Tolga's Takeaways - GFLUG at Plant City Train Show, October 16, 2021

Here's a retroactive show report; a small one but with remarkable implications. That's what the Takeaways series is all about.
The Greater Florida LEGO Users Group was at the Plant City Train Show on October 16, 2021. Organized as part of the NMRA Sunshine Region Convention, it was a nice way of easing in back to public train displays amid the already passed exhibits at Tampa Bay Comic Con and Orlando MegaCon. The layout received contributions from David G, Chuck I, Todd T, and myself. Here are my takeaways from displaying:

We were the only layout at the show!

The entire show floor was dominated by vendors selling trains. The market reach in the morning was members of the NMRA Sunshine Region, including folks from the local South Florida Railway Museum, and enthusiasts among the general public. David and I were able to make this happen partly on this basis having worked with folks at the SSR. We got a nice centralized spot near the stage of the Trinkle Center and offered the "value added" of the operating layout and got to spend a day enjoying LEGO trains.  I broke my bank for some rare HO Scale items as well. Win win.

Record Setup and Teardown

I made a one day blitz from Miami to Plant City, leaving at 3:30 am with zero hours of sleep. I do not recommend this. All of the displaying members arrived between 7 and 8 in the morning on Saturday. We were all ready to go at 9:00 am, thanks to excellent planning from all members.

Modular buildings and ready made segments make setup a breeze. Modulars, which dominated the town section, often have minifigs and details on spot so there is less of an urge to populate neighboring streets with minifigs and vehicles. The buildings, whether custom or from LEGO's D2C lines, have subtle storytelling elements too, making them very appealing. They go up and come down so simply and quickly. 

Adept planning and practice make for fast, perfect setups. This is where the Tropicana and Plant City sections, done by David and myself respectively, come to mind. The Robert Willaford Railroad Museum scene comes up in five familiar sections, and Tropicana is easy to transport, set up, and break down. David's setup and teardown scheme is so efficient even I've become familiar with it 😅

Landscaping is also easy, as we set the level of detail, plop down the necessary flora and fauna, and in minutes it's ready to go.

The amount of hands on this layout also made the setup efficient, as members helped each other at various stages where there may have been differences in setup time per module. If more members can cover the same display area, the layout goes up faster.

Teardown only took maybe one hour. We started close to 2:30 pm and were out of the show floor by 3:30 pm. And my Wawa collapsed on a cart, but I was rushing it. Oh well, it will be MILSed soon either way.

That said, there is a working migration to the MILS standard which will make setup and breakdown even easier.

Theming

Amtrak Phase III Pepsi Can #160 made its first run to Florida in the new paint scheme (it was also one of the first P42s I've ever photographed in Phase V). I particularly enjoyed the Amtrak train running on the layout which was the best bet for emulating the scene given the circumstances. Looking carefully you may also see a festive scene at the Willaford's parking lot; this represents the Strawberry Classic Car Show which also coincided that weekend (but ended oddly early).





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