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Ill be there around noon Sunday with my modulars and winter village sets and can help finish any setup. Ill have about 12 32×32 baseplates worth.
Dates and Times have been updated after talking with Laura. Please sign up as as you might know if you can cover a shift. This is a very big event for us with a lot of exposure over 4 weekends and it’s a lot of fun in an amazing facility.
The biggest change is the start time being 9AM instead of 10 like for Fall Trolley. The first trolley rolls out at 8:30AM so it’s back to the station around 9:15 so having the Winter display up and running before then is important.
Also, cup credits have been updated per Laura’s suggestion along with removing this coming Thursday’s (Thanksgiving Day) shift.
How’d set up go yesterday?
@thoga1109 you planning to pull super man duty on weekdays? No pressure, just trying to plan for our needs
@joshhall setup went really well! Got everything situated with the track overall, tables nicely lined up and a good idea for what stuff will go where. The rest should be completed today.
finally figured out my schedule and signed up for Black Friday and the 3 Thursdays, sorry I can’t do more, extremely busy time of the year
@thoga1109 as always you do plenty and it’s all so appreciated! Thank you!
@joshhall quick question on shifts: I setup all day for Winter Trolley on the weekends to have 2 max but there are 3 signed up for today. Is it supposed to only allow 2 to sign up automatically or do I have to lock it after 2 have signed up so no more can sign up?
It should have prevented anyone else from signing up once it’s reached its max. The only exception should be admins/owner of the event…I’ll have to check for bugs. I know it used to work. I’d keep anyone signed up for now though to maintain encouraging staffing. Josh’s mistakes means the members benefit!
Winter Trolley 2025Nov 22, 2025 – Dec 21, 2025Pennsylvania Trolley MuseumClosedSetup, 4 standard Winter Trolley weekends (Thursday, Friday, Saturday and Sunday) and tear-down on the 21st.Created by Jonathan Wagner · Google Calendar: not synced
Extras Participation Cups Quick linksShifts: 35
Empty Shifts: 12
Participants: 16Total cups allotted (current signups): 107.5 fixed the bug! Thanks for reporting it. When I added in the feature to create ‘generic’ shifts that were not restricted to using dates/times, I broke the sign up button.
I see we need some people to staff tomorrow and Saturday.
any pictures of the display? OneBurgh, on facebook, has been featuring people’s train displays – https://www.facebook.com/PittsburghPA and I thought we should send some pictures in.
Kristin and I will be there for Saturday afternoon.
I have posted several videos on Instagram of the display…2 of them reached over 10k views!
got this in from Kristen:
Hi!
During our staff meeting, the question came up about when the layout will be up through! We have our volunteer Christmas dinner right after the last Santa Trolley on Dec 21.
For the first time, the museum is open between Christmas and the New Year, so everyone was wondering if LUG would be willing to keep the layout up those days. I understand that’s a whole staffing issue, so I totally understand if not, but I told everyone I would ask!
Thanks so much,
what do you all think?
I don’t see why we can’t tear down on the 1st. We wouldn’t be as rushed to get everything torn down.
I would think with the kids being off school and many adults taking thus week off it will be very busy.
Just to go on record I am out that week, too many family obligations.Kristin and I will be in Florida for the week between Christmas and New Year’s so unless we can do it remotely, we can’t staff. We also probably won’t be back by the 1st so our stuff can just sit in our boxes in the back if that works.
so unless we can do it remotely, we can’t staff.
I move that the LUG buy a camera that ties into an app / wifi-enabled monitor and has speaker functionality (like the baby monitor we have in my son’s room) and give the monitor to Jonathan & Kristin, so if someone messes with the display or tries to steal anything, they can push a button and the guilty party will hear a tinny voice going “hey, don’t do that!”
But seriously:
What exactly are the hours and days we need to cover if we commit to the extended display? You guys are talking about teardown on New Years Day (a Thursday), but their site says they’re closed that day (which doesn’t necessarily mean we can’t tear down then…)
From their Hours section on that page, it looks like we’re talking an additional three-day weekend, but no other days; is that correct?
Fri 12/26 9-5
Sat 12/27 9-5
Sun 12/28 9-5I would say that while I support the idea in theory, I see a lot of red in the shift sign-up even through the current commitment of Sun 12/21. I’d rather we not commit to even more shifts unless we have strong commitments from enough LUG members to guarantee coverage on the days between Christmas and New Years. Better to under-promise and over-deliver than to over-promise and under-deliver, don’cha know?
I personally might be able to sneak in a shift at some point but can’t commit to anything until I see how the family holiday plans shape up.
I went through and put in some staffing. I was originally supposed to be away December 14th-23rd but that doesnt look like its happening. If I have more free time pop up in that week I will sign up to staff.
In regard to leaving it up, I am in favor of it. Would they let us leave it up until its time for the train display at the science center? Seems to be a situation similar to TUBS.
Would they let us leave it up until its time for the train display at the science center? Seems to be a situation similar to TUBS.
Not to be a downer, and I certainly understand and support the potential logistical synergies of packing up at Trolley Museum and driving the display directly to the Science Center, but doesn’t this just exacerbate the issue of having the display unsupervised?
Locomotion Weekend 2026. Load in will be on Friday, January 16, 2026
So keeping the display up at Trolley until Fri 16th (or the day before or something) would add these days where the display would require supervision:
Fri 1/2
Sat 1/3
Sun 1/4
Thurs 1/8
Fri 1/9
Sat 1/10
Sun 1/11
Thurs 1/15?Currently, the Shift Tracker is showing zero staffing for Fri 12/12 thru Sun 12/14. I’m just reiterating my lack of confidence in our ability to staff after Christmas if we can’t cover the shifts to which we’ve already committed.
Counter-thought: does the Trolley museum have storage space that we could leverage for a few weeks? Still tear down the display on Sun 12/21 (or by Thurs 1/1), but leave it in their storage for a couple weeks, then pick it up Thursnite 1/15 or Friday 1/16 and haul it straight to the Science Center? This would alleviate the concern about the display being exposed to public traffic without LUG members present.
At this point, maybe this should just be discussed during Q4 on Tuesday night? Not a lot of response here in the thread anyway.
My argument would be, if you are noticing lack of commitment to staff a shift, encourage people to staff and if possible, take one yourself, even just a short 4 hour one as an example to others. It’s been very disheartening for me to see how many members we have and the lack of support for a venue that loves to have us there and is a large benefit to us overall as far as engagement with the community among others.
The same people staff and while some of it is logistics/distance/availability and I know with the holidays things can get busy but a 4 hour shift once over a 4 weekend period? We travel almost an hour down and an hour back home to cover shifts because no one else will and hold up any potential plans just so we make sure to have some kind of coverage. That’s not a complaint, just pointing out a factual inconsistency: if we can do it, among the many members we have in our group, I’m sure a few others could as well. Some frustration sure as this happened last year as well for Winter Trolley while Fall seemed to get more help, same as this year. This very thing is what brought up Josh’s suggestion of a different reward system and I don’t know if it would help or not but something that deserve further exploration.
The other thing I don’t understand is why would the display be up 2 additional weekends after the 1st? The museum isn’t asking for that, just between Christmas and New Year. We stored the tables in the back room and if we ask them nicely, probably could be done again while waiting for the Science Center. Overall leaving it up that much longer doesn’t make sense to do and that would probably be based on the type of public attendance that happens after the New Year. I think it drops considerably since there are no special events but I could be wrong. That would be a @laura question.
I just signed up to cover Friday, December 12th, so one less gap in coverage to worry about.
As far as getting stuff from the Trolley Museum to Locomotion Weekend is concerned, it’s already been covered in the Locomotion Weekend thread. @timf, @joshhall and I have already made plans for Tim and I to take or get what we need in terms of MILS bases and stanchions whenever we do teardown for Winter Trolley. Currently we’re not planning to use the LUG tables, so they’ll either be stored at the Trolley Museum or Josh will take them back to HQ, along with any other LUG supplies that we don’t need for Locomotion.
My argument would be, if you are noticing lack of commitment to staff a shift, encourage people to staff and if possible, take one yourself, even just a short 4 hour one as an example to others.
I hear you. I’ve certainly done more than a few shifts at the trolley museum and elsewhere in previous years; maybe not as much as Pete but quite a few weekends fully dedicated to LUG events. However, I’m now in a stage of life where my weekend time has other demands and I have to be judicious about if / when I staff. I did say I’d try to make it down for a shift, depending on if I can free myself of other commitments for a half day.
My posts aren’t intended to be discouraging, just realistic. Part of our club’s philosophy has always been to participate as much as you want and are able, in whatever ways bring you joy (paraphrasing, but that’s the gist.) But as someone who previously held leadership positions in the club, I also know that part of our job is to ensure we don’t overcommit and underdeliver. If our current membership is burning out between Fall Trolley, TUBS, Winter Trolley, etc., we should NOT be agreeing to any more days for Winter Trolley. I’m just trying to point out that it’s easy to say “sure, let’s leave it up!” but harder to actually get the staffing – and we certainly don’t want to create, or exacerbate, a situation where folks like you feel obligated to overextend because nobody else is stepping up.
Bottom line: it’d be great if a lot more of us would staff a few shifts! (if you’ve never staffed, try it out – once you get there, it’s usually super chill and fun!) But also, we have a good reputation in large part because we deliver. The Trolley Museum’s feelings won’t be hurt if we decline to extend the display – Kristen’s message to Josh explicitly said that:
got this in from Kristen:
…so everyone was wondering if LUG would be willing to keep the layout up those days. I understand that’s a whole staffing issue, so I totally understand if not, but I told everyone I would ask!
So, let’s by all means support the original commitment and get some folks out there this weekend! But, on the flip side, let’s feel no shame if we don’t have the staffing commitments to extend beyond 12/21, and let’s not commit to extending the display based on warm fuzzy feelings if those staffing commitments don’t materialize.
The other thing I don’t understand is why would the display be up 2 additional weekends after the 1st? The museum isn’t asking for that, just between Christmas and New Year.
That was my interpretation of what Will suggested, not of what the museum asked. And Bob’s response nullifies it, anyway. So the idea of leaving the display up beyond 1/1 can be fully disregarded.
Created by Jonathan Wagner · 
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