Nothing like a end goal to get your layout cleaned up and working. We hosted the cub scouts and the Atlanta Garden Railroad Club GGRS this past weekend. It was a great day and a great turnout. All week long before the open house the weather was great with no rainfall. All the family came out to help get everything set up. On Friday we looked at the forecast and the highest was 2% rain, so we set everything out, did the finally run through with everything working. I went into the house to relax and next thing you know it was raining. The sun was out so I thought it would be short but it was anything but short. After a few minutes we brought in all the locomotives but left everything out. It proceeded to rain hard for another 45 minutes. In the morning the layout was still wet and of course the JMRI programs will not work because the BDL168 track detection circuits all show red (locomotive on the zone) due to the wet tracks. It took most of the day for the track to dry out with the last track showing black after the open house was done. Luckily I had a contingency plan and we had 3 trains running with 6 just on the layout.

Next time I will tarp the layout once we have it dry and everything working and not pull the tarp off until the morning of the open house. The cub scouts reminded me “Always be Prepared”.

Here are some of the pictures and a video from the day. Thanks to all the grandchildren, especially Nathanial, Simon, and Joanna for talking and showing the layout for everyone and for Tony, Kelly, Nicole, and Brandon for helping for the setup, running the trains, the putting everything away.