Sunday, January 6. Today I went on a family trip because my grandson, Drew aged 3 1/2, likes trains. This is my impression for anyone who is interested.
Greenberg’s claims to have about 500 exhibitors at the Garden State Exhibition Center where we went. I didn’t count them but there were a lot. Most are products related to Lionel O gauge trains although other gauges and and manufacturers are also represented. I did not see any garden railroads; everything else seems to be there. There are also other toy cars and trucks and Barbie dolls. And there is Thomas the Tank engine stuff of all kinds from the trains themselves to T shirts and pajamas. There are boxed train sets aimed at children such as a Santa train and similar things. Several stands had books,periodicals and ephemera (mostly timetables) about trains. Books with pictures predominated.
There are also some operating O and N gauge layouts. O gauge are what my grandson enjoyed most; I was surprised at how long a slow moving model of a coal train could hold his attention. Among the O gauge there were no passenger trains of any kind, no famous named trains or general passenger or commuter trains. There were all kinds of freight trains. The layouts were all rectangular designs with trains that just went around and around the circumference. The rectangles were all narrow edges where the trains ran with the people running them and boxes and stuff scattered around the center. There were a lot of exquisitely made track side buildings. You could just imagine some hobbyist sitting over them for hours just to get each detail exactly right. However, over all they seemed to be collections of buildings and scenes that might belong in a museum case but there was little in the way of a realistic depiction of a scene.
Although Greenbergs calls itself a “Toy and Train Show” it would hold its greatest interes