For the seventh year in a row NELUG has displayed a layout at the Great Train Expo (formerly Greenberg train and toy show) in Wilmington MA. As has been the case for the past couple of years we once again had our largest layout ever at 13'x26'.

This layout had 4 operating loops on the tables, another loop operating as a subway line, and our longest run of Monorail track seen to date. The amusement park has continued to grow and remains a strong focal point of the layout. The inner city while smaller included a river and one of our best town/residential sections.

The show itself appeared to be quite the success with more attendees than we could remember seeing for several years. There was even a vender selling significant amounts of LEGO for the first time including 9v train accessories.

From a club perspective setup was pretty intensive and brought us to our limits. We probably won't expand the layout significantly again until we become comfortable with this layout and have more help during setup. We also kept pace in being one of the quickest to clear out at the end of the show in less than 2 hours.

Our outside loop was bumped and derailed several times and one boxcar fell to the floor (twice) and needs a bit of repair. Thankfully it is LEGO so repairs should be relatively easy.

Please visit our gallery for the layout by clicking on the image in this article.

By invitation of the Middlebury, Vermont Chamber of Commerce, NELUG put on a great show July 22nd and 23rd at Vermont Brick Blast 2006.

View the event gallery here.

NELUG members from all over converged on Middlebury, Vermont for the town's first Vermont Brick Blast event.

Despite rainy weather, the spirit of the crowd visiting Vermont Brick Blast 2006 was not dampened. Children and adults of all ages came in waves to marvel at the creations of NELUG members, as well as to participate in BrikWars games, robotics demonstrations, and building and MOC contests sponsored by the Middlebury Chamber of Commerce.

Brick Blast 2006 gave the club a chance to totally let loose, with an expanded train layout, a moonbase layout, MOCs of all shapes and sizes, as well as a work-in-progress automated model of a working quarry.

MOCs on display by NELUG ranged from the well-detailed Jabberwocky by Jason Wolfson, to the club's beautifully done giant mosaic of the Boston skyline.

As usual, the train layout was a big hit, with a nicely done residential area at one end, leading up to the towering buildings of the city on the other end. In between the two was a newly added river section, with several types of bridges spanning the water, allowing both rail and automotive traffic to cross. Adjacent to the city was a busy, work-filled rail yard, with trains of many shapes, sizes, and eras filling the sidings. Running the length of the layout, with the city in the background, was NELUG's famous carnival section, filled with spinning, twirling, and tilting rides that lit up the eyes of visitors young and old. Traffic between the carnival and the city was handled by monorail, which in addition to the layout's four independent train loops, provided transportation to minifigs far and wide.

NELUG presented a 10'x30' layout at the Great Train Expo in Wilmington MA on April 1st and 2nd. For the first time we were placed in the front lobby which brought us even more exposure but presented challenges in terms of crowd control. While there were no major incidents the crowd at opening was at times overwhelming and resulted in several derailments.

Jonathan Dallas took responsibility for designing this shows layout. We had several new MOC's including 2 amusement park rides by Dave Gwon and lots of new contributions in the Residential area. This was probably one of our most cohesive residential areas yet.

Of course the trains were very popular with Elroy's Adventurers train getting a lot of complements. As we have been growing our layout lately NELUG is in need of more track, especially straight track. We hope to have this taken care of before Brick Blast in July.

We had many of the usual questions:

1. How many pieces?
2. LEGO makes Trains?
3. Where do I buy LEGO Trains?
4. How long does it take to set up?
5. Is it battery powered or electric?

In addition we got several great compliments

1. This is the best layout here.
2. This layout is so much fun.
3. We came just to see this.

Thanks to everyone who made this such a great show.

Photos of this show can be seen in our gallery

<a href="http://www.nelug.org/images/articles/20060211215207301_1_original.jpg" title="View unscaled image"><img width="113" height="150" align="left" src="http://www.nelug.org/images/articles/20060211215207301_1.jpg" alt=""></a> The Executive Committee is pleased to announce the release of NELUG's first Annual Report. Part traditional annual report, part yearbook, NELUG's 2005 Annual Report contains information on it's membership, the changes that occurred to the club over the year, its financial information, many highlights on the events and projects in 2005 as well as a recap on media spots. We hope you will find this information useful as well as fun not just now, but also in the future.

Moving forward, we very much would like to involve interested members in the creation of the annual report. There will be a post in the forums with this very same announcement in order to silicit comments and feedback - all of which are welcome. While we fell short of our February 1 goal this year, that will be the target moving forward.

Thank you to everyone for making 2005 so good!


The 2005/2006 Executive Committee,
Tom Duggan
Eric Kingsley
Joe Comeau
Dave Eaton
Mike Ripley
Jamie Berard

The Annual report may be downloaded here: <a href="http://www.nelug.org/annualreport/NELUG%20Annual%20Report%202005.pdf">http://www.nelug.org/annualreport/NELUG%20Annual%20Report%202005.pdf</a>; (8 MB)

This was our largest layout ever at 10'x30'. The city section had several new skyscrapers and was our most impressive city yet. Of course the big hit, as always, was the ammusement park which included first time showings of at least 2 rides. There was also a residential section and an industrial railroad section.

We got the usual questions but the most asked question this year seemed to be "where is King Kong". Come on Mike, save us and revive Kong for the next show please!!!

We also seem to be getting more and more compliments from the hard core model railroaders as well which is probably a sign of acceptance for LEGO Trains. I guess some of them didn't think we had the staying power.

The following galleries are available

Eric Kingsley
Dave Gwon
Elroy Davis