I was mostly attending in a Z Scale capacity this show, but I still had to check out the N Scale modules. The talk of the show was this module with the operating race track: The cars were really moving around the track, which is why the camera blurred them: There was a train underneath with magnets on top of the cars which was propelling the race cars around the track. The effect worked out real nice. Another module that caught my eye was this scratchbuilt Drive In Movie Theater which used a CRT monitor to play the movies: And this module from last year was cool too. I just love the clouds and debris left from the tornado: I did not bother with taking photo's of the new N releases because everyone on the web will be doing that in the next few days. -Robert
Interesting. Although the shape doesn't quite match the Milwaukee Mile (which is understandable, given the shape of the module), he did capture a flavor of the pitlane and the like. The track is shaped a little more like Martinsville, though, which actually does have a Norfolk Southern mainline that runs (or ran) right next to the track, limiting the size of the grandstands. But they made a deal with NS to move the track to allow for some expansion. There are kits that have been available for a few years which use an LCD screen for a drive-in. At the last show I was able to attend a couple of years ago, there were three different modules with an LCD drive-in theater, and one older CRT based drive-in theater. A cool idea, but when there are several of them... ---jps
Nice pictures Robert. I didn't know that the cars actually went around the track! That's probally one of the cooler ideas I've seen for a module. Using the hidden train to make it work is a great idea. I could also see recording an actual race and paying the audio from some small speakers. Do you know who's module it was?
The racetrack module was part of the Dayton N Track group, but i don't know who the owner was. I can't even remember if there was sound, because I was too enthralled with watching the cars go around! -Robert
The owner is Eric Meyer from Milwaukee NTRAK. His module was part of the 21 clubs that made up the NTS NTRAK loop. I don't think he had sound, but what a cool idea. Did you notice his other modules around it? They were very nicely done.
The fact that the cars move is just way too cool, I'm so blown away. Very ingenious solution to get them to move. I had wanted to do a corner of a track, but a statick version seems pretty lame now that I've seen this. The dive-in is great, but I'd be afraid visitors would get caught up in the movie and forget about watching the trains (depends on the film I guess). It does make it realy clear what year it is by what film is showing! The tornado is a unique touch. I think it could be improved by suspended debris and the trees should be bending to the wind, but that's subjective I guess. I can see why these moduals got so much attention.
The Tornado module was my kids' favorite at Chantilly... The racetrack module is admirable, and innovative. Thanks for sharing!
According to those that saw the module, the cars actually move around the race track. I believe that someone stated that there was a train running in a loop under the track with magnets on top of the traincars. This moved the race cars around the track on top.
Eric ran several LL E units, each wtih three very powerful magnets spaced along the top of the shell, on 2 loops of Kato Unitrack. The magnets on top of the engines were about 1/16th under the thin plastic track. Each race car had a magnet glued to its underside. Each E unit would "drive" 3 cars (notice in the pictures that they are in groups of three). The cars being carried on one loop could pass other cars when their engine passed an engine on the other loop. Because there was a little "play" in the cars, they looked as if they were drafting and darting in and out, trying to pass all the time. I knew how it worked and I was amazed by it myself.
