Got back a few days ago from a long road trip that included York. I'll be posting an account of my odyssey on the York forum soon, but here are the highlights from a tinplate point of view.
I used to go to York at least once a year back when I lived in Northern Virginia - it was just a couple of hours' drive from home. However, after I moved to Arizona in 2003 it became a much longer trip. Haven't been back in about ten years. However, many of my friends back East had been bugging me to visit, a friend in Vermont wanted me to come see the autumn colors, and on top of it all an old friend who had been in Russia for the past 20 years or so reappeared in Knoxville, which is a convenient overnight stop on I-40 on the way to the Washington DC area. So, I decided this was the time for my long-awaited visit to old haunts. It's a four or five day drive from Tucson, Arizona to York if you drive straight through, but fortunately I didn't do that. Enjoyed visiting friends along the way - went to Tennessee, Virginia, Maryland, and Vermont and hit York on the way back. I've driven across the country a couple of dozen times so this was nothing new, but it is kind of tiring. Still better than flying - unlike the airlines and the TSA, the people you meet along the way treat you like a human being.
Got to York on Wednesday and had dinner with some 0 gaugers I had known from the Forum but never met in person. Headed into the meet when they played the National Anthem at noon Thursday, starting with the Silver and Blue member halls. Stopped at an interesting display of McCoy and other Standard Gauge and it turned out to be Arno "Modern Standard Gauge." As an added bonus, Hojack was sitting there talking to Arno so I got to meet two of the most active tinplate forum members at the same time. Spent an hour or so talking with them and bought a McCoy caboose from Arno. Really enjoyed meeting those two in person.
Also spent some time talking with the Hennings - Harry Sr. and his sons Harry and Bill. They have an extensive line of tools, parts, and paint for tinplate and I spent a couple of hundred at their booth. As has been reported on this forum, they are in the process of acquiring the MEW line of wheels and other parts. They are really good people and an asset to the hobby.
Both the member halls and the dealer halls were packed with high grade tinplate, most of it Lionel. Also a lot of Flyer; not so much Ives and rather little McCoy, CMC and other modern era SG. You wouldn't believe the number of excellent to near-mint Lionel sets in the original boxes. Of course the prices were astronomical, but it's nice to dream. I did see a little bit of ETS 0 gauge and bought two cars - one from the ETS booth and one in one of the member halls. There was some Marklin and other European 0 gauge to be had, at high prices of course. There were also quite a few prewar tinplate toys for sale. Some fascinating items there - trains, cars, airplanes, buildings, you name it. I don't know much about old toys so can't say much about price and value, but there was some cool stuff to buy if you knew what you were looking at.
I put around 5600 miles on my pickup for the whole trip. It's a 2003 Dodge Dakota 4wd with a bit over 100K on the clock. I had one problem on the trip, a blown water pump on the NY Thruway near Albany. Had to spend a night in the truck at a rest stop, but had it towed into Albany the next day and got it fixed. Driving 5-600 miles a day can be grueling. One of my favorite diversions is college lectures on CD from an outfit called The Teaching Company, aka The Great Courses. I learned a lot about great books and music theory on this trip. The radio can get pretty boring driving across Arkansas, so the lectures are a nice alternative. I don't much care for audiobooks, but I enjoy the lectures.
Here are photos of the tinplate I picked up at York. Also got some nice 0 gauge rolling stock, a Lionel Milwaukee Road GP30, and lots and lots of parts.
ETS six-wheel tanker and Champagne Mercier reefer. I was also tempted to get a Kronenbourg reefer, but I was running low on cash and the ETS guy didn't want to deal with credit cards or checks because of currency exchange difficulties going back to Europe. I got the Mercier reefer from him and the tanker from a private seller.
Here's the McCoy caboose I bought from Arno. I was kind of ambivalent about buying it, because I already had the blue convention version of the caboose and I've been planning to repaint it. Finally I couldn't resist the Rio Grande one - that's a really nice looking paint job. Arno told me I should still repaint the blue one - there are too many of them around, and they're ugly. I probably will. Thanks Arno!
Mike CT 
"The Old Man". 
