The Amherst Railway Society’s Annual Railroad Hobby Show will soon be here - January 28 & 29. Who’s planning to attend and what will you be looking for? If you want to prepare in advance the vendor list and floor plans are posted on the website: www.railroadhobbyshow.com Over 7 acres of trains in 4 buildings. Just as a reminder the show is in WEST Springfield. If you’re using your GPS to navigate to the show you won’t find it in Springfield.
I will be there for much of the day on Saturday. Unfortunately, it coincides with my Cub Scout Pack’s Pinewood derby race, so I can’t stay all day, and can’t go at all on Sunday.
I’m pretty well fixed for locos and rolling stock at the moment, although I’ll snap up any bargains I can find. I’ll be picking up a couple more storage boxes, and I’m looking for a heavy duty forklift (like a Gradall). Other than that, my son and I will be looking at layouts and new products.
I will be there all 3 days - friday for setup and the 2 show days at the Boothbay Railway Village booth in the Better Living Center, section 15 D&E. Looking forward to saying Hi to anyone on the forum who will be attending.
Come and check out the donated items we are selling to raise funds to continue construction on our layout…
http://www.railwayvillage.org/Model_Railroad.htm
We have a number of craftsman kits and lots of detail parts we are eliminating from our collection, and have just aquired a layout from a modeler who is retiring. He has a number of well detailed diesel locomotives model for railroads we do not use.
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I hope to go again this year, It’s always a Great experience
CT Valley, if I remember correctly, you had a Cub Scout conflict with show attendance last year. You’re a good dad to place importance on the Scout experience with your boys. I did scouts with my son years ago and we both have good memories of those times. Not to rub it in’ but I’m going for the two days, as usual. I’ve actually been working up in your neck of the woods (Higganum), beautiful area there in the valley.
Two of my friends and I will be traveling to the Amherst show from Western NY for the first time. We arrive on Friday and plan on staying through Sunday afternoon.
We attend the yearly Syracuse and RIT Rochester shows and know this show is a lot bigger I have already printed out the vendors list and marked which ones are a must visit.
Frank
My friend and I are going on a chartered bus to get there for our first visit. I haven’t been on the Big E grounds for almost 40 years. Expect all these buildings are new since then. Just thinking of 7 acres of railroad stuff under cover, even under 4 covers, sure sounds like quite a spectacle. We already realize that we won’t come close to seeing it all in six hours. Will try to see a few of the folks from the forums that have idenitfied themselves, no promises.
Have a great time, I plan to.
Richard
Well, you remember correctly. But it’s worse than that, because I’m the pack’s Committee Chair, and I’m responsible for the scheduling of events. We pick that weekend because it’s the bye week between NFL Conference playoffs and the Super Bowl. It’s too hard to find volunteers to help out if you’re competing with football. I’d be willing to bet that’s at least part of the reason the Amherst RR Society picks that weekend as well.
My youngest only has two years left – and he always attends the show with me, so the time is not far off when we’ll be there BOTH days as well. It’s only about an hour away.
Higganum is right across the river from me. Our little line goes right through it (although we don’t operate that far North anymore). Some of the guys will be repairing track in that area this weekend (some scumbag made off with 1/4 mile of spikes and fishplates) – wave if you see them!
And yes, it is beautiful… why do you think I model it? [:D]
Just over 2 weeks to go. Does everyone have their shopping lists ready?
You’re worse than my kids during Advent!
[:D]
I have my show tickets and my hotel reservation for Saturday night. It’s only an hour and a half drive for me but worth the price of the hotel as I attend the show on both days.My freind and I make a weekend out of it. I downloaded the list of vendors and the floor plan and will highlight the places I most want to get to. Helpful if it’s really crowded and everyone is doing the March of the Penguins. Didn’t seem too crowded last year, the addition of the fourth building has helped to spread people out; possibly attendance was off due to the economy. I was able to chat the vendors up a little as a result, that was a plus also. For me, not necessarily the vendors.
I may be mistaken, but I think the fact that last year they moved the ticket booth to a more central location between all of the buildings helped to disperse the crowd more evenly. In other years everyone seemed to head straight for the Better Living Center or Mallary Building. We’re in the BLC, which would seem to be a good thing, but you don’t want one building so packed that people can’t look properly.
Jim
I always get to the City Classics booth eventually, no different this year Jim. There is usually a lot more chatter about the impending Springfield show. Wonder why so quiet this year. Curios to see how this translates to crowd size.
I think attendance was actually up slightly last year, in spite of the economy.
Can’t say what effect the moving of the ticket booth had… I’ve bought mine on-line for the last 3 years. Great timesaver, because you don’t have to wrestle with finding tickets. Just jump our of your car and haul butt to your first vendor!
My son has decided that he wants another caboose… which means that he’ll either buy the first one he sees and then spend the next couple of hours bugging me to go home so he can try it out, or that he’ll drag my sorry butt to every vendor on the floor who might have one, looking for a model that is “just so”. Still, I count that as quality father / son time.
I’m marking up my floor plan – due to Cub Scout commitments, I only have about 6 hours there, so I’ve got to make each one count.
I believe attendance last year was just over 20,000 paid attendance for the 2 day show (not counting hundreds of vendors and exhibitors). The record was 3 or 4 years ago at over 23,000. (Someone from Amhurst has the exact figures, I am sure)
I’ll be there. I will decide which day based on the weather, since I’ll be driving in from eastern Massachusetts. Right now, both days look fine.
I wasn’t referring to the record, but rather to the year over year comparison. I believe the 2011 show was slightly above 2010. Maybe one of the Amherst folks can weigh in and set us straight.
As far as the weather goes… who trusts a forecaster. Here’s their record so far this year: October blizzard – only about 12 hours warning that we were going to get hammered. Last Monday: forecast <1", got 5". Last Thursday, “Slight accumulations possible”, got 1.5"; yesterday, forecast 4-8", got 10.5".
By that yardstick, a forecast of sunny means we’ll be getting a couple of inches of the white stuff. OTOH, it’s New England. it’s just as likely to be 60 degrees.
CTValley I share your pain. You know what they say about New England and if you don’t like the weather. Either way, the show is indoors and it can do what it wants outside. I’ve got my room booked and am looking forward to a weekend of nothing but trains.
Weekend weather forecast is promising. Temps in the 30’s with only a 30% chance of any snow on Sunday.
Just phoned Amherst, Nova Scotia and they had no listing for a train show, will try Amherst NY and Amherst MA and Amherst NH, hope I have some luck.