MOA train

If you are ever passing through Minneapolis, Minnesota and have a chance to go to the Mall of America wander up to the third floor and you will see some of our work there. About ten years ago we designed the adventure golf for the mall. We built the features and signs in our shop. We partnered with a Minneapolis rock sculpting company to build the mountain and they also installed our completed work. The project had a tight timeline and in just over two months months we created enough features and signs to fill two large semi trucks. One of those pieces was this steam train.

The challenge of this project was to keep things light weight as we were building a literal mountain on the third floor of an existing mall. The engineers were worried. We used every trick in the book to make all of the features extremely strong but light weight. When we were done everything was loaded onto the transport trucks and sent it on it's way. The next day I jumped on a plane in order to beat the trucks to Minnesota. My job was to ensure everything was unloaded carefully, brought into the mall after normal operating hours. We then hoisted up the features to the third floor with a tall crane they had set up inside the mall.  Over a period of weeks in three separate visits I art directed the placement of each feature and also the rockwork that the local team was building. This was my first installation where I could do no physical work but only supervise because of immigration rules. It was a tough assignment for this hands-on kind of guy. While everything may not have been done exactly the way I would have done it, the adventure golf turned out pretty spectacular. 

A little peek

We've had an incredible project in our idea file for well over a decade. It's a fabulous idea that is begging to be built. We've worked on the story and ideas regularly through the years and developed multiple scenarios which would work in many different ways. We've borrowed ideas from the file a number of times to create other stories and projects. But the core idea has yet to see the light of day as a built out feature. Now at last, after a number of false starts, it may just get built. Sadly, nothing about the idea can be revealed publicly until we pull the curtain aside when the project is opened.... perhaps in late spring of 2017. But to not disappoint, I had to include one small clue...  a new addition to the feature, just designed and sketched this evening as I work on some more drawings and details...  This new addition would serve a functional and practical purpose. If you have to write a guess please do it via email.  We don't want to let the cat out of the bag too soon.  :)

Venting a train

Our friends at Hillcrest Shops have now completed the frame and running gear for the Skallywag Bay train. They also carefully measured everything up and passed those numbers on to us. This means we can now go full blast on the top portion of the Pirate locomotive. It was no small task to cram all of the components into as small a space as possible. Those dimensions governed the envelope we had to build around. There were more challenges to be met as well. 

The engine will be powered by a diesel/hydraulic system which means that the heat from those systems has to be properly vented from the engine bay. The builder's calculations revealed that we needed four square feet of opening to properly dissipate the heat which will be generated. With the train operating in the tropics this was critical. That much venting was a challenge and made us put on our thinking caps. But as always, there was a solution. By widening the barrel at the back a large vent was created where the staves now go past the front of the cab. Two large unseen spaces will be created on top of the barrel behind the steam dome and inside the cab. We will also leave a half inch gap between the staves. Further venting is to be created around the base of the steam dome and through the top of it as well. The entire bottom of the engine bay will be open as well. We'll do our best to keep the openings subtle and hidden but they will add up to the required four square feet. Our crew applied the base coat of sculpting epoxy to much of the barrel today and it won't be long until this thing looks like a pirate train. We'll be delivering the train body to California where it will be fitted to the chassis and tested before it travels once more on to Trinidad. I can hardly wait for the test drive!