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LEGO Tree at the Festival of Trees
The North Georgia LEGO Train Club (NGLTC) decided
to go for a non-traditional Christmas tree this year at our 5th
appearence at the Children? Healthcare of Atlanta? (CHOA) Festival
of Trees. Measuring in at just under 9 feet tall and 6 feet wide,
the NGLTC's tree is made entirely of green LEGO bricks.
Read
about the entire event here
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Local students help out with NGLTC tree project (11/14/2005)
Third grade student's from Matt
Elementary school joined in on the fun of building Christmas
ornaments out of LEGO for the NGLTC Festival of Trees project.
Oraments built by the students will be featured on the NGLTC tree
display at the CHOA's
Festival of Trees, including one of four 4' table top trees
that will be sold at the festival to help raise money for the
event.
Pictures
from the day.
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NGLTC
building session at Egleston children? hospital (11/13/2005)
The North Georgia LEGO Train Club (NGLTC) visited
the Children? Healthcare of Atlanta at Egleston. For the fifth
year in a row the NGLTC held our annual Christmas ornament
building session with patients of CHOA. The children are helping
make ornaments for the display being put on by the NGLTC at the
CHOA? Festival of Trees. The tree display will include trees
decorated with ornaments made by the patients as well as many
other local children. These trees are then auctioned off to help
raise money for the CHOA system.
The building session was a big success this year we had over 25
patients come and help put together ornaments of all shapes and
sizes. Not only do the patients enjoy building with the LEGO but
the entire family is encouraged to contribute. This is a nice way
to break up the day for children who have to spend time at
Egleston children? hospital. It gives them a time to be kids and
not have to think about all the treatments and test they are
undergoing.
The kids are a great help every year in contributing ornaments to
the NGLTC tree. We do make sure that no one goes home empty handed
so each patient that helped was given their choice of LEGO sets to
take back to their room and continue the LEGO building.
You can see pictures of all the fun here
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NGLTC
was a part of he NMRA National Train show
This summer in July the NGLTC was apart of the
ILTCO largest LEGO train layout ever at the National Model
Railroad Association (NMRA) National Train Show, July 7-9, 2005 in
Cincinnati!!!!.
For more information about the event visit the Official
ILTCO web site
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Holiday
tree at the CHOA Festival of Trees
For the forth year in a row the North Georgia LEGO?
Train Club (NGLTC) will be sponsoring a holiday tree at the
Children? Healthcare of Atlanta? (CHOA) Festival of Trees at the
Georgia World Congress Center in Atlanta.
The NGLTC tree will be decorated with LEGO? ornaments built by
patients of the CHOA, local school children and NGLTC club
members. Second graders from Matt Elementary School in Forsyth
County spent a morning building ornaments to help decorate the
tree. The students were excited to have the opportunity to play
and at the same time help out other children who where in need.
We held two building sessions with the patients of Children's
Healthcare of Atlanta at Egleston. The patients and family members
gathered in the hospital? activity room for an afternoon of LEGO?
ornament building and some fun time away from being sick.
Once all the ornaments are completed each one will be glued
together and prepared for the tree. This year the NGLTC was given
the honor of being a ?ocus tree? which means that our tree will be
set away from the other 200 trees at the festival and placed near
the festival entrance. Also this year Thursday December 9th will
be LEGO day at the festival, a special play area will be set up
where visitors can spend some time building LEGO creations to be
put on display at the festival.
This year? tree will be a 10-foot tree decorated with 150-feet of
LEGO? garland (800 bricks), over 300 ornaments, a peppermint
holiday train, 3,700 lights, and topped off with a lighted LEGO?
angel.
The tree will be on display to the public from December 4th
December 12th and then will be sold to help support the Children?
Healthcare of Atlanta system.
The Festival of Trees, Atlanta? premier holiday event, benefits
Children? Healthcare of Atlanta. Visitors can stroll through
154,000 square feet of decorated trees, wreaths and decorator
vignettes created by the city? top artists and designers. The
Festival also features magnificent gingerbread houses, an
assortment of specialty shops and an array of children?
activities.
This extraordinary event has become a tradition of Atlanta?
holiday season while raising much needed money for quality
services and facilities for children at Children? Healthcare of
Atlanta. The NGLTC is proud to be a part of this event and hope to
continue supporting the CHOA in future events.
Pictures
from building event at children's hospital
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Pictures
from second graders building ornaments
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NMRA
Piedmont Division Train Show 2004 (03/14/04)
The North Georgia LEGO Train Club (NGLTC)
participated in the local NMRA Piedmont Division train show in
Cobb County Georgia. This is the 4th year we have been invited to
show at this event. It is a much smaller event than we normally
attend but it always one of the more laid back events.
We had a very limited space of 6'x26' so we had to compact the
display as much as we could, also since this show is only 2 weeks
from our previous Greenberg show much of the layout is the same.
Scott Lyttle did bring a new monorail station, Lewis Valentine
made some improvements to his drawbridge, Kenny Rogers had some of
his always unique homes, John Riley made some St. Patties day
celebrators and Carl Wilson has some mass chaos going on in front
of one of his buildings.
We also had a visit from Eric Bush, he brought one of his MOC
engines to run on the layout some Sunday.
The show went very smoothly when John wasn't breaking stuff or
crashing the monorail into trains or the drawbridge.
At
the end of the show we found out that one of our conductors had
deserted L-gauge and change over to another scale
Plus
we even got a photo and mention in the Atlanta
Journal-Constitution
Pictures
from the event.
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Children?
Healthcare of Atlanta? Festival of Trees December 2003 (12/05/03)
For the third year in a row the North Georgia LEGO?
Train Club (NGLTC) has sponsored a holiday tree at the Children?
Healthcare of Atlanta? (CHOA) Festival of Trees.
The NGLTC tree is decorated with LEGO? ornaments built by patients
of the CHOA, local school children and NGLTC club members. Also
this year Thursday December 11th is LEGO day at the festival and
the NGLTC will hold a building session with visitors of the
festival, then the creations will be put on display for the
remainder of the event.
Pictures
from the event.
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NGLTC
to display at Flowery Branch Train Depot (09/20/03)
The North Georgia LEGO Train Club (NGLTC) will be
displaying in the Flowery
Branch Train Depot this weekend as a part of Flowery Branch Better
Home Town
fall festival.
The Flowery Branch Depot was built in 1901 by the Southern Railway
because of
the vital need to export the valuable resource, cotton. The
Flowery Branch Depot
is in the Piedmont Division of the Southern Railway System.
It is located 1
mile south of milepost marker 594 (594 miles from Washington,
D.C., Union
Station). The depot has been rehabilitated through
Transportation Enhancement
Activity (TEA) funding from the Department of Transportation.
The Flowery Branch Better Home Town fall festival will have
artisans, music,
food and of course the NGLTC layout, and will be held on Main
Street in the
historic district of Flowery Branch, Ga. The festival will be on
Saturday,
September 20, 2003 from 10a.m. - 4:30p.m. (Rain or Shine - One Day
Only) The
display is free to the public.
Update (09/22/2003):
Images from the festival |

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Dawsonville
LEGO Outlet store display (05/24/03)
The North Georgia LEGO Train Club put on a small
display in front of the Dawsonville LEGO Outlet store. This is our
4th year of doing a display on Memorial Day weekend at the store.
It's always a fun day for club members, store employees and the
mall visitors. Plus the store does a great job of keeping us fed
though out the day.
This year club members Lewis, Carl, Kenny, Stacy and myself were
present for the display.
Pictures
from the event.
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SER
NMRA Convention Chatanooga Tenn. (05/11/03)
For the first time anywhere three LEGO train clubs
combined forces and put together a layout at the SER NMRA 2003
convention train show. The layout consisted of the NGLTC, the Greater
Florida LEGO Train Club and the Mid-South
LEGO Train Club.
The layout was an impressive 40x20 with operating drawbridges
connecting the different sections. It was a perfect opportunity to
see different LEGO train building styles all in the same place.
GFLTC
Pictures from the event.
MSLTC
Pictures from the event.
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NMRA
Piedmont Division Train Show March 2003 (03/10/03)
The NGLTC presented a 7' x 20' layout at the Piedmont
Division Train show in Cobb County, Georgia at the Cobb County
Civic Center. The layout contained a large number of new
buildings,bridges and trains.
This was also the first trial of our new club table design and it
was a huge success. They setup quickly and held up great though
out the entire show including the new plexiglass holders.
Pictures
from the event.
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Atlanta
History Center's Sundaes on Sunday February 2003 (02/27/03)
The NGLTC held a Rail
Racers exhibit to help support the Atlanta
History Center. It was their "Sundaes
on Sunday" event. Not only where the children treated to
drag racing LEGO trains, they also had face paintings, arts and
crafts, ballon animals, radio contest...and of course all the Mayfield
ice cream they could eat.
Needless to say it was a wild afternoon. There were around 100
kids all pumped up on sugar! Everyone had a great time and it
helped support a good cause, even Scottie
Mayfield himself got into the racing action.
Pictures
from the event.
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Children?
Healthcare of Atlanta? Festival of Trees December 2002 (12/05/02)
For the second year in a row the North Georgia
LEGO? Train Club (NGLTC) has sponsored a holiday tree at the
Children? Healthcare of Atlanta? (CHOA) Festival of Trees.
The NGLTC tree is decorated with LEGO? ornaments built by patients
of the CHOA, local school children and NGLTC club members.
...more
information and pictures.
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Atlanta
Greenberg Toy & Train Show November 2002 (11/11/02)
Pictures
from the show
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2002
North Georgia LEGO Outlet Store (05/25/02)
Pictures
from the show
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2002
Piedmont Division Train Show (03/11/02)
Pictures from
the show
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February
Atlanta Greenberg Toy & Train show (02/20/02)
This past weekend was the NGLTC's second Greenberg show of the
season and our largest Greenberg layout ever. There was the
addition of a "old west" loop, a larger train yard plus
the ever expanding suburbs. Also the Kids Play area and Rail
Racers(TM) where moved beyond the main layout to give us a bit
of "breathing" room.
Plus we had some LUGNET visitors, we were joined by Ed
McGlynn(LUCNY) from
New York and Jim Davis from Springfield, MO.
Some of the highlights:
Jim
Davis' Rail Racer
Jim
Davis' Rail Racer
Lewis
had a bit of trouble driving the General
Scott's
nice waterfall addition to our bridge section
My
new trackside factory (modeled after a little run down factory I
saw on
my trip up from Jacksonville last week)
More
pictures from the show
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Atlanta
Great American Train Show 2002 (01/20/02)
The North Georgia LEGO train club presented a layout at before one
of the largest crowds ever at the Atlanta GATS. It was a great
show and fun for all club members attending.
This was also the trail of the new Rail
Racers(TM) race track, which went quite well. The races drew a
big crowd all day for both the young and the older racers.
Pictures
from Saturday
Pictures
from Sunday
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Childred's
Healthcare of Atlanta Festival of Trees (12/05/01)
The North Georgia LEGO train club's tree was donated to the
Festival of Trees on November 30th. The Festival of Trees is an
annual event where hundreds of decorated Christmas Trees are put
on display to the public, and then sold. The money is used to
support the causes of the Children's
Healthcare of Atlanta .
With the help of LEGO Direct we were able to put together a
wonderful display that was decorated with ornaments made by Master
Modelers from LEGO, by children who were patients of the CHOA
system and NGLTC club members. To our surprise our display won
first place in the decorated tree catagory.
Also we'd like to thank Eric
Harshbarger for his donation of a LEGO
Santa to go along with the display.
Pictures
from the show
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November
Atlanta Greenberg Toy & Train show (11/12/01)
The North Georgia LEGO Train club presented at their 5th Greenberg
show this November.
View pictures
of the show and layout
More
Pictures from the show
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Building
session at Children's Hospital (11/04/01)
The North Georgia LEGO Train club had a building session at the
Children's Healthcare of Atlanta on November 4th. There were
helpers of all ages building ornaments to go on our special LEGO
decorated tree for this years Atlanta Festival of Trees.
The ornaments built by children will be glued together, labeled
with the builder's name and become a part of our tree that will be
on display at the festival.
You
can see some pictures of the building here
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LEGO
bricks not only go under the tree at Christmas, at this year?
Festival of Trees they will be on the tree. (10/16/01)
The North Georgia LEGO Train Club (NGLTC) is proud to announce
their participation in the 25th Annual Festival of Trees. The
NGLTC will be presenting a tree decorated with ornaments built
completely from LEGO bricks. The collection of ornaments will
include designs by the LEGO Company? own Master Builders,
creations from NGLTC club members plus a wide variety of ornaments
built by children who are patients with the Children? Healthcare
of Atlanta.
The Festival of Trees is a yearly fundraiser for Children's
Healthcare of Atlanta . Different groups and companies put
together Christmas trees displays that are auctioned off via a
silent auction. The trees are on display to the public for the
week.
The NGLTC will be visiting the Children? Healthcare of Atlanta
hospital on November 4th and setting up a building session for a
group of patients. The ornaments created by the imaginative
builders will be used to decorate the tree. Each ornament will be
labeled with the child? name and age.
Along with the LEGO decorated tree, the display will include a
functioning LEGO railway, children building area and some LEGO
related items to be auctioned off.
LEGO Direct (www.lego.com), a division of the LEGO Group, have
donated the bricks and designs used in many of the ornaments as
well as the LEGO sets that are to be auctioned off separately from
the tree.
Be sure to come to this year? Festival of Trees and visit the
North Georgia LEGO Train Club? special tree.
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Pictures
from the NGLTC display at the Georgia LEGO Outlet (05/29/01)
Once again the NGLTC presented a display outside of the Georgia
LEGO Outlet store. It was a perfect day for an outside show, and a
great day for a crowd at the outlet mall. The layout was pretty
much packed all day long with visitors, and wide eyed children of
all ages. The effect of the layout was very noticeable inside the
LEGO store as well due the high volume of train sets and track
that were sold the day of the layout.
Club members Lewis Valentine, Kenny Rogers and myself were
present. Also we were visited by fellow LUGNETers Matt Teets and
Chris Giddens. Plus we were joined by a new member of the club
John Warren.
Lewis brought along his newest model of the "General",
Kenny had some of his buildings, including a sand green apartment
building. And John brought along some of his impressive train
models.
The show was a lot of fun and we thank the LEGO Outlet store for
having us (and for the pizza)
Pictures
of all the days events
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NGLTC
displaying Memorial Day Weekend at LEGO Outlet (05/15/01)
The NGLTC is doing their anual Memorial Day display at the North
Georgia LEGO Outlet store again this year. On Saturday the 26th
from 10am - 7pm in front of the store.
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Piedmont
Division Show was a blast (03/10/01)
NGTLC display was a blast for everyone at this years Piedmont
Division Model Train Show. The layout was 6'x45', a bit different
than shows in the past,but it worked out great.
We had some nice new displays on the layout this show, there were
Kenny's nice southern style homes (one full of bunnies), Mike
brought his supper highway overpass which really looked like some
of the ones we have on the Interstates here in Atlanta. There was
Jonathan's scale model of a house that was too big to go on the
layout, so it sat next to Lewis' nicely detailed tractor trailer
rig. Also Stacy's Big Boy returned along with the Garrett. I added
the local MARTA commuter rail line that runs on an elevated track
though downtown. Lewis also brought his rendition of the now
famous Cotton Mill fire in Cabbage town were fireman Matt Mosley
had to hang from a helicopter to save a crane operator from the
fire below, the local crowd picked this one out very quickly.
View the images
from the show.
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NGLTC
layout crowd favorite at GATS 2000 (11/11/00)
The NGLTC's display at the Atlanta 2000 GATS is one of our biggest
to date. Not only did we have the 18'x20' layout, but we doubled
the size of our Kids Railway and automated the drag strip for the
Drag Railers.
View the images
from the show.
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Atlanta
Greenberg show big hit! (10/09/00)
The NGLTC layout at the Atlanta Greenberg show was big fun for
all. Not only did the layout include creative models by club
members, this was the first show for many new features. Including
the very popular Kid Layout, some of the creations these kids came
up with were mind blowing. I really like the train a little girl
made that ran with sails since the boys were not letting her drive
the engine. Also we got a mini-fig's look at the layout with the
new video train car, kind of put you in a daze when you watched
it. There was the issue with our frequency being the same as the
G-scale group on the other side of the room, they didn't think it
was too funny to see our trains on their screen. This issue was
soon fixed.
The National LEGO Train Racing Association (NTRA) made it debut.
Visitors were allowed to drag race two trains head to head on the
15' LEGO race track. More details will follow soon on this new
addition to LEGO trains.
Plus Lewis brought his big rig to amaze the crowds. All I heard
all day was "Wow look at that truck, it's all LEGO?"
View the
images from the show.
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NGLTC
to display at Atlanta History Center's Holiday Candle Light Show
(09/01/00)
The Atlanta
History Center has invited the NGLTC to participate in thier
2000 Holiday Candle Light Show. This year's theme is "Toys
& Trains". There will be a private showing on November 29
open to private contributors of the center and on December 2 the
tour will be open to the public.
More information will follow as the show draws closer.
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NGLTC.ORG
voted Cool LEGO Site of the Week (08/13/00)

August 13th-19th, 2000
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Update
of July Meeting (08/09/00)
I'd like to thank all that made it out to the meeting on Saturday,
Stacy, Kenny and Lewis. Also I'd like to give extra thanks to
Lewis for allowing us to use his home.
Here are a
few pictures of us playing with the trains from the meeting
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General
Meeting Planned for July 15th
There is going to be a general meeting of the NGLTC on July
15th, 2000 at 11am . Lewis Valentine has gracefully loaned us
the use of his basement for the meeting (Mall of Georgia area,
Gwinett County).
This will be a gereral group meeting to discuss up coming shows
and the direction of the club in the future. Afterwards we'll have
some "show & tell" and maybe run a few trains
around.
If you are interested in attending please contact me for more
information and directions. (more
info)
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Display
at LEGO Outlet Store Success! (05/27/2000)
On May 27th, 2000 (Memorial Day weekend) the NGLTC presented a
train layout in the courtyard in front of the Georgia LEGO Outlet
at the North Georgia Premium Outlet Mall. This was an outside,
uncovered layout, so fortunately the weather was very cooperative.
We had the largest turn out of participates to date. We were
joined by out friends from Clemson (yet un-named club) and we all
had fun and some good LEGO shopping deals were found too.
Some of the things that were new for the layout were a set of new
table standards. In the past we had been using the PNLTC modular
table plans. But for this show we tried some that were different.
The biggest differences were lower tables, folding legs and spring
clamps to hold them to each other. It definitely saved on setup
and take down time. (more
details to follow) Also we made part of the layout more
interactive for the kids. There was a governed controller added to
the outside of the layout for the kids to be able to drive a small
train around the mountain layout. As simple as this was, it got a
huge response from the kids.
Here are some un-captioned pictures, notice the nice look of the
real blue sky behind some of the shots. Images
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NGLTC
at LEGO Outlet store (04/17/2000): The North
Georgia LEGO Train club is proud to announce that we will be doing
a train layout at the Georgia LEGO Outlet store on May 27th! This
will be a one day layout in the court yard in front of the store.
And in conjunction with the show, the LEGO Outlet store will
carrying a large stock of train sets. So if you are in the area on
Memorial Day weekend please stop by and visit.
Also if you have been interested in participating with the NGLTC
please let me know ASAP, we are going to relax the layout a bit
and allow for not only train & town setting, but make room for
other themes as well.
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NGLTC
invited to NMRA Show (3/1/2000): The NGLTC
was invited to present a layout at the local NMRA assocation's
March show. The Piedmont Division will host the show on March 11
& 12. There will be a mix of club layouts and train vendors.
The NGLTC plans on presenting a smaller layout than seen at
previous shows, but should be just as exciting.
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NGLTC
on the Web (12/15/1999) : NGLTC.ORG is
finally here. The web site has received a much-needed face-lift
plus it's own domain name. We hope that these improvements will
help make the club more visible and give more people access to us.
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NGLTC
at Atlanta GATS (11/13/1999) : The NGLTC
presented at the Atlanta GATS this past November to glowing
reviews. The layout was a big hit with the children and the adults
alike. Many people remember the layout from last year and were
quite surprised with the increase in size and elements to the
display. Also the track layout was done so well that the trains
almost ran themselves. This was great since it gave us much more
time to interact with the crowds and answer questions.
Once again we had the computer system up and running controlling
the trains speeds, crossing arms and for the first time track
switching. Hopefully the system will continue to grow and add more
functionality to the layout.
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