National Train Show

[Anonymous]

QUOTE: Originally posted by woodyjp

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.

I heard from one vendor that the imposed sales tax and cost of a booth were the two items that kept him away.

[Noah_Hofrichter]

I went on Friday and I agree with most of what everyone else said. There were a few huge empty spaces that could have easily have been filled with more vendors or more layouts, but instead they didn’t fill them. Plus I didn’t find the usual selection of “really great deal” dealers like I find at most shows and the three NTSs I attended in the past (Madison, San Jose, and St. Louis). I still picked up a few things, but not as much as I normally do.

One of the things I enjoyed the most was the lego layouts like another forum member mentioned. Normally I write off the Lego layouts as Toys, but there were two layouts there this time that were amazing. One even had a working lift bridge make entirely of legos and motor, and it would actually raise and lower to let people in and out of the layout. Pretty cool.

I had visted the Strasburg Railroad Museum just two days earlier, so seeing the layout based upon that was really cool too. At the Pensylvania railroad Museum there was a Reading Historical Society there with their Modular layout. I asked one of the members if they were going to be particitpating in the NTS, and they said no, as they didn’t want to have someone else set up their layout. They told me that it had to be union Labor that set up the stuff as someone else mentioned, and I can’t blame clubs for not wanting to have to have their layout set up by someone who’s never done it before. I have a feeling that was probably a good contributor to there being holes in the show.

To sum up what I said I enjoyed the show, but just not as well as other years. I didn’t think it was put on quite as well either, although it still was pretty nice, and I’m glad I went. My family made a vacation to other spots in the area too (including the B&O museum and the traditional patriotic sites in Washington D.C.), so that helped, but I think if I had made a trip just for the show I would be disapointed.

Noah Hofrichter

Reedsburg, Wisconsin