Following two successful exhibitions in Germany, the El Peso team finally had the opportunity to showcase their layout in their homeland of Croatia.
On Friday, May 31, 2019, at noon, an exhibition was officially opened. It serves to celebrate the 50th anniversary of the Model Railroad Club “Zagreb”. Conviniently, it is held at the Technical Museum “Nikola Tesla” in Zagreb. As current or former members of the Model Railroad Club “Zagreb,” the El Peso team made a significant contribution to the exhibition’s success, which ran for little over two weeks.
For the exhibition, we utilized a circular layout with a designated section for the barge. We incorporated nearly all of our team’s modules into the layout. Exception were reversing loops that were not compatible with this configuration. Our El Peso layout occupied a prominent central position within the exhibition area and garnered significant attention from attendees. We received numerous compliments from our fellow model railroading enthusiasts. They all appreciated our concept of showcasing the southern region of California. Our layout boasts a simple and realistic landscape, and all modules seamlessly integrate to create a cohesive and distinctive terrain.
Running trains
We selected the DC train driving mode for the exhibition, but experienced difficulties closing the circular drive in the model’s central section. The issue arose from the wooden structure drying out and slightly distorting due to temperature. Fortunately, we promptly resolved the problem using a helpful adapter. This facilitated connecting the two corner modules and enabling circular driving in both directions. Despite this initial setback, the rest of the exhibition proceeded smoothly. We took full advantage of the opportunity to display an array of models from our collections. The exhibition provided a valuable occasion to present our layout to colleagues and friends from the Club and model railroading community. Additionally, we highlighted our layout concepts and ideas, which is particularly noteworthy since model railways from the USA are not commonly showcased in this part of Europe.
Several thousand visitors, including many young families with small children, attended the exhibition. Hopefully, we have inspired some of them to take up model railroading.