Hi,
I was 18 years old, just graduated from high school, when my father asked me to help out during the first attempt at Northland Mall. As soon as the mall closed, we set up an oval along the length of the (indoor) mall, between Sears and the Lazarus Department store. I had grown up with a Lionel layout in the basement, and my brother and I had added to it when we were teenagers, so I was familiar with the technology. They were very organized; from the track to having the wire sets ready for the track, to having all the cars and locomotives. I believe the locomotives, perhaps ten of them, were GG1's. I mostly worked as a runner taking cars to guys who were putting the train together, then I was one of many stationed along the track to watch for problems. The train string lined at the turns, no matter what was tried and the attempt was called off. It took a long time, very late in the night to pack all those cars back onto their boxes!
A week later, I boarded a Boeing 727 at Port Columbus airport and left for Navy bootcamp and promptly forgot about the attempt.
Circa 2010, while helping my father go through stuff, having moved to Las Vegas, we came across the car he had purchased after the successful attempt. Only then did I ask hear the rest of the story: a while later the organizers obtained access to a taxi-way (or runway?) at then Lockborne Air Force base, south of Columbus, set up a straight track and ran the train it's own length to satisfy the Guinness requirements.
Bob Bunge
