Winter Wonderland & Holiday Layout Contest - The winner is...

Very nice Steve. What did you use for the retaining walls?

Don

This is my first time posting pics so bare with me. The theme of my entry is the mass transit North Pole. Using equipment from around the world the transit is very efficient despite the seeming desolation and isolation the is no lack of ridership. Here is a good overall view. The platform is a tiny odd sized hollow core door 2x6 ft. The plan is a simple loop around a dogbone.The two structures, the Ice Palace and the North Pole Observatory were inspired by Winsor Mccay's "Little Nemo" Comics of the early 20th century. I made them of foamcore and wedding cake columns.
Some of the snow drifts are carved Styrofoam.
I had a similar idea about the candy cane trolly poles I found them very hard to work with. I think I should have gotten higher quality ones I had over 50% breakage.

As you can see in this return loop around the north pole the compass reads south in every direction. We all know who hangs out at the North Pole and even up here he cannot escape his fans.

Where else can you find BART cars and Pennsy commuter cars running side by side around too narrow curves. But they run cars from many US cities, some tin Tokyo subway cars, the BART,tin european cars and even a Melborne streetcar made it in to the collection. I hope you enjoy it.

Don,

Thanks. The entire layout is built up using styrofoam sheets. The retaining walls were cut and carved using a hotwire foam cutter and a metal ruler.

Congratulations to everyone. I am blown away by the creativity and imagination.
The judges are in for a very tough week or so. I can say with confidence, that Allan Miller will have a wealth of material here for future OGR articles.
Well Done!!!

What can I say??? All of you have built some wonderful layouts!!! Judging is going to be very difficult for this contest. I hope all of you have had as much fun building and displaying your layouts for friends and families as the readers of the forum have had looking at your accomplishments.

Thank you to all of the participants and I hope you all have been inspired!

quote:

Originally posted by Dave Allen:
Congratulations to everyone. I am blown away by the creativity and imagination.
The judges are in for a very tough week or so. I can say with confidence, that Allan Miller will have a wealth of material here for future OGR articles.
Well Done!!!

Well said Dave.

Prairie

Really great layouts - congratulations to all.

...and I'm glad I don't have to judge!

Jim

quote:

Originally posted by ChessieFan72:
Mario,

Wonderfully done!!! I embedded the video so everyone can watch it here.

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width="500"
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> /> /> value="http://www.youtube.com/v/-4Qk52D-PP8?version=3&hl=en_US&rel=0"
/> /> /><embed pluginspage="http://www.macromedia.com/go/getflashplayer"
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Thank you Stewart! I was having a problem trying to figure that out!

Thanks,
Mario

Mario,

When posting videos from you tube, ensure you check "Use Old Code". The new YouTube code does not work in the OGR forum.

I think they are all winners. Nice job everyone.

quote:

Originally posted by Kristofer Nelson:
Hello,

This is my submission to the Winter Wonderland and Holiday Layout Contest.

Kristofer, none of your photos are shown. Please contact me asap at stewartogr@yahoo.com so we can judge your layout!!!

Congratulations Steve on a great layout...hopefully we can do it again next year!

PD

Congratulations to all the winners. Great job guys.

Yep, when I saw Transit Modeler's I knew the contest was over. What I find impressive is that it was a floor layout built on styrofoam. Congrats Steve!

Don

Congratulations to Transit Modeler. Love the detail on your layout.

LMS

If the winner, Steve, has high-resolution (largest file size) photos available and will contact me for more information about what else is needed, I will plan to feature his layout in the Dec. 2012 issue of the magazine. He will receive $400 upon publication and 12 comp copies of that issue of the magazine. Just send an e-mail to editor@ogaugerr.com and I'll get the ball rolling.

I will also review other entries in this thread over the next week or so and will contact folks individually for other photos and/or features that might make nice additions to that issue.

Congratulations to Steve and to all who entered. Very nice work by all!

Am I missing something? I can't see any announcement of the winner and placegetters.???

The list is in the title post.

quote:

Originally posted by Dave Allen:
Am I missing something? I can't see any announcement of the winner and placegetters.???

________________________________________

Here it is Dave:

Before the winner and honorable mentions are named, I'd like to thank all of the particpants, sponsors, OGR, and last but not least all of the followers of this thread who gave encouragement! All of the entries were awesome, and the judges had fits deciding who to give the nod to.

Winner

Transit Modeler

This was the hands down favorite of the judges. Here's what was said about the layout: "What we liked: Everything! Great attention to details! The trains and the trolleys were great. The cars and people added life to the scenes. The new fallen snow in town gives the plows something to work on. Even the houses have Christmas lights on them."

_________________________________________


Congratulations to the winner! Yeah, I too loved the Christmas lights!

I thought that one of the gifts for the winner would have been a free ride on the 765 next to Rich Melvin darn maybe next year...

Prairie

I missed the actual announcement, too. Here it is copied and pasted from the initial post in this 3-page thred:

quote:

Winner

Transit Modeler

This was the hands down favorite of the judges. Here's what was said about the layout: "What we liked: Everything! Great attention to details! The trains and the trolleys were great. The cars and people added life to the scenes. The new fallen snow in town gives the plows something to work on. Even the houses have Christmas lights on them."

Honorable Mentions

CH

LMS Lines

Graz

PD

Congratulations to all!!! Please send an email to stewartogr@yahoo.com with your contact information so I may disseminate it to the sponsors.

All Entrants

Save those photos and layout building documentation for submittal to OGR. Publication of your material will earn you some train money Smile Contact Mr. Miller for further details.

Great layouts everyone, and especially Transit Modeler. The shot of the houses with lights looked like it was straight out of "A Christmas Story".

If I might make one suggestion if the contest is held again next year- that each participant place his photos in a separate photo album called Christmas contest entry and his name, or something similar.

The thread pages were very long and I found it really hard to scroll through them and see the entries. I was never quite sure where I had last looked and they took a long time to load. I had no idea how many contestants there even were and I'm sure it made the judges job more difficult. A photo album format would be much simpler to navigate.

Either that or a streamlined thread with just photos and fewer and no progress photos or other posts, etc. Maybe limit it to three photos. One contestant posted 16 photos! Many contests are judged on a single photo. I think the entrants need to carefully select a few photos- a wide shot and a few detail shots max.

Anyway my 2cents.

quote:

If I might make one suggestion if the contest is held again next year- that each participant place his photos in a separate photo album called Christmas contest entry and his name, or something similar.

An EXCELLENT suggestion! I wasn't involved in the judging, but I'm sure it must have been quite a challenge to wade, repeatedly, through this entire thread.

The judges did a great job! Excellent selections. But we viewers are the real winners. This was absolutely one of the most enjoyable threads of the Holidays. I enjoyed every entry.

quote:

Originally posted by NYC Fan:
The judges did a great job! Excellent selections. But we viewers are the real winners. This was absolutely one of the most enjoyable threads of the Holidays. I enjoyed every entry.

I'll second that. Congratulations to all the participants. You guys are really talented!

Prairie

I have already been in touch with the winner (Steve) and will soon be contacting the honorable mention recipients as well as a couple of others who have displayed their considerable talents here.

You folks really did produce some very attractive and inspirational layouts, and I hope that we'll be able to share a good number of them with our readers when the next holiday season rolls around.

All who took train-related Christmas photos that they are particularly proud of are encouraged to submit them to the magazine so they can be even more widely appreciated.

Hello,

I would like to thank everyone involved with this contest - The creator, the judges, the sponsors, and all the contestants for all the great submissions. This contest thread was a great opportunity to display our creativity and imagination. I think it will spark the imagination of others out there to get their ideas and creativity flowing!

I am honored to be a part of this and to selected as the winner, thank you very much. I think everyone that participated did a great job and have inspired others to join in.

Thanks everyone for making time to put this contest and talents (all facets) to benefit the community.
Without the dedication to the hobby it would not be as strong and inspiring.
I'd also like to thank my family. Without their pledge of support thru lost family time and sponsorship support from my wife...you guys would have seen a picture of an unopened train set I took at the hobby shop.
Finally my daughter who learned some of her old man's limited modeling talents. Without her continued interest and consistent asking me: daddy how come? I was able to realize one dream. Working on a project together and making everlasting memories during the process. At four years old, she has already shared with me that "she gets it" hard work does pay off.

As a footnote, she and I have already talked about how to make it even better for next Christmas.
I'll admit, I'm guilty of spending too much time with her. But her glassy eyes got me.

Thanks and look forward to contributing further via Mr. Allen and/or within the forums.

Fabulous.....congratulations to the winners and all who participated!

Peter

From the judge's perspective, I can only say it was a very difficult job, not only picking the winner, but the runnersup as there were a number of great layouts
that unfortunately missed out. I hope that an annual competition for forumites continues, the last two years have be fun and educational, and obviously very popular. Thank you to OGR for making this corner in cyber space a great place to come.

quote:

Originally posted by Allan Miller:
An EXCELLENT suggestion! I wasn't involved in the judging, but I'm sure it must have been quite a challenge to wade, repeatedly, through this entire thread.

Speaking of wading through....would it be possible to use the Winner word on the first post on pg 1 to link to picts of the winner in the thread so one could click right to it? Or edit it and put the pict (s) in the first post?

Thanks, Greg

CH,

Could you please send me your contact information so I can pass it on to the award sponsors? I also sent an emai to the one in your profile.

Thanks!

Thanks to all of the judges and to all the competitors.

I enjoyed doing this contest immensely. I was overwhelmed by the beautiful layouts of my fellow competitors.

I hope to be able to participate again next year.

Best regards,
Bruce