The "Model Train of the Year"... or something like that...
Time Magazine has its Person of the Year, therefore we shall have the Model Train of the Year. Their choice of PotY is always characteristic of that person's impact on the year's events. In 2023, the choice was surely clear. For us, when evaluating the various model railroad projects I've taken on at my leisure, the choice couldn't be clearer. Since 2019, ECHOES, the East Coast HO Exhibitors Society, has displayed at Pinecrest Gardens on a new, sweet, extended arrangement for their holiday-themed Nights of Lights festival. Gone was the short opening weekend stint that usually happened on the second weekend of December. Our display time and scope swelled up like a sweet tooth only would during the Holidays into a three week affair. The two end-loops with five lucky 2'x4' modules turned into a much more appreciable fraction of our maximum possible footprint. Our Nights of Lights display has become the marquee event, trumping the annual Harvest Festival that has a...