Over the last couple of years, a scout group and neighborhood children and their parents had been to the house to see the trains and in turn they requested to bring their friends. Thus, I decided to make this an adult gathering for the neighbors who hadn't seen the trains, interested friends who hadn't been here for a while, new friends and church people who had been asking to see the trains.

We compiled our list for the invitations to know what numbers to expect, so I might plan for food, drinks, and seating inside and out. I knew what I wanted the invitations to say, so Noel created the invitations based on my draft. OpenHouseInvite.pdf. We inserted a picture of each railroad to tweak our guests' interest.

Noel created fact sheets for each railroad that provided answers to many of the questions he thought would be asked. OutdoorRRFactSheet.pdf - IndoorRRFactSheet.pdf. We also created tickets to be used for viewing the indoor railroad. OpenHouseTicket.pdf Most people responded to the RSVP, so I knew our guests would range from 35 to 52 people. In the end we had over 40 people from Maryland, Virginia and Florida.

Before the party, I made tent-like triangular signs that labeled all of the areas of our home to be used: club car where wine was served in the kitchen, dining car for the refreshments, observation car for the family room and view of the Bay, and passenger car for the lawn outside with chairs arranged with an aisle down the middle.

Daughter Julie was stationed at the ticket agent's seat where she had a clipboard with a schedule for passengers to get tickets for the indoor New York Central layout. I made titles (Poster board signs, paper punched holes laced with pre-tied ribbon) for all the crew to hang around their necks. Julie wore Ticket Agent, Gary- Engineer, and Noel refused to wear his Engineer label. My sign read: Conductor, Chef, and Security Control.

I carried a squirt gun in my pocket and I startled more guests with no water and pretending: "Psst, psst, pssst.

The outdoor KKL&ME Railroad would run all the time, and Son-in-law, Gary, was drafted as the engineer. Due to the capacity of the indoor layout, we needed to rotate the guests, so we decided on groups of six. Noel would take a group upstairs every twenty minutes, so they could try to find the train room hidden behind our secret panel.

About a week before the open house Noel found an article on the Internet about what to do in preparation for a train open house. I found the article very helpful to compare it to what we were doing. The fact sheet idea came from that source.

Noel had spent weeks getting his trains ready.

He kept repeating that guys who have open houses say that things always go wrong when you have people watching your trains. It was proving true for him. He spent several days before the open house fixing things that had been put off for months and fine-tuning the engines and rolling stock.

He made sure to run all of the trains in the order he planned for the open house to be sure that everything went smoothly. The day before the party he ran the trains for a last minute check out when he discovered that one whole block of track would not work (something that had worked properly for five years). He struggled the whole day trying to find the problem, but couldn't correct what was wrong. After a restless night, Noel awakened at 5:00 a.m. on the day of the party and rewired that whole block. After that, everything seemed to work. The trains were running.

We were blessed with a beautiful, comfortable day that was sandwiched between days of hazy, hot, humid weather noted around Washington, D. C. The outdoor railroad was ready for our guests.

The indoor railroad was also ready for the first visitors after the last minute re-wiring.

The visitors began to arrive and marvel at the railroads, eat the goodies and admire the view.

The oldest woman guest was 90, the two oldest men were 86, and the over forty others were at least a decade or two behind them. One couple rode their motorcycle from the Eastern Shore; three people were HO train buffs from Annapolis, two sets were Air Force friends and the rest were a hearty mix.

In the beginning I blew our train whistle for the train departures and punched the tickets. (I loved that part!) We used a baby guardrail for a gate to open to go upstairs. The ticket was necessary for the trip! Granddaughter Katie kindly took over my job when I fell behind and needed to restock the food and cover the wine pouring.

(We offered regular and diet sodas and bottles of water that were chosen most often. Inside we had wine, finger foods of sliced meats, varieties of cheese, cheese balls, crackers, chips, salsa, bowls of nuts around the room, candies, cookies and crunchy mixes.) Julie loved her job because she greeted everyone as they arrived. She sent Katie to tell me that the older guests had arrived, so I could especially welcome them. Engineer Gary did well until something caused the outdoor trains to be erratic.

The first excursion left on time and the passengers found their way into the indoor train room. Noel had his ARISTO Train Engineer and the engines were puffing and clanging. To his astonishment when the secret passage opened, guests saw that one of his Mikado's with a full freight train had run off the tracks at the lift bridge. Somewhat embarrassed, he put the train back on the track and apologized to the guests and restarted his trains.

To his dismay, the Mikado started up at full speed and couldn't be controlled. After several attempts to find the problem, Noel turned off that block and ran the other trains. It appeared that something was interfering with the channel he was using to control the Mikado. When he returned for the second group, Julie haltingly whispered to Noel, "Dad, Gary is having trouble with the outdoor trains!" Noel's sinking feeling in the pit of his stomach increased. Then, the light went on, and he realized that two of the engines (one inside and one outside) were set on the same channel on the Train Engineer. Noel had never run both the outdoor railroad and the indoor railroad at the same time.

Solving the immediate problem, Gary stopped the outdoor trains while Noel ran the indoor ones. There were no more problems with either of the railroads that day and Noel has since reprogrammed the engines.

That night it poured until the skies had no more to offer. Relieved, Noel placed all his equipment back outdoors and was ready for the first set of campers to bicycle in at 10:00 a.m.

Both groups, boys and girls, appeared excited and interested in Noel's interpretation of his layout.

He had previewed the film that the kids would later see about a railroad that had run from Washington, D.C. to Chesapeake Beach, Maryland, in the early 1900's.

The Chesapeake Beach Railroad carried people from Washington to a major amusement park at the beach back in the days before the automobile took over.

The children also enjoyed the description of the SR-71 and the comparisons that Noel made among the various modes of transportation they were observing in the museum program.

The second group of children gave us a thank you card that all of the campers had signed, and a Christmas tree ornament to remember the day. Later mail brought us some thoughtful thank you notes from a few of our Sunday open house guests. Which group had the most fun? I think we did.

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