A news blog for Neil Young fans from Thrasher's Wheat with concert and album updates, reviews, analysis, and other Rock & Roll ramblings. Separating the wheat from the chaff since 1996.
by Thrasher @ PermaLink: 8/17/2007 12:14:00 PM
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said...
Looks like Thrasher's got some competition... from the man himself.
Thrasher said...
I don't consider it competition. I consider it an honor. It'll be interesting to see how the page is used and evolves.
said...
How could it be competition when his own site doesn't even note the BSB on his tour site?
Ha!
said...
Neil oughta just hire Thrasher, if you ask me...
Dee said...
Thrasher ... You have a pretty impressive archive right here on this blog. Whenever I do a google search for information ... guess whose blog pops up? Like that 1993 train collector's magazine ... Thanks for all you do!
said...
this article appeared in my hometown newspaper this morning. thought train fans might want to help. thanks
Train club gets eviction notice
Twin Lakes owners want $8,000 in rent for museum space
BY FRED MANN
The Wichita Eagle
Fernando Salazar/The Wichita Eag
It saddens me for the kids, "said Bill Laughlin, president of the Wichita Toy Train Club. "We had hands-on classes for the kids and really tried to promote the hobby."
The elaborate, finely detailed model train layouts at the Train Mania II museum in the Twin Lakes Shopping Center have earned national attention. So much so that the museum will be featured in the December issue of O-Gauge Railroading magazine.
One problem: The museum may be gone by then.
The shopping center's new owner, Colorado-based IPS Twin Lakes Investors LLC, has given the Wichita Toy Train Club, which created the museum, until Nov. 20 to vacate the building unless the club can pay about $8,000 in monthly rent.
The 21-year-old toy train club has operated the museum rent-free in the lower level of the northwest corner of the mall at 21st and Amidon since 2001. It was notified of the deadline in an Aug. 22 letter from IPS's management company in Oklahoma City.
The club's board will meet tonight to talk about its alternatives, but unless it can renegotiate the lease or find another location quickly, it faces several grim choices.
"We're probably looking at putting everything in storage for a time, or selling it," said Bill Laughlin, the club's president, a chiropractor by profession.
Even if the club finds another building to house the museum, time is short to disassemble and move its exhibits.
"Ninety days is not a lot of time with the kind of stuff we have here. It's not realistic," Laughlin said.
Jack Gindi, chief executive of IPS, which purchased Twin Lakes last summer, did not return phone calls from The Eagle seeking comment.
Train Mania II, which has never received public funds, was created as a labor of love by club members and has little money.
The museum, open to the public from noon to 5 p.m. on Saturdays, charges no admission, although it has a donation box that brings in $500 to $600 a year, Laughlin said.
Its 120 members pay $12 a year in dues.
The club raises about $1,000 at its one fundraiser a year, Laughlin said. Sales of coffee mugs, T-shirts and caps bring in little additional money.
Moving to another building would be difficult and probably force the club to reduce the museum's displays.
Storing contents would require climate-controlled space.
The only other alternative, Laughlin said, is to dissolve the club and sell its contents.
"If we lose this space, we're going to have to go back to the old coffee shop meetings and trailer storage."
The club is rare among toy train clubs because of its museum and because it performs public outreach by showing its displays at other venues around Wichita.
The club's first toy train layout was built in 1986 for the former Children's Museum on Waterman. It moved to Pawnee Plaza in 2000 before settling at Twin Lakes.
Members spent years renovating the space at their own expense before the museum officially opened to public in November 2004. The museum includes children's exhibits.
The space hadn't been occupied since Winston's, an off-price retailer that once occupied both levels, consolidated its operations on the upper level in 1986 before closing in 1987.
The 20,000-square-foot space has no heating or air conditioning, lacks a sprinkler system, has a sewer line that leaks in a storage room and a loading dock that floods, he said.
Laughlin said a local architect estimated it would cost about $1 million to make the space fit for new tenants.
A city official has suggested the club might be able to use the old Lettuce nightclub building on the southeast corner of Central and Waco, Laughlin said. He estimates the train club would have to spend about $7,000 to make it usable, and the smaller space would require the club to get rid of about two-thirds of its exhibits. It also would cost the club about $4,000 a year to stay there, he said.
But with a Nov. 20 deadline looming, the club can't be choosy, he said.
"Based on our experiences so far, that may be about the best we can hope for," Laughlin said. "It's not a pretty picture.
"I keep thinking of all the kids we are going to let down, and that pains me."
Reach Fred Mann at 316-268-6310 or fmann@wichitaeagle.com.
Recent Comments
Move it to Cowtown or Exploration Place, they need a big attraction!!
Twin Lakes Shopping Center is deader than disco!
They should pay the train club for being there!!
if you have to move and need help preparing a place to set it all...
grown men playing choo choo train?
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