2017-18 Redford Theatre Christmas Layout

The buildings and other items from Gary's generous donation.  These will make up the fictional town of "Hartville" in honor of Gary and his late wife.

Here is a billboard insert I put together and intend to include with these buildings to recognize their donor.

We always look forward to your efforts Jake, keep us posted. Gave away all our Xmas Village buildings some years back. Are you running more O27 size equipment rather than full scale? Let us know if you have any specific needs.

I like how you have really gotten a hold on this.

I am not sure why the Legacy remote wouldn't work from the lighting booth. It's on the same frequency band as WiFi to communicate with the base. It does make easier to have multiple remotes when you can use an iDevice.

Look at some of MartyE's posts. He uses a standalone router to connect the wifi module to create a secure network. (Like his demonstration table for the York legacy meetings).This prevents someone with the app on their device from accessing the layout control.

I am looking forward to seeing this season's rendition.

BobbyD posted:

We always look forward to your efforts Jake, keep us posted. Gave away all our Xmas Village buildings some years back. Are you running more O27 size equipment rather than full scale? Let us know if you have any specific needs.

Thanks!  Yes, on typical evenings we run O-27 stuff.  On the evenings we're present to operate trains we sometimes like to run our nicer scale models, but we never leave those unattended.  

We received a Williams SD45 last year from a local hobby shop owner, which is one of the best running engines we've had on the display.  It would be nice to have another similar locomotive (Williams diesel) so they can be rotated in and out of service to avoid too much wear and tear.  The locomotives we received from the Detroit Historical Society a couple years ago are great, but they're all MPC era and have AC pullmor style motors which don't really fit our operating conditions unless they can be supervised.

Aside from that, illuminated accessories, freight cars, etc. are always nice to use and add a lot of action for people to see.  People always love finding little details as well, so any fun figures, cars, or other such items are always nice to hide around the layout for visitors to look for.

Moonman posted:

I like how you have really gotten a hold on this.

I am not sure why the Legacy remote wouldn't work from the lighting booth. It's on the same frequency band as WiFi to communicate with the base. It does make easier to have multiple remotes when you can use an iDevice.

Look at some of MartyE's posts. He uses a standalone router to connect the wifi module to create a secure network. (Like his demonstration table for the York legacy meetings).This prevents someone with the app on their device from accessing the layout control.

I am looking forward to seeing this season's rendition.

Thanks!

The Legacy remote has a lot going against it in the theater.  The booth is all the way in the back of the auditorium (Over 40 feet away), while the command base is located under the layout in the orchestra pit.  I think the seats block a good deal of the signal, which is further impacted when we have an auditorium full of people between the booth and the layout.  I've had a problem getting a signal from the opposite end of the layout from where the controls are (20 ft away) before.

The other aspect is that the trains are designed to turn on and run by turning on the main power switch at the lighting booth.  The village is on its own circuit while the trains are on another.  We almost have to set up a time delay circuit to the transformers so the command base turns on first, otherwise the trains would just take off.  Although as I'm typing this, I just had the thought that I can put the command base power source on the village circuit and just turn that one on first... 

I believe what you described is pretty much what Mark wants to do as far as a router is concerned.  Obviously someone would really have to want to run the trains if they'd be willing to pay for the fairly expensive app just to do so, but I'm sure someone out there has access to it.  I'll have to look at Marty's posts though as perhaps there are some things we could use from them.

Thanks for your thoughts!

This is fantastic Jake!

Any tinplate represented to compliment and round out the era of the theatre?

CH posted:

This is fantastic Jake!

Any tinplate represented to compliment and round out the era of the theatre?

I do have a set that I occasionally run, but that’s not a bad idea to keep something on permanent display during the season.

Hi Jake: Cool Christmas Layout

When I was a kid and in High School. The Redford was a big time hang out.  There used to be a candy shop next door and also on Grand River.  Before we had cars, we used to take the Schoolcraft Bus to Grand River and ask for a transfer.  At the transfer point. There was a train shop called. "The Train Clinic".  The building is still there, it is now the fellowship hall for a church.  

If you ever have old copies of Model Railroader, you can see advertisements for "The Train Clinic" Detroit.

Gary: Model Train Trivia from Detroit

Gary I remember that train shop, first train only store I went to. Dad had to take my train there for repair. I don't know what was wrong because he fixed most everything.

clem k posted:

Gary I remember that train shop, first train only store I went to. Dad had to take my train there for repair. I don't know what was wrong because he fixed most everything.

Hi Clem: Yes, a Train Shop.  When I was a kid, myself and my two brothers shared American Flyer Trains and they went to the Train Clinic for repairs.  It is my understanding there is a hobby shop in Troy, Michigan that has family ties to the Train Clinic.

Below are some Google Map photos.

Gary

Thanks guys, I have heard about the candy store next to the theater many times, though it was before my time.  It's interesting hearing about some of the history of the area.

You mentioned a train shop that's now in Troy, which I assume is Empire Trains and Hobby.  They used to be Merri-Seven trains located at Merriman and 7 mile in Livonia until several years ago.  

A nice start to the season... we are one of the runners up for the MTH Blue Comet award as shown in the 2018 V1 catalog. I applied for this several months ago, and was pleasantly surprised to have gotten recognition in the catalog (I knew about it about a month ago). Though we didn't win, we got a nice writeup on the first page of the catalog which is awesome for our display and the theater.  

That being said, I'm getting ready to head over to the theater to start some of the construction for this year's layout. And so it begins....

Jake your displays are always well done. I'm sure the 2017 will be just as nice.

Jim

Congrats, Jake!

Peter

Congratulations Jake.  You deserve the recognition!

Jake:

 I was born in Redford a lonnnng time ago and am into trains once again. I got my first Lionel train while living in Redford for Christmas in 1941 and it still runs well.  I lived there from 1936 until 1943. Where is the Redford Theatre located? I would like to drive in and see your display. I have a lot of pre-war Lionel and a ton of pre-war Marx and would like to donate some if I knew what your needs might be. You can email me at gm.gilligan@comcast.net. I'm in Ann Arbor. 

George

Thanks guys, we were excited to get the news 

George, the Redford Theatre is located near the corner of Lahser and Grand River in Northwest Detroit (considered the "Old Redford" neighborhood, was once Redford but was annexed into Detroit).  I will definitely shoot you an email.  We enjoy having a variety of stuff to run.

We decided to spend most of today reworking our rooftop Christmas lights while the weather is still nice.  Here are a few photos I took while working up there.  If you look carefully in the first photo behind the taller brick portion of the wall behind the Marquee, you can see an L-shaped beam that passes through the roof.  That was a portion of the support for the vertical sign which went with the original marquee.  Unfortunately it fell victim to the scrap drives of World War Two, and this marquee was installed a few years later.  The torch marks from where other components were cut off of the beam are very visible up close.

Some slow progress on the display. School and work have been taking up a lot of my time recently, so things aren't going as quickly as I'd like, but we're getting there. This week we laid down our masonite panels we bought last year over the black stage platforms. They're painted white, so the snow doesn't look dark as it does when put directly on the black tabletops. They also help smooth out the transitions between the 4x8 tables (unfortunately since the platforms were built over many years, the tops aren't all the same material).

Last night we worked for awhile and constructed a new 4'x6' platform to fit in the area in front of the piano in the orchestra pit. The piano is connected to the organ console, and can't be moved from it's place, so we decided to build around it. In the past, we've only filled the space between the organ console and the edge of the piano. We normally set up a folding table in front of the piano to store unused rolling stock and locomotives. I haven't quite decided what to do with the platform yet, but we've discussed a possible railroad yard, or a smaller town display. Seeing as we gained nearly 20 new buildings for this year since we took down last year's display, we needed a little more space. I don't intend to use all of my buildings since we had a lot of donations, but we will use many of them.

Next work session, a wedge shaped piece will be made to fill in the gap between the orchestra pit railing and the new platform. Working around the curved edge of the pit makes things a little more challenging when trying to use all the available space.

A little more progress on lighting.  Next steps are snow covering and track laying/wiring.