After my first Winterail I figured I shoul post my thoughts, coming from someone who both loves good railroad photography, and someone who runs GorgeRail which is a smiliar (but smaller) show.
Shows: The shows were overall very good. The quality and format of the shows was very comparable to GorgeRail. In fact, one of the best shows was Jeff Bass‘ “Tones, Textures, Colors, Faces. Railroading” which was origially presented at GorgeRail 2005. Other shows which stand out for one reason or another were George Hiotis’ “Suburban Symphony” which was a brilliant exposition of the many facets of big-city transit railroading and “Wheat Country” by Bob Clarke, Ruth Hillis and Mark Perry, which was a very nice show which wasn’t about trains, but rather included trains as a part of the overall image and photographic portrayal of life in the rural farmlands in the center of the continent.. The video presentation of Bay-Area steam from the 50′s was very nice, as was Kit Courter’s “While You Were Sleeping” which is easily the best nighttime-photography exposition I have ever seen. A couple shows stick out as needing some improvement (at least from my perspective). One was Tim Tonge’s Abo Canyon show, which was far too repetitive and would have been a good show if it was half as long. Warren McGee’s NP presentation had some great photographs, but the poor audio recording was frustrating for the viewer. The show on the 3751 had some very nice photography and did an excellent job of capturing the human element to the operation of a steam locomotive, but there were far too many pans/zooms and other effects in the show which became distracting.
Facilities: The theater facility was adequate and appropriate for the number of attendees. At first I questioned the length/duration of the the intermissions, but I realized that the logistics of getting 1,000 people in/out of the theater and to/from the restrooms required the intermissions as planned. I do wonder if it might have been more efficient to show a couple shows before going to a 20-25 minute intermission rather than having a 20 minute show followed by a 20 minute intermission. For my money, I’d like to spend as much time watching shows as possible. I’d heard the rumors of the top of the theater being hot and stinky, and those rumors were confirmed. Our seats were near the front, but I walked up top, and it was much warmer, and noticably smellier. The ventilation system apparently wasn’t functioning properly, but since this is an ongoing issue I would expect the show organizers to be on top of things.
Show Organization: I was especially interested in watching the flow and organization of the slideshows. I ended up learning a few new tips/tricks which we’ll implement at GorgeRail but overall things were as I expected. Timekeeping was pretty good, with things never falling more than 5-8 minutes behind the advertised schedule. From a technical standpoint the show was flawless… every presentation was played without any technical issues, and the audio seemed very good (with the exception of the Warren McGee show, and that was a problem with the show, not the presentation setup). I commend Vic and Evan on maintaining an efficient flow to the evening.
Overall: I had a great time. The overall quality of the shows was very good, the event was well-organized, and I had fun. Would I go again? Definitely.
Stay tuned for my thoughts and opinions on the Friday night pizza party / slideshow hosted by Railfan & Railroad.
