With TCA stepping up its efforts to provide meaningful opportunities for young people to gain an appreciation of our hobby, the Fort Pitt Division went out of its way to provide a wonderful program for kids and teens.
Some of the carefully-planned events for kids at the convention included the following:
Kids Club Tour – Board a Just Ducky boat for a ride around Pittsburgh followed by a visit to the Carnegie Science Center to see the Miniature Railroad and Village, then visit the home of two of our Kids Club members to see their layout and collection. End the tour with a ride on Pittsburgh’s light rail subway back to the hotel.
Scenery workshop – Learn from the best in the business how to make your layout come to life with scenery.
Train races – bring your fastest engine or race ones from our stock.
Layout design & build – work together to design and build a special layout using equipment we have supplied. Build a car & water tower – kit bash a special ‘Pittsburgh’ car and build a water tower for your display.
Add LED lights to diecast cars workshop – add some sparkle to your layout by adding LED headlights and taillights to your vehicles.
Switching layout – test your skills as you assemble a train by switching cars from different sidings.
DCS, LionChief Remote workshop – learn to use power and control your trains, ranging from conventional transformers to various types of remote systems.
Weathering workshop – take your buildings from that clean plastic look to ones that look like they have been altered by the forces of nature.
Special Kids Club Banquet Car for all who attend the banquet.
View the pictures below, which tell thousands of words about our future!
Special thanks to Tom Garrity, Kimberly Moore, and Jane Merando for their efforts in this wonderful accomplishment; and to the rest of the Fort Pitt team as well as Tammy Hersh, George Starz and Kevin Quinn for providing photos.
TCA members who shop at Amazon.com can have each of their normal purchases generate a modest payment to TCA! And it won’t cost you anything!
The Train Collectors Association is now a participant with AmazonSmile, which is a special website operated by Amazon that lets customers enjoy the same wide selection of products, low prices and convenient shopping features as on Amazon.com.
The difference is that when customers shop at AmazonSmile (smile.amazon.com), the AmazonSmile Foundation donates 0.5% of the price of eligible purchases to the charitable organizations selected by customers.
The process is simple. Just search for and select Train Collectors Association when you sign up and shop at smile.amazon.com.
You use your regular Amazon.com username and password, but when you log in to smile.amazon.com, you’ll see that you are supporting TCA with your purchases:
Note that if you just log in to the regular amazon.com, this benefit does not operate.
There are no costs to either you or TCA, but TCA benefits!
This is a great way for TCA to earn extra cash to offset costs, so sign up today to help support TCA.
* Note: TCA is not a party to any of your Amazon transactions, and does not endorse any products or vendors.
Helping TCA with your ebay purchases when you use PayPal
If you’re an ebay user and have a PayPal account you use to make payments, you can designate a donation for TCA when you’re checking out — any amount, small or large.
If you’re a regular seller on ebay, you can pre-designate a percentage of your sales to be donated automatically in your name to TCA as long as the purchaser pays with their PayPal account.
In both cases, you will receive a donation receipt from the PayPal Giving Fund, and enjoy applicable tax advantages.
How to do it:
Click on the image above, or use this link. This will take you to ebay, where you will see the following page (log in to ebay if you are not already):
This offers TCA as an option. Click on the “Add to My Charities” button where indicated with the red arrow. Thereafter, when you make a purchase, at checkout you will be offered the option to make a donation to TCA in any amount of your choosing. Small amounts add up, larger ones are great! It’s always up to you!
The option will appear at the lower part of your checkout page, something like this:
If you’re a regular seller on ebay, you can allocate a portion of your sales proceeds to be donated to TCA. Look at the green arrow marked “Optional” above to see how to do it. Details on how ebay calculates the donation may be read here. This is a wonderful way to share the financial benefits of your hobby with the organization that promotes it!
An added benefit to TCA is that these donations are not subject to normal processing fees, so that makes your donation work harder!
* Note. TCA is not a party to any of your eBay transactions, and does not endorse any products or vendors. PayPal issues the receipts to you for your donation, not TCA.
