet, with lots of trains, a city, and the usual stuff. Come on down and say hi. It’s at the Santa Clara County fairgrounds in San Jose. Admission is $7 for adults (good for both days) and kids under 12 get in free.

And then, I’ll be driving up to Seattle next week for BrickCon! A friend of mine happens to be moving to Seattle for the first of October, so I’ll be borrowing/ferrying her car up, while she follows up in a van she’s borrowed from a friend of hers, which I’m driving back home in. Sounds complicated – wish me luck! Anyway I’ll be coming up with an assortment of MOCs, though probably not as much as I took to Portland for BrickFest this spring – I’m carrying some of her stuff up, and anyway I ought to be able to see out the rear window.

BayLTC at TCA

Bill — Mon, 23 Mar 2009 08:18:45 +0000

This past weekend (March 21-22), the Bay Area LEGO Train Club did a show as a part of the Nor-Cal Division of Train Collectors Association Cal-Stewart Meet. We set it up Friday afternoon and Saturday morning, and then the show was open to TCA members all weekend, but only open to the public on Sunday March 22.

View the photoset or slideshow on Flickr.

This was probably the largest layout we’d ever done – we’d used all 28 tables in our club inventory before, but when we did it was to make the depth larger. This time we kept the depth at a maximum of 5 feet and went with a larger footprint.

Friday night we got a little desperate for track and baseplates, but we got enough reserves Saturday morning. With a great last-minute idea by Loren to add a lake next to the campground, and Bruce’s construction zone, we were able to cover the bare wood before the show opened. In the end, it turned out pretty good.

One nice thing about the trackplan for this show was the use of a “wye” on the outer loop and track leads in both directions on the inner loop, enabling trains to be switched in and out of the yard on both loops in both directions without “hand of god” operations (except for those locomotives that can’t go backwards…). It was also visually interesting to have one of the main lines run behind the downtown instead of having both loops run side by side all around.

BayLUG Exhibit Closes with Record Crowds

Bill — Tue, 13 Jan 2009 11:36:26 +0000

We had some great publicity for the exhibit by the Bay Area LEGO Users Group at the Museum of American Heritage in Palo Alto, CA for the last few weekends.
There were television coverage by two different local stations, articles in the newspaper, and lots and lots of word-of-mouth advertising. We got several new members in the club and lots of people signing up for our club mailing lists or taking business cards home.

I was sick for most of the last two weekends, but did go on Sunday (the last day) and shot some video footage. However, a couple of other club members took photos of the crowds and sent them to me with permission to post online, so I have done so in a Flickr photoset. Please check that out by clicking the photo above, or view it as a slideshow. You can also view all my photos from this exhibit (or as a slideshow).

Next year, we’re not sure if we’ll be able to have the exhibit at the museum! The room is just not big enough to accommodate that kind of crowd. However we’ve already started talking about alternatives that would scale better, so don’t worry… we’ll still have an exhibit. We’re also talking to another museum about having an exhibit this summer but haven’t announced any details yet.

The next public event by BayLUG is our meeting at MoAH on Saturday, February 21 (note: originally scheduled for Sunday the 22nd, but the date has been changed due to a schedule conflict). Hope to see you there!

Great Train Expo San Jose 2008, Day 2

Bill — Mon, 29 Sep 2008 07:02:02 +0000

Today was the second and final day of the Great Train Expo at the Santa Clara County Fairgrounds. I was there with the Bay Area LEGO Train Club. I had taken some pictures yesterday, but today I was much more prolific and uploaded almost 80 new pictures which I added to the existing photoset. Click the picture or check out the slideshow to see all the pics.