[db ice 3]

hey folks,

am on holidays just now visiting a friend in Kansas City in Missouri! looked out the window this morning and saw some snow had fallen overnight whilst 6 hours drive away in oklahoma, they had 3 tornados touch down! (its the start of tornado season!) ...

anyways, after stopping at Arbys for some food, we headed to the only model store in the area! ... it was a model store in small town america, boxes and boxes of trains, locos, tracks, scenic materials, wires, switches, bulbs all over the place, nothing behind glass cabinets, you cud pick things up, open the boxes, spend time looking, holding, feeling things ... it was just wonderful. they had 4 layouts, 2 x HO, 1 x N, 1 x O scale/gauge ... something for everyone. i spent 3 hours in there and spent $90.00 on bits and pieces to bring back.

it was a wonderful experience, the layout were all running, not screened off, fathers brought their 5-14 yr old boys in to see the trains running and every single boy had pocket money and was buying something - i was thinking just how wonderful this all was - and this is how it shud be!.

of course everything in the shop was u.s. based stock, but they had kato american stock and peco track and electrics.

the guys runnning the shop said take as many pics as u like so i did - iv posted them here for you to enjoy too ... what a wonderful day iv had today!

looking out the window this morning;-

cold and hungry on way to model store :- arbys looked like they had just the thing! :-

arrived after 30 mins drive down the freeway, i was so excited!:-

inside i was like a schoolboy in a train shop! ... i had to look at everything! ...

some pics of the n scale layout...

then there was one of the HO layouts still under construction ... its interesting to see how it was built. they used an internal house door as the base ... then built up layers of thick polystyrene sheets (bought as insulating sheets for your home, so its fire retardent treated!) so its easy to cut out valleys, gorges and add more sheets to create mountains and hills!... i liked it. notice they used kato unitrack for this layout but once its got the balast and weathering, ud never know it was kato with the pre-formed base!

notice here the kato track pre and post weathering/ballasting - amazing how its disguised!

so who has heard of an EGG train then lololol

an american large gauge loco on a layout!

the wonderful old time shop ...with staff who like to chat about model railways! :-

it was a wonderful saturday day out ... sunday im going to be playing with my new track planning template lol

hope u all enjoy the photos!

 

[poliss]

Some great pics there. I bet you'd have liked to have been snowed in at the shop. I like the way the Kato Unitrack was disguised.

 

[db ice 3]

lol ... yeah poliss - id enjoy being snowed in there for a while! ... u dont see many model shops these days where all the stock is just laying about - the staff are very trusting, you can pick up anything to look at - maybe shop lifting doesnt happen in small town america - this little town is about 30 miles outside Kansas City ... it was just great ... the guys running it are retired from their main jobs and this is how they spend their retirement!. how wonderful!. one told me it was a great way of escaping from the nagging wife and enjoying his hobby at the same time! lol.

i cud think of worse things to do in old age!.

 

[madon37s]

Great pictures mate thankyou for posting them (how do you get them a nice size like that). I use fickr and they come out tiny compared to yours!!.

Glad you had a great time at the shop. There don't seem to be many model shops like that in England either so to see that was great.

Kind regards

Paul

 

[frame69]

Hi db,that looks great!! Im visiting friends in joplin,missouri when restuarant closes so may have to pay it a visit,thanks for the pics

 

[db ice 3]

QUOTE (madon37s @ 1 Mar 2009, 09:30) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Great pictures mate thankyou for posting them (how do you get them a nice size like that). I use fickr and they come out tiny compared to yours!!.

Glad you had a great time at the shop. There don't seem to be many model shops like that in England either so to see that was great.

Kind regards

Paul

hi, thanks Paul ... i have a kinda basic casio exilim camera, i have it set on 2mp (it can go up to 7mp) so the foto files arent too large - i then upload them en mass to photobucket.com which is free to use, then i copy and paste the code onto here and they come out the size that they do! ... the folks who run this site have adjusted something so this site will re-size the foto files because i was posting pics that were too big and didnt know how to reduce the file and pic sizes and was probably driving them crazy! (sorry!) so now the site does all the hard work automatically. - glad u liked the pics

QUOTE (frame69 @ 1 Mar 2009, 10:44) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Hi db,that looks great!! Im visiting friends in joplin,missouri when restuarant closes so may have to pay it a visit,thanks for the pics

hey frame ... when u come out here, the shop is in a little town called grandview. the address is :- Show Me Model Railroad Co, 810 Main St, Grandview, Mo. 64030 tel 816 966 1534. we used a mobile phone with a navigator to get us there, but its actually very easy as its just off the freeway.

dont know if you model the american scene, i dont, but its a great shop to see anyway ... they have lots (tons!) of accessories, bits and pieces and i found lots of little things to take back and they gave me 20% off everything - i dont know why lol. but its worth the drive!

 

[clive hayward]

Hello DB,
what an excellent February you've had, first the ROCO digital, sound start set picked up at the SECC and now on holiday in Missouri!

Many thanks for the excellent pics, I'd love to go and see model shops like that, absolutely brilliant. Loved the pic of Arby's, I haven't had one in years, but that roast beef sandwich looked very good!

I learn something new every day on the Forum, I'd have staked a month's salary on Kansas City being in the state of Kansas, and I of course would have been completely wrong!

Have a good holiday and my kids say enjoy the snow!

regards

Clive

 

[db ice 3]

QUOTE (clive hayward @ 1 Mar 2009, 17:44) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>that roast beef sandwich looked very good!

I learn something new every day on the Forum, I'd have staked a month's salary on Kansas City being in the state of Kansas, and I of course would have been completely wrong!

Clive

hey Clive - your not wrong at all - you are completely right an its so easy to get confused like i did when i 1st got here! ... there are TWO Kansas Cities!!! ... one is here where i am in Missouri ... the other one is just nearby in the state of kansas ... i told folks here how confusing it is for me - would be like having 2 Paris's in France or 2 Glasgows in the Uk! ...

and the Arbys was very good - just the trick for a cold snowy winters day!. i might even have another one later today - i can see how the americans can get on the large side - so much tasty food so available so easily with little effort. they even have a drive in/out - only effort to get an arbys is having to push the button to wind down the car window! lol

i parked and made the effort to walk in - i was the only one!

 

[dwb]

QUOTE Paris

Paris is in Kentucky, and Versailles (pronounced Ver-sales) so no one gets confused.....

David

 

[neil_s_wood]

Nice pictures thanks for showing them. They still seem to be a bit large though.

 

[db ice 3]

QUOTE (neil_s_wood @ 1 Mar 2009, 21:45) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>Nice pictures thanks for showing them. They still seem to be a bit large though.

they were taken in the usa ... everythings large here! lol ... apparently the site now automatically resizes them to the correct size!