The BIG E in West Springfield, MA. Jan. 26th & 27th.

I purchased some books, I found the "hard to find" Lionel Cargill foods 30k sound tank car. Charlie Ro had some good deals. I picked up the Polar Express animated sign.

PRR, your right, Charlie had a lot of good deals.

We made good time, clear skies, not much traffic. Went through all the halls, saw what we needed to see, didn't see anything we needed to buy. Ran into quite a few people we know, of course. And, once again, a good time was had by all, and we were home before dark.

Some of the Jersey Hi Railers -

SandJam posted:

Can someone tell me why it is called the ‘Big E’?  What is the meaning?

The venue is the home of the Eastern States Exposition held for 3+weeks in September each year. It's the state fair for all the New England States. The Eastern States Exposition got shortened colloquially to the Big E. The full name of the show is the Railroad Hobby Show sponsored by the Amherst Railroad Society.

Lad Nagurney posted:

SandJam posted:

Can someone tell me why it is called the ‘Big E’?  What is the meaning?

The venue is the home of the Eastern States Exposition held for 3+weeks in September each year. It's the state fair for all the New England States. The Eastern States Exposition got shortened colloquially to the Big E. The full name of the show is the Railroad Hobby Show sponsored by the Amherst Railroad Society.

Thanks!

eddie g posted:

Sorry I didn't make the picture at C Ro. I went thru all the bldgs and was done at 12 noon. So we had lunch at Panera and headed home to Maine.

WHAT!  You set up the photo op and you didn't stick around for it. 

superwarp1 posted:

eddie g posted:

Sorry I didn't make the picture at C Ro. I went thru all the bldgs and was done at 12 noon. So we had lunch at Panera and headed home to Maine.

WHAT!  You set up the photo op and you didn't stick around for it. 

And to think that we waited for you to come! Of all the Nerve!

eddie g posted:

PRR, your right, Charlie had a lot of good deals.

So did Gryzbotski's " da BIG G" of Scranton PA. And if they were not as good a deal as C. Ro, "da BIG G" still had the stock on his table. And some K-Line too! That's where I got the tank car with sounds and a blowout on the ROCK 86' autoparts boxcar.

Another note I didn’t buy a thing, so when I got home and promptly ordered a legacy 993 expansion pack at model train stuff.

Talked to Ryan at Lionel about the milk cars, the tooling over in Romania is gone for good, lost forever. But not all is lost, it’s cheaper to do new tooling than fight the Romanians. They will honor what’s was already cataloged and catalog new stuff maybe by volume II. So expect new milk cars by 2020

Not much O there to be had at all... only one 3 rail layout as well...

Thanks Dotty for sharing! You are great.

I really wished I could have made it somehow. Again, not to be. We got a decent storm off of Lake Erie and my girl wouldn't even go to the local RV show in Hamburg. She hates traveling in winter. I have traveled all year around.

 A little story for anyone with time...

 We were heading home one year from Charlotte, NC many years ago. We were heading up I-79? towards Lake Erie hitting really good snow fall. As we turned along Lake Erie to head East on I-90, we hit some really major snow. She wanted to stop but what good would that do? I pushed on not knowing that nearer to home had received 5' of snow! My truck had good snow tires and she kept rolling without issue. Up in the distance I could vaguely make out someone stranded near the side of the road waiving like crazy. Of course I'd stop to help. As I got right on him I noticed he was a State Trooper. He asked if I was crazy? He said "don't you know that this road is closed?". I said I had only stopped to help him! 

 I should have known as snow was actually starting to blow up over the hood as I drove and I kept pushing harder on the gas. But my ol' Chev truck just kept going fine and I was so close to home. He ordered me off of the thruway and we had to stay the night in Fredonia. More snow kept coming so I took off in the morning on side roads doing 5 MPH until we made it home. She announced, "never again!". I don't know what was the big deal?

superwarp1 posted:

 

Oooooo! There's the new UP G scale from USA!

drool....

I go to Springfield with the intention of just enjoying trains - all scales - and plan on buying something. I don't usually have anything specific in mind, but between the major dealers and odd lots others bring and sell, something pops up. This year I bought 4 Fastrack O-72 remote switches for $25 each, 2 LH and 2 RH. All work, 2 without lanterns and 2 with LED bulb burnt out.  I have extra lanterns and I'll look into the LED bulbs/parts, but 4 working switches for $100 that I can use for crossovers between loops on a 6x13 table made for a good day.

Wife and I where there from open to close.  Bought a couple of things, but not much.  Not much O- gauge postwar which is what i was looking for, and what they had made Ebay prices with shipping look like a steal!    Crowd was lighter than past years for the first few hours, but then got packed.  Charles Ro and Grzboskis had a lot of modern stuff, good prices.  No postwar parts dealers anymore.  That sucks.  MTH had a nice set up.  Lionel had ther usual small set up with running starter sets and lots of kids.  Tons of free 2019 catalogs.  Ryan but no Dave.  A new lady in a skin suit selling smoke fluid was there again this year, with a bunch of desperate guys groping her asking for her to be in a selfie.     Didnt see the live steamers.  Might have missed.  A lot of layouts.  All but one was HO G  and N..     All said we had a great time. But probably could have found more to buy on eBay.

I made the trek from Potomac, Maryland, just outside Washington DC, for this show. Well, actually I went to visit my sister and a "change of scenery" in Boston with the show being a big part of it.

Nice show, very large. Not impressed from an O Gauge perspective. Very little, IMO, product to be had. If I were local, I'd certainly make a point to go every year but wouldn't make any special trip again for it. I'm an 1 1/2 hours from York and that is easily worth the trip. This looked like an awesome show for the N Scale/HO Crowd. Arguably this may be "their York".

I still made the most of it and had a great time. I was in the halls by 10am and on the road by 3:30. Went through all of the buildings several times. The modular layouts, overall, were terrific. I really liked the G Gauge and European layouts. Best of all was the 0-4-0T running outside. Yes, I got to blow the whistle!

I did find the Lionel #2338 I've been looking for for many years. I have never found one in the condition I like at the price I liked until today. I spoke to the gentleman who sold it to me for quite a while. I casually mentioned it was my first time at the show and not terribly familiar with the layout and just enjoying walking around. He mentioned it was the same for him. I said "where ya' from?" He replied: Rockville, Maryland, about 10 minutes down the road from me. You can't make this sh*t up folks! Talk about a small world! We had a great laugh about that! I look forward to getting the engine on the layout at home later next week.

Was Atlas there.They we’re supposed to make an announcement on some new HO rolling stock and if there were going to any new O gauge announcements

MR-150 posted:

Was Atlas there.They we’re supposed to make an announcement on some new HO rolling stock and if there were going to any new O gauge announcements

Yes, they were there. I wasnt aware any announcement though.

I did see Atlas there, but I didn't stop at there booth.

It was a fun show and the weather was clear. I got there right before the doors opened and saw some freinds and picked up a few odds and ends. I walked all the buildings and was over and done by noon time so I didn’t get to make the photo shoot either. 

Arrived home from Springfield around 8 PM, unpacked the day's purchases and am getting ready to return early tomorrow morning. I thought there was lots of postwar and modern Lionel - as usual. Many Lionel vendors, some large and numerous small ones. Was glad to be with the Forum members for the group photo on Saturday at 2 PM and will be back for another photo - same time and location - on Sunday.

MELGAR

Trainz was there as always.  Usually has a lot of O gauge.  This year i counted 7 items.....

At the Amherst Train Show, I had the opportunity to speak with Ryan Kunkle of Lionel shortly after the Show opened this morning, and I have some great news to report. Ryan informed me that Lionel is developing new tooling and will be manufacturing the PS-1 Freightsounds Boxcars with hidden uncoupling tabs, not thumb tack couplers. So the pictures in the new Lionel catalogue are accurate. For now, however, the trucks will continue to be non-sprung, but Lionel is also seriously considering going back to installing die-cast sprung couplers, as they recognize that they track better and are desired by a large number of their customers.  From our discussion, it was also clear that Lionel is aware that die-cast sprung couplers are provided by MTH and Atlas on their scale freight cars, thereby placing Lionel at a competitive disadvantage. So while this is not a total win, it is clearly a step in the right direction, and I applaud Lionel for this decision. Thanks to all of my Forum colleagues who have advocated for Lionel returning to its die-cast sprung trucks and couplers with hidden uncoupling tabs, as our voices have been heard.    

SandJam posted:

Can someone tell me why it is called the ‘Big E’?  What is the meaning?

Location is the Eastern States Exposition (Big E) in West Springfield, Massachusetts and the premises are large. The train show occupies 5 very large buildings. I was there from 9 AM to 5 PM on Saturday and got through only 4 of the 5.

MELGAR

MELGAR posted:

SandJam posted:

Can someone tell me why it is called the ‘Big E’?  What is the meaning?

Location is the Eastern States Exposition (Big E) in West Springfield, Massachusetts and the premises are large. The train show occupies 5 very large buildings. I was there from 9 AM to 5 PM on Saturday and got through only 4 of the 5.

MELGAR

There are only four buildings used for the show.  Better Living Center. Young Building. Stroh building. And Mallory complex.

Which building do you think you missed?

The Mallary Building has two sections - a small one connected to a large one. I got to the larger section just before closing. Four buildings - one having two parts. I've been attending for 22 years...

MELGAR

Was in the Better Living Hall by about 9:30 and as happens more often than not was confronted with a big decision early on. Not really "needing" any engines I came looking for scenery items as I'm always impressed with the assortment of trees, structures and overall layout items this show has to offer. So with this in mind I spot an engine at the Trainz booth that has been on my "maybe" radar, the MTH 44 toner and in PRR no less! The engine is used with just a slight area of missing black paint on a railing, easy fix. I ask the Trainz people if I can take it to be tested. They could not have been more gracious and allow me to walk away with the engine. Unfortunately no test track in the building despite staff admitting they should have one. Unless these people were misinformed that really needs to be corrected. Same thing happened last year when I went to buy an older Williams engine. The staff recommended I ask one of the layout operators to check the engine. Very awkward to have to ask that of someone but I did needing to make sure the engine was ok. Guy couldn't have been nicer and I threw him lunch money for helping me. Engine checked out perfectly and we made a deal for $225. Very happy!!

Also bought a few really nice trees by Sterling Models, an Atlas 2 rail hopper (my first to run on my 3 rail track).

Overall a good day and was back on Long Island by 4:30...

MELGAR posted:

The Mallary Building has two sections - a small one connected to a large one. I got to the larger section just before closing. Four buildings - one having two parts. I've been attending for 22 years...

MELGAR

Ive been going 30+ years.  Probably bumped into you many times! LOL  The Mallory building was only included in show several years ago.   Really only the front half of it has any good selection of train items. The back section is mostly layouts, toys, and a bunch of kids.

I don’t understand why you don’t see more vendors have a simple piece of track for testing or even a small transformer with a couple of alligator clips? I was at a table today where someone wanted to test an engine and the seller was nice and let him take the engine to a test track. 

I talked with a guy at the Greenberg show in Wilmington Ma. and he was saying they charge for the use of an outlet/electricity,. Maybe that cost is too much. Also, maybe cords running to all the different vendors would be a complicated hassle.

Mike23 posted:

I talked with a guy at the Greenberg show in Wilmington Ma. and he was saying they charge for the use of an outlet/electricity,. Maybe that cost is too much. Also, maybe cords running to all the different vendors would be a complicated hassle.

Makes sense. Probably a safety thing to with tripping over cords and all. 

I was there early and had a great time.  Picked up the Hindenburger Cafe and got a decent price  on the 4 pack of brand new Weaver Pullman Bradley coaches. I also picked up a ton of scenery items.

I went with a bunch of other train guys and we had a blast. The Show is well worth going to, without regard to what your favorite scale is. There were approximately 30 operating layouts spread throughout the four halls, and most of them were awesome. While the Show is always mostly HO, there was plenty there for the O scale group as well. Lionel, MTH and Atlas were there along with top O dealers like CharlesRo, Grzyboski Trains, Trainworld, Trainz and Brady's Train Outlet, as well as specialty shops that have plenty of O scale stuff like Model Tech Studios, Ross Custom Switches, Scenic Express, Miller Engineering and Mega Steam. There was also a ton of other cool stuff available through many other dealers that was suitable for O scale. At the end of the day, we all agreed to make this an annual event.    

The lego layout was impressive.  Was saying to my wife, with the price of Legos it probably cost more than an o-gauge layout! 

We entered at 9, left around 1:30.  Only saw a few of the OGR bunch - must have been looking at trains too much.

Red Rose was PACKED, but worth the wait!

I'm sure that Don will post some pics soon...

eddiem posted:

We entered at 9, left around 1:30.  Only saw a few of the OGR bunch - must have been looking at trains too much.

Red Rose was PACKED, but worth the wait!

I'm sure that Don will post some pics soon...

 

We had a 30 min wait to get into the Rose. We just talked trains and the time flew. Meal and service awesome as usual 

The only thing that I don't like is that the layouts screw up the aisles. I found myself going thru the same aisle 3 times, and I probably missed some aisles.

I went Saturday with Eddiem and another friend. We got there early but my ankles gave out too early.

I realize the show is not perfect. But it is a big show with many people with the same interests.....trains.

I always enjoy the show and bumping into OGR members and then dinner. The details of the module layouts are really nice, no matter what scale. I always take pictures , in no particular order or importance, to show volume of crowds and retailers that we deal with.

More photos.

More photos.

Yeah, it’s more than model trains.  I got updates from several groups restoring steam engines, including 3713, 2100, 7470 up in North Conway NH, and I renewed membership in a couple of historical societies