A few things of note (from my perspective)
LS was there but not in presence, Jonathan Bleise’s Electric Modelworks both was the largest big scale presence and I noticed stuff was moving from their shelves as the show went on. Bachmann had a nice display booth, but I was told someone stole a decoder chip from one of the locos on display (really, a chip?) but they had mostly their On30 stuff, had a good discussion with the guys there, Bud really liked the Lil Hauler bashes I brought, (maybe next batch will get full siderods?) and I did my best sales pitch to convince them to upscale some of the On30 stuff to LS (the Porter and railbus are obvious to me), well see. There were lots of electronics booths and lots of book sellers, I HAVE to get Benchmarks book on WW1 railroads now. Perhaps the craziest thing was a booth selling Nn3 equipment, thats N scale on Z track! The model contest had some very very excellent stuff in it, a On30 diorama that had a Mariachi band whose band members arms and instruments moved to the music, very well done but I voted for the Mexican village diorama (the actual modeling was better) my Best of Show was a small 2 axle On3 Pacific Electric MOW trolley that was just beyond the fringe detail wise. Sadly because of my car debacle I never found out the winners of the contest, guess I’ll have to wait for the report in Uncle Bobs Gazette.
By far the biggest layout was the On30 moduler set up, 5 On30 groups got together and set up a layout that rivaled anything the Del Oro guys have ever done. There was also a nice HOn3 layout, a cool display HOn3 diorama showing a log loading scene from the Westside Lumber RR. The biggest surprise I came across was a lot of venders with HOn30, including new stuff from BCH based on the old AHM minitrains line, they were highly impressive and i might just have to give HOn30 another whirl. I dumped my HOn30 stuff years ago to frustration with the lousy N drives available then, this stuff looks excellent. Speaking of HOn30, I brought my littlest 9"x10’ pizza, set it up next to the big pizza and managed to upstage my own layout! People would walk up to the big pizza and invariably say " oh thats coo…OOOOH LOOK AT THAT!" as soon as they saw the mini-pizza. Funny stuff!
Sorry guys I only have a couple really lousy pics from my cell phone. I was planning to take lots of pics of everything Saturday AM but the car debacle nixed that, Carla Woolard took alot of pics so hopefully they will get posted on MLS soon enough.
Now for the part no one cares about… SWAG!
I swore I wasn’t going to buy anything, really I did, then walking into the vendor room I saw a lady selling a small lot of NIB Bachmann On30 stuff for ridiculous prices, I spotted a Porter for $50, I asked “that’s not $150 and I’m misreading it”, nope, $50! They were helping the family of a deceased club member to sell off stuff. I grabbed that and then saw a 3 car pack of the wood dump cars for $35, I said to myself I would come back after the midday break when I could get to my bank and grab them as well, but they were gone when I came back, RATS!
I came damn really near close to pulling the plastic buying a HOn30 critter from BCH, they really have some very impressive stuff coming to market. As I was perusing the premises I came across a British Tri-ang Stephenson Rocket and period coach in HO that I just couldn’t resist, I had been talking to the vendors at this stall throughout the show, and on Friday night as they were leaving his daughter came over and said her dad said I could have these, and she hands me 4 very old Tyco HO brass track cast into plastic roadwork trolley track sections that snap together to make a 12" square circle with an area in the middle for buildings, I thought Wow! She said they had it for years and years but no one ever showed a whiff of interest in it but when they saw my HOn30 pizza they thought I could use it, boy! could I ! I already have major plans for it this winter, thanks to Vida and her dad at Old Armchair Amateur. Keep an eye out I’ll post stuff on this
Thats it for now
