20070113
The Seattle Science Museum hosts an annual event for model railroaders. Since the museum is just a few blocks from our apartment, we decided to visit the exhibition. While I, personally, am not into the hobby, Kathleen is. I can clearly appriciate the amount of attention to detail that these modelers put into their activities. The photos below are what we saw.
Just before we hiked out of the apartment, there was another fly-by of the 747 LCF. This plane is used as part of the supply chain for the Boeing 787 Dreamliner. It is used to carry sub-assemblies of the 787 including wings and fuselages. I have posted several photos of this plane before, it is one big SOB. It is difficult to get a sense of scale from this photo, but just notice that the cockpit cabin is a standard 747 (which is 2 stories tall) and judge the scale from there.
Marquis from past model railroad shows..
The attention to detail in some of these displays was quite remarkable.
Note the slabs of meat on the rack.
The pickup is the correct scale for the landscape.
The trains were doing laps for the crowd.
Even the sky seems to match.
I wonder if they simulate trains hitting cars at the grade crossings.
These fellows put a ton of time and effort into these models.
Note the 57 Chevy at the grade crossing barrier.
Lots of hardware.
This industrial robot will pick up and move tic tac toe pieces. Stepper motors drive lead screws to provid emotion. The steppers can be seen at the bottom of the 'bot with the cooling fins.
An operating scale model of a back hoe.
Trains in the second gallery area.
More trains in the third gallery.
A real train, in this case the famous (but now dated) monorail that goes from Seattle Center and the Space Needle to Westlake Center shopping mall.
Plenty of folks onboard the monorail. I think the monorail was complete in 1965. It looked very futuristic at the time, but now it just looks like something out of an old science fiction movie.
When we finished shopping we went to the Two Bells Tavern in Belltown for dinner. A very funky place but the food was good. Plus, it was on the way home.
On the way back, it started to snow. We decided to go to the water front to check out the city lights. Here is a view looking to the south along the boardwalk. A sculpture from the Olympic Sculpture Park is visible on the left. The stripes in the sky are the running lights of a plane coming out of SeaTac. A light dusting of snow is visible on the sidewalk.
The train exhibits were impressive, but not my thing. That said, I do have to compliment them on the extreme amount of time and effort that they put into their models. The clearly take great pride in their work and did a good job of execution.