This is a heads up for Southern California area forum members, I found the “Great Train Expo” will be holding 3 shows in the SoCal region in the coming months:
Dec 6-7 at the Ventura Co fairgrounds
Dec 13-14 at the Del Mar fairgrounds
Jan 3-4 at the Anahiem Convention Center
and March 21-22 at the Costa Mesa fairgrounds
While not large scale only or even mostly, given these are the only relatively “big” train shows in our area (IOWs not a glorified local club swap meet) until the BTS in June, there should be some LS stuff, at the least maybe the Door Hollow or the Del Oro guys will be there. So if anyone is interested, mark your calenders, be sure to notify the wife unit well ahead of time, wear your best train t-shirt and see ya there.
I got my snail mail invite last week. The past few years the Del Mar edition has been about 85% large scale (at least floor space wise.) Not sure if there is enough room in the Bing Crosby bldg. to have both Del Oro and Door Hollow set up displays. Of course there’s always the new and much bigger building.
I see your still reporting to the wife to ask permission to go somewhere. I quit asking permission and just go as I dern well please. Of course I still have to get down on bended knee to beg for a credit card.
Although the “Great Train Expo” tends to have more large scale operating layouts, retailers are predominantly “N” and “HO”, I prefer the “World’s Greatest Hobby” show in Jan/Feb timeframe at the fairgrounds. They seem to have more “O” and “G” retailers as well as having a pretty good presence by some of the manufacturers.
True enough Doug, but given the dirth of train shows in general here, I’ll gladly take what I can show wise. I’ve always found something interesting large scale at the GATS when they were going on, besides, I’m still looking for old AHM HOn30 stuff and maybe some older AHM 2 rail O scale (if its cheap enough), so an all scales show works fine for me.
I’ll try for the Ventura and Anahiem shows, but Del Mar is almost a 3-hr one way drive for me, so I’ll pass on that, even though I been in the past and it was a pretty good size show. Sorry Tom.
Here I was gett’n ready to buy you a cup o’coffee, and you bail on me about a time issue, after I left the better half in her hospital room to drive up to Ontario? No matter, leave me more money to capture that one fantastic sale price, assuming I can find it.
Well this is assumin’ I’ll be able to go to Ventura, which is closer for me, if wifey has plans for me that weekend I might be making the long drive down there anyway. We’ll see.[;)]
It’s easier to talk them down in price after 1:00 on Sunday. They are tired and don’t feel like loading everything up for the trip home. I normally get there around 12:30
The first time I remember seeing them was at the '08 Ontario BTS. Went through the hard drive looking at my pix collection and could not find them until the '08 Ontario show. Being a senile old putz, it could be a case of I just didn’t take a pic of them, kinda doubt it though, as I take 300~800 pix per show. Who cares anyway? We’re gonna get to eyeball them again and look for improvements and previously unseen viginets. The wife emphasizes the point of looking for the new or unseen.