Best Of Mike McGrattan Memorial Train - Admin Thread

[MVW]

Official Car MICHAEL MCGRATTAN is a Micro-Trains business car acquired from Lowell Smith.  It is named after Mike in the railway tradition of naming business cars after important railway officials.  It is included in the consist to host receptions for high ranking government officials, visiting foreign dignitaries and royalty, state governors,
provincial premiers, RCAF officers, important figures in entertainment, industry, and sport, and so on.:

You forgot  s.

Beautiful.

Jim

[eric220]

There are nowhere near enough upvotes available to describe the awesomeness that has been assembled. I can't wait to host!

[johnb]

I would not mind hosting the train in Arizona before having it return to Canada

[BCR 570]

If you are fast I can fit you in - please follow the directions at he beginning of this thread.

Tim

[johnb]

PM sent

[ridinshotgun]

Sent you a PM Tim.

[BCR 570]

I am pleased to announce that Mike's train will commence its journey this Thursday, departing from the station on the store layout at Central Hobbies in Vancouver.  Mike was a regular mail customer at Central; they are the exclusive retailers of Geoff's resin kits (of which Mike was so fond) and they are a major retailer of Rapido Trains here on the west coast.  It seemed to me to be a logical place to start.

From there the train will visit a few layouts here in Vancouver, then travel with me on my northern road trip for an appearance on two layouts in northern British Columbia.  On August 6 I will export it across the border and hand it off to Al Skinner in Bellingham, and from there it will make its way across the United States, ending up with Bryan Bussey, whom I will ask to mail it back to me at Point Roberts, WA.  I will then import it back across the border and send it across Canada.  It will end up back here in Vancouver for a few more layouts, concluding its journey on Mark Dance's Columbia & Western.  I will then ship it or take it to Peterborough to present to the family.  This may be an opportunity for me to fulfill a long held desire to take the train across Canada.

I am going to send to all participants an email with two attachments: a copy of the instructions for receiving, unpacking, operating the train, completing the book of condolence, re-packing, and forwarding to the next participant, and also a spreadsheet listing the routing for the train so that you know where you are in the journey.

As the date for your time with the train approaches, I will send you a second email alerting you as to its pending arrival, and providing you with the name and address for you to send it on afterwards.

All of this will require everyone to ensure that they keep me advised and updated with respect to receiving and sending the train.

This forum thread has been set up for the purpose of making announcements relating to the train, and for all of the participants to post their photographs here.  When we are done I hope to be able to generate a hard copy of this thread to present to the family along with the train.

I will post photographs of the train's first travels upon my return from northern B.C. August 3.

Johnb and Shotgun - I have fit you in.


Tim

[Missaberoad]

Thank you very much for taking on the work of spearheading this Tim.
I think this small gesture is the best thing we as a community can do to show the impact Mike had on so many people.

Looking forward to the honor of hosting this train.

[eric220]

Tim, just a thought, do you want to start a separate photo thread to document the journey? NScale.net has sent around a number of traveling cars using that arrangement, and it works well. It has the benefit of leaving the story thread uncluttered, since all the administration and setup goes on in a separate thread.

[BCR 570]

Excellent suggestion; I'll solicit Gary's help in getting that done.

Tim

[wm3798]

Thanks for managing this with your typically refined attention to detail.

Now I better get cracking on getting the layout tidied up in time for the visit!

Lee

[BCR 570]

Thanks for managing this with your typically refined attention to detail.

Now I better get cracking on getting the layout tidied up in time for the visit!

Lee

Thank you Lee - several people have remarked to me that this event will serve as motivation for work on their layouts, whether it is laying more track, getting some scenery down, or just cleaning up.

[BCR 570]

Acting upon Eric's suggestion, I have renamed this the Admin Thread for Mike's train, for any posts relating to announcements, questions, and management of the train's tour.  I have created a separate photo thread for posts with photographs depicting the layout visits.

Tim

[VonRyan]

I am going to send to all participants an email with two attachments: a copy of the instructions for receiving, unpacking, operating the train, completing the book of condolence, re-packing, and forwarding to the next participant, and also a spreadsheet listing the routing for the train so that you know where you are in the journey.

Will you be posting an update once said email has gone out? Just want to make sure that I don't accidentally loose it if it goes to my spam folder and ends up a victim of my daily spam dump.

[chicken45]

Will you be posting an update once said email has gone out? Just want to make sure that I don't accidentally loose it if it goes to my spam folder and ends up a victim of my daily spam dump.

Get it together, man!