Just over two weeks away, can’t wait. I’ve been to the Greenburg’s couple times over the past few years. Sounds like this makes the Greenburg show look like a flea market. I’m going Fri. and Sat. it’s practically in my back yard. Septa’s R-8 line stops two blocks from my house and 20 min. later stops right at the convention center.
Anyone else here plan on attending ?
I’m going on Saturday or Sunday. I’m going down for 5 days to check out some of the attractions in the area first. I wish it was in my backyard, lol.
I will be there a couple times. I live 'bout 40 min. away in NJ
I plan on being there at least saturday, don;t see how I can possibly see it all in one day, one day is pushing it for the show in Timonium, so I might try to get down friday evening and/or sunday as well. Will probably drive to Lansdale and take the train in from there.
–Randy
I’m planning to go on Saturday morning.
We live near Fern Rock – so its a short ride on an R1, R2, R3 or R5.
I wish I could go. Those of you who are going should take pics and post them.
I’ll be there on Saturday. It’ll be my first NMRA national train show. We’ll see how it compares to the Springfield (MA) show, which I’ve been hitting for the last decade or so…
Paul A. Cutler III
Weather Or No Go New Haven
I’ll be there Saturday.
I live just across the Delaware River (Deleaware Ocean to all the Philadelphians who won’t cross it for some strange reason) in New Jersey. I’ll have a pocket full of money to spend! I’m a semi-regular at the Timonium show, so I’m looking forward to seeing how this compares.
I have to work that weekend. [:(!][V] Really wish I could go since it is right across the river.
The only good about missing it will be that my bank account will be safe.[;)]
I’ll be there Friday afternoon following my last layout tour that morning.
Went to one several years ago when it was held in Kansas City. Still the best and largest train show I have ever attended. Very well attended, if I remember correctly, as over 25,000 was the announced attendence. Hope to get a convention back out here in our area some year.
Been to several National train shows and there’s nothing better. Not only do most of the major manufacturers in the hobby attend, but there’s always a great sampling of modular layouts on display.
There’s always some new surprises, fantastic modeling, and great deals.
If the National gets anywhere within about 700-800 miles of where I live, I try to attend.
Here are the photos I managed to get on low batteries – can’t believe it – I did check the indicator before leaving the house.
http://mike-stevens.fotopic.net/c982142_1.html
Finding 4 HO BN coal hoppers (Bachmann Premium) for $8 each restored my karma.
Then a Hornby GWR Prairie Tank ($75) and 4 BR goods wagons ($10 each) really made the visit worthwhile.
Very interesting show. I didn’t buy anything, except the diesel special edition of Classic Trains at the Kalmbach booth. The Lego layouts were incredible - maybe I should switch [:D]. The modular layout hat is a complete model of the Strasburg Railroad was absolutely AMAZING. If you’ve never been tot eh real thing, it may not have made much sense, but I’ve been there a dozen times and that layout had it ALL - even the Red Caboose Inn with all the cabooses you actually stay in. I bet they were in the right order, too. The locos and rolling stock inside the RR Museum of PA were darn near in the exact actual order! Some pieces were not exact but they were reasonable stand-ins as far as what’s actually available as models.
Vendor displays wer great, certainly the Overland brass collection. And the running Hornby HO live steam - wow! Too bad it use non-standard power and control. The fellow at the booth did say they were pushing to get some US prototypes made. 1/2 hour on a water fill, too.
Happened by the Digitrax booth just as the signal display layout missed a bloco ocupancy packet - LOL almost told Norm Stenzel he should use a Locobuffer instead of the MS100. The result of missing the packet was the RR & Co script that was driving the train halted and the loco just stayed at one end and never reversed. Buffered interfaces are good. Was quite impressed by the sound of the Digitrax sound decoders. Given the low price, and user sound loading capability - they are certainly worthwhile.
Athearn guy took down my recommendation for the third run of the RS-3’s to include Reading as-delivered [:D]
Tsunami sound in a Shay was awesome, although at the time I happened by the bootht he fellow behind the table was not too into demonstrating it, just running it back and forth, never blew the whistle or rang the bell. Sorta tough to hear witht he high level of background noise anyway.
Tony’s - sheesh, what a marketing machine, flashing lights on top of one of the tallest signs around. They had t
Friday night after work, I Ieft metro Detroit, drove down to Toledo, picked up my brother (who’d driven in from Chicago), and we started the drive to Philadelphia. After an overnight stop along the way, we got to the show about 11:30am.
Some things I saw that stuck in my mind as being interesting on the trade show side of things were:
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I was going to say that the Rapido Trains sleepers and coaches look as good in person as they do in photos, but that would be wrong- they look even better. And the United Aircraft Turbotrain looks every bit the labor of love that it is. I think that Jason Shron & co. have every reason to be proud of these models.
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Atlas was showing test shots of its new HO RS32/RS36, both painted and undec. It looked very nice. Now I wi***hat I could actually use one.
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Atlas also showed their next batch of Trainman cars. The one I was interested in, the HO Pere Marquette caboose, was lettered perfectly.
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Athearn was showing completed copies of the HO 50-foot Santa Fe steel reefer due out in September. It’s another nice model, even if it’s of a fairly small series of prototype cars.
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I was disappointed that Fast Tracks was only exhibiting, and not actually selling its tracklaying products. I bought one of their kits for handlaying turnouts at the National show at Cinci last year, and absolutely love it. 'guess I’ll have to mail order the additional jigs I want to get.
Fast Tracks had the neatest display, though- a layout that tipped a boxcar end-to-end through a double-crossover. Each time the boxcar rolled to the end, the turnout in front of it would throw and the table would tilt toward the other end to send it through the crossover a different way. It really showed off how well the Fast Tracks turnouts work.
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Bachmann’s On30 version of a two-foot gauge 2-4-4T looks extremely nice. While I’m able to resist the temptation to get into yet another scale, my brother’s been workin
I dont know, I was sort of disappointed in the show.
The last show I went to was St. Louis in 2001, at the then TWA Dome (now the Edward Jones dome). I think a lot more effort was put out by vendors and manufacturers to make the showe worthwhile. It just didnt seem like there was a lot of interest on their part in coming.
I talked with the guy from BLMA about the possiblity of him putting out a kit to dress up the Digitrax signals you get with their signal system (they are green PC boards with LEDs, but scale out just right for N scale). He said he was looking into it, and I really hope he comes up with something. BLMA has not disappointed at all.
Speaking of the Digitrax signal system, after seeing it up close and personal, I really think it is worthwhile. It doesnt seem as complicated looking at it as it does reading about it on their website. As much as I liked the ISS and LogicRail systems, I think Digitrax is a bit more user friendly, but that is just my opinion.
Was not overly impressed with any of the new N scale offerings. Kato supposedly is not going to do limited run/order now or forever hold your peace offerings anymore. I thought that was a glimmer of hope for some more variety in the diesel locomotive arena, but apparently not. And I couldnt figure out if Athearn was going to do anything more in the locomotive area of N scale.
The layouts were amazing, and I have to agree that the Lego layouts were awesome! I really wish I had my Lego train set from when they came out over a decade ago. Not worth selling my N scale stuff, but very nice to look at. My son had an ear to ear grin the whole time looking at those layouts.
It was worth the money to go and look around, as I have not been to a train show since I moved back to the US from the UK, but comparing it to past experience, it just didnt seem like it measured up.
I look at it as more of a ‘see the manufacturers’ show than a ‘see what kind of bargains you can get’ show. The Timonium show (at least the October one, haven’t been to the ‘off season’ ones) is I would have to say actually bigger - more tables, and mostly dealers selling things. That’s a place to go go hunt for bargains.
–Randy
I now don’t feel so bad about having to work this weekend. It sounds like I didn’t miss much. Sad, because on Wednesday, when I did get a chance to go, the PTB were all promoting the Train Show has the big deal.
Actually, Fritz, Fast Tracks was selling assembly kits - I bought one of the HO number 6 kits (they had one left after I got mine). I never figured I’d go to the trouble of making my own turnouts again (I did years ago, following an article in a 1950s Model Railroader), but the ones on their display looked so much better, and ran so much better than anything I’ve seen commercially, that I spent the big bucks.
Walthers had their new HO wood coaling tower on display - looks pretty nice! They were also showing their 90’ powered turntable. The Walther’s rep(!) had VERY unkind things to say about the 90’ kit so many people have talked about on the forum.
I really enjoyed the show - stayed almost 'till closing Saturday. I was expecting a jammed-in crowd like Springfield gets, but it wasn’t that way at all. Aisles were very ample, so it was easy to get around the show.
I was surprised that the show wasn’t advertised locally. I saw nothing on TV or in the “What to do” sections of the newspapers. Maybe I missed it, but a friend I went to the show with said the same thing.
All in all I really enjoyed the show.
(darn typos!)
I went to the show all three days and was a little dissapointed in the lack of items to bye. I talked to some of the vendors and they said that because of state and city taxes as well as parking and hotels and the price to just get a spot cost them almost two grand. Many said they were looking forward to next year caus its gonna cost a lot less. Hopefully there will be more vendors and stuff. On a better not i was able to talk to a lot of people learn new things buy new locomotives and rolling stock and structures, so for me it was a good show.