Halloween trains at the Fort - TR

[FWRR3]

OK, my first TR, which may be more detail than anyone wants, but gives some backstage look at a train display...

We arrived at the Fort on Saturday, for our second Halloween, with my neighbor and “candy loader” Darrell, bringing his fifth wheel. We don’t have a camper, so Darrell and his wife stay on site while we commute daily to the display. We set up the canopy and table base on Saturday:

Many people told us later that they wondered what we had in there for a day before we opened it up:

Then we took off to Trails End for dinner, and then looped in the golf car that we rented for one day, to see all of the great decorating:

We finally got things set up and ran the trains Sunday until about 9 PM:

Of course we didn’t give out candy, but some curious folks stopped by, and the three Disney employee judges stopped by, even though we didn’t register for the site decorating contest. They registered us on the spot, and were very excited about the display, but I didn’t have any great expectations about my display competing with the wonderful large displays we saw the night before.

There was rain forecast for Sunday night, and Mother Nature didn’t disappoint. It just started as we got home. I worried all night, not so much about the rain, but it was also windy, and we only had four gallon jugs of water weighting down the canopy. I should have worried more about the rain. We had thought about getting a tarp to put over the canopy on Saturday, but didn’t. The canopy instructions said it was “water resistant”, and would drip at the seams, like a new tent.

When we got up on Monday, it was pouring. I stopped by Lowes and bought a 12’ x 16’ tarp, and went to check out the damage. Luckily, I had put plastic baggies under the table legs like little booties, to keep the legs dry if water got under the canopy, which it did. But the saving grace was a thin painters drop cloth that I put over the display Sunday night. The inside of the canopy top was soaked and dripping everywhere on the drop cloth, which saved the wooden display table panels. Here’s the plastic after I dried it off:

It was still raining lightly, so I very carefully parked the van against the canopy so I could unload the trains and other parts that we had taken home, without getting anything wet.

After getting the display back together, I had some testing, programming, and final adjustments to the candy elevator to make.

I probably wasn’t really open for business until about 6 PM, but only a few people were around. They were all eating, dressing, or lining up for the golf cart parade, which I was sorry that I was going to miss. Or so I thought. Our site was across from the Comfort Station in the 1400 loop, right behind the campfire/movie area, and I didn’t realize that the golf car parade would come right by there to end at the field nearby. So I ran out and shot some video.

Oh, I didn’t mention the mosquitos, which were BAD! I got many bites while I was videoing the parade, because I didn’t want to stop to swat them. That night I counted fifteen large bites, and probably had more. We used candles, bug stray and electric zappers, but still couldn’t beat them!

After the golf car parade ended, the Treat or Treaters finally began to show up.

More coming...

 

[bama_ed]

Wow Russell. You went to great lengths to protect your RR and it looks like they were needed too. Nice to see your setup in action.

Bama ED

 

[stmboat2010]

Wow can't believe I missed that. Incredible job!!

 

[FWRR3]

Thanks, y'all! TR continued...

In case you haven’t figured it out, the train display is run by a computer, and there is a “candy elevator” that loads the candy into three tipping hopper cars , and a “dump station”, where a fork lift tips the cars to dump the candy into the kids hands, or bag, or bucket. The train approaches the load building, and stops with the first hopper car in position. Darrell grabs some candy and drops it into the base of the “elevator” which lifts it up to the top of the haunted candy loading building, where it drops into the first hopper car. The computer then moves the train to position the next car for loading, and so on. Then the train proceeds to the dump station, where candy is dumped to three kids, at ten second intervals. Then the train goes back and starts the process all over again. Surprisingly, it ran flawlessly all night, except when a couple of kids (not those in the following photo) moved the dump building, which wasn’t fixed in postion.

The three Disney employees who were the decorating contest judges all came by, as they had said they would, because they wanted to see the candy giving in operation. One of them seemed to help direct kid traffic for a while:

We had a lot of visitors and met many wonderful people. They were very kind in thanking us of our efforts, which was greatly appreciated. I think everyone had a good time, especially the kids! There were a few adult men who were getting a kick out of watching the computer screen as the program controlled the trains.

Although we had a big turnout, it wasn’t constant, and not nearly as large as we had expected, as we only gave out about one-fourth of the candy that we brought. Near the end, if just one kid was there, Darrell would dump all three cars in their bag. We ended up giving the candy to friends to give to school and baseball teams. I guess Disney really did limit outsiders, but we would have loved to have given all of the candy away that night. But there’s always next year!!!
Luckily, there was no more rain, and Tuesday the sad part was packing up, for another day.

 

[queen95]

Hey...that's me & DD. She was too mesmerized to even hold her own bag.

Great display...we stopped by on Sunday night too and DH really enjoyed talking to you.

thanks!!

 

[FWRR3]

Thanks, Ed and Heidi.

STMBOAT2010, you drove real close to us at the end of the parade, but had to turn one site too soon. Love the car!

 

[retired and happy]

FWRR3, Hope you intend to leave the RR in place for us to see in mid December. Looks like a great display.

 

[angelmom27]

that is awesome. so neat. definitely will have to see that one yr when we are there. oh and i love your van looks just like the one in my driveway same color too.

 

[FWRR3]

Thanks, angelmom27! I've got a PT Cruiser the same color.

And thanks, Retired and happy. We were only set up there for two days for Halloween. I tried to make it to the Fort last Christmas, but had too many family commitments. I'm afraid I have the same problem this year also.