Almost ready for the test drive

While we've been celebrating Imagination Corporation's twenty-fifth anniversary and posting that story here, Janis & I have also been celebrating in another fashion by going to one of our favourite places - the Disneyland Resort in Californi. We had a great time! But it wasn't all fun and games. We took a drive up to Reedley, California to take a look at the installation of the Trinidad train components onto the running gear and chassis which was custom built by our friends at Hillcrest Shops.

It was so good to spend time with Sean Bautista once more and meet his lovely wife Melissa and their hard working crew. Sean and I first met about fifteen and a half years ago at a grand scale rail convention in Wisconsin. It was an instant friendship back then with the promise to work together on some projects when the occasion arose. Now at last was that time. The work these guys do is nothing short of world class, meticulous in every detail and marvellously engineered. They do it right - PERIOD.

I had read of the train convention in Grand Scale Railroad magazine published by Greg Robinson. That magazine fired up my interest in riding scale trains and when I heard of the gathering in Wisconsin I jumped at the chance to attend. Now, at last, that encounter came full circle. Thanks Greg for your role in this!

As we arrived at the shop they were in the final adjustment stage prior to bolting the train body onto the chassis. It sure looked great and fulfilled my vision perfectly. In the next days they will hook up all of the controls and thoroughly test it before loading the train, cars, track and various other components into the shipping containers for the trip to Trinidad. I'll next get a chance to visit with Sean when they are there to do the installation and shakedown run. I can hardly wait!

Sean was kind enough to give us a tour of the shop, all the awesome projects under way and all of the rest of the operation at Hillcrest. Words simply can't describe it. But if you are passionate about trains, especially narrow gauge, grand scale then this is the place of your dreams. Before I left Hillcrest we were already talking about the next project we would do together, and the next after that. This is going to be fun!

Changing the way we worked

Having our own shop changed the dynamics of running Imagination Corporation in a big way. Now we could invest in bigger, non-portable tools at last. New welding machines and a hand held plasma cutter were among the first tools we bought. Every tool got a permanent home and we were truly organized at long last. After working out of a small garage, trailers and on customers sites for decades, the idea of working in a spacious shop was all brand new.

We built workbenches along with tool and material storage racks to keep everything organized. Sturdy workbenches and a heavy duty welding table were also early items to be done. The shop lighting was state of the art and the ceilings were high enough to build anything we could transport. 

Having a shop meant we could hire employees full time. Work could be done in an orderly fashion, not controlled by what the weather was going to do that day. The new shop also meant we could build our projects largely at home. We had to devise ways to allow us to easily lift, transport and install on site when we shipped them. We could work much more efficiently. Best of all the new shop allowed us to sleep in our own beds much more often rather than living out of a suitcase while we worked at a site far from home. Having a shiny new shop of our very own was amazing!

In the next years we would add robotic tools to our way of doing things. These awesome tools took the drudgery out of many tasks while still allowing us to do our favourite parts by hand, thus keeping the magic intact. We also got very good at building very large and heavy features in manageable pieces so we could move them in the shop and transport them to our customers around the world.

All through the past twenty-five years our strength has been our people. It has been a most excellent adventure. We look forward to the next twenty-five years with great anticipation!

The shop of dreams

In 2004 Imagination Corporation had been in operation for twelve years. With the success of Giggle Ridge, word was rapidly spreading and we were getting calls from folks who wanted similar facilities. We desperately needed some land for a real workshop, with room to grow in the future. We found the perfect small acreage in the tiny farming community of Yarrow, British Columbia (actually part of the larger city of Chilliwack) The property had an old farmhouse in which we would live until we could build a new one. Most importantly, it had plenty of room for the new shop. I quickly drew up the plans and showed them to Janis.

Janis took a quick look at the drawings and shook her head. I was at first disappointed but then surprised at her comments which followed. She told me to go back to the drawing board and make it bigger, make it better and make it the shop of my dreams. The new house would wait a little longer.

We opted for a poured concrete structure, using insulated concrete forms. This would make the new shop fireproof, energy efficient and most importantly soundproof. Inside and out, the studio and shop would be a showcase of our work. We finished the inside of the shop in September, 2004 and moved in. The outside would be finished the following year, after we did some more customer's work.