Blog Roll

Friday, November 10, 2017

Piedmont Pilgrimage Layout Tours

Greetings All,

The 2017 Piedmont Pilgrimage billed as the 15th annual tour of the Atlanta areas great model railroads is well under way. The event is sponsored by the NMRA / Piedmont Division SER of the NMRA and Scale Trains.com. For more on the event click the link 
www.piedmontpilgrimage.com

Two new layouts were on the tour this year that were close to my house so on a Saturday afternoon with a little free time I made the move and went layout visiting. 

The first stop was the home of Patrick Parker to visit his Ocmulgee River Belt Line. Upon arrival I was greeted by Patrick's wife and either mother or mother in law. Both were friendly and after signing in was directed to the train room on the second floor of the home. Once upstairs I was greeted by the host, Patrick and his friend Walt Liles who was manning the throttle(s) and keeping the trains rolling. Both men were pleasant and took time to explain the insight of the layout, modeling techniques used, engaged visitors in conversation and answered all questions cheerfully and in detail. This was a good layout to visit and I enjoyed my time here.

The Ocmulgee River:  https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Ocmulgee_River

Here are some photos from Patrick's Ocmulgee River Belt Line;

A Georgia Central Hi Hood U23B leads a freight train on the O.R.B.L. The Georgia Central is a railroad in southern Georgia. The 3919 has a 1:1 GC counterpart.  http://www.rrpicturearchives.net/locoPicture.aspx?id=5442
Plenty of SCL/LN Family Lines power at the engine terminal. At least some of these engines were sound equipped and they were idling away the afternoon nicely.
Much of the rolling stock on display was nicely weathered like this Georgia Ports Authority boxcar. Patrick uses chalks and acrylic paint washes to achieve these results. 
 A close up of SCL #7055 and a rare SCL BQ23-7
A local freight shoves a string of cars towards a large industry at the corner of the layout. The area being modeled is the east coast of Georgia with it's marshes and river ways.
An SCL U18B with an SCL GP7 leads a freight train on the Belt Line.
 Another nicely weathered train in the freight consist.
 I tip my hat to Patrick and Walt for their hospitality and camaraderie. These are model railroaders you can easily spend time with shooting the breeze about trains and modeling. Thanks guys!

My next stop was a layout that I will withhold the name of located a few minutes away. Upon arrival at the house's basement I was greeted pleasantly by family members. I was offered one of the nicely made brochures for the layout and after signing in I was directed to the train room. Upon entering the 13' x 21' train room I noted two guys running trains on a mostly plywood layout, the layout owner and one other visitor. No one so much as looked up as I entered and the owner and his operators went out of their way to avoid any and all eye contact or acknowledging that I was in the room. The other visitor was trying in vain to engage the owner in conversation but getting mostly useless one word answers.

After about five minutes of watching the operators derail their trains thru closed switches and being ignored I took my leave. The only conversation I remember from my visit here was one operator asking the owner how much longer they would have to be open. This only one hour into the tour!

So this visit was a total bust. Why the owner agreed to host an open house is a mystery. It was clear he and his operators were totally disinterested in having visitors. 

Thankfully Patrick, Walt and The Ocmulgee River Belt Line had given me good memories to contemplate on my drive home.


Thanks for reading!




8 comments:

  1. Sorry to hear about one tour going sour. Why they would do this is beyond me. At least you had one nice layout tour and the pics look great. I know that my layout tour next September will be enjoyable to all!

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I batted .500 for the day going 1-2. The positives of the first layout visit far outweighed the negatives of the second visit. I am 1000% certain you will provide a great layout visit experience for all who enter the A.P.R.R. domain!

      Delete
  2. Interesting observations. The LA area has had layout tours in the past -- not sure if they're still going on -- but my takeaway is they require strong leadership, including by example. A lot of basics, people to meet and greet, signage, and so forth, get left out. But visitors can be first class jerks, too, picking stuff up, loudly complaining about the layout, etc. I've largely written off the social side of the hobby, but judging from the number of good layouts in my area that have never been on tours, I'm not unique.

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. I will say that both layouts had plenty of signs directing you thru the neighborhoods and properties to the layout. Hospitality at both homes was excellent with smiling faces, food and drink provided at each. The difference was the layout owners. One was enthusiastic and one was rude. Both layouts were new on the tour and opened for less than an hour before my arrival so it's not like anyone was worn out at this point.

      Delete
  3. I like the looks of the Ocmulgee River Belt Line and its heavily weathered rolling stock. Cool to see a layout set in Georgia. Glad you had such a good experience on this part of the tour. As for the other layout, its perplexing to understand why some one who decided to host their layout as part of the tour would act so uninterested. Oh well...500 is a pretty good average. Classy of you not identifying the disappointing layout in your post. I was looking at the Piedmont Pilgrimage website and didn't notice a way to contact them...but i suppose you could consider informing them about the bad tour. They might appreciate knowing about that. The map of tours shows a large cluster of layouts in the region! NMRA hosts Twin Cities layout tours but I've never gone on one...Your post makes me think about it.

    ReplyDelete
  4. The O.R.B.L. is a layout that did a pretty good job capturing the look of the eastern port area of Georgia. The rolling stock was indeed nicely weathered. I liked this layout as well. The second layout had a lot of potential according to the tour book. This is the second year of my tour visits and I recommend them. I think layout #2 was an anomaly. I'm 3 for 4 in layout visits and I'll probably visit more next year.

    ReplyDelete
  5. Hi John,
    I stumbled on your blog this morning. Very nice write up of Patrick's railroad. We had a greayvtime that day operating the RR and sharing with guest. I was sorry to hear of your disappointing visit of the second layout. It is so important for host to be friendly and welcoming to guest. The Piedmont Pilgrimage is an exciting way to experience some very cool model railroads around the metro Atlanta area. Again the comments at Patrick's were great. I will pass them on to him
    I have never blogged before. I know that this was in 2017 but I will remind and pass along to the chairman of the Pilgrimage to remind host how important there enthusiasm is. I am the superintendent of the Piedmont Division . Thanks for sharing the photos and write up.
    Your railroad looks great as well. I will start following your blogs.

    Thanks and Happy Model Railroading.
    Walt Liles

    ReplyDelete
    Replies
    1. Hi Walt,

      Nice to hear from you! Thank your for taking the time to read and comment on this entry. As I reported I had an excellent visit with you and Patrick and really enjoyed my time rail fanning and learning about Patrick's layout. Thank you for forwarding my comments to Patrick.

      I look forward to further interactions and will hopefully see you at a future event.
      John

      Delete