A weekend without train shows, different ones on the two days, is a wasted weekend.
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Interesting. Not in my case. That's a weekend I use to work on my layout. 
You guys down east are lucky with all the train shows you have. We got nuthin' like that out here in the west. Probably better for the bank account though! 
I quit going to train shows years ago. The ones around here are pretty useless for me anyway. Like Len, I'd rather work on my layout.
We don not have many train shows here in Houston. There is going to be a large one in Stafford Texas next month. That show usually has some great lectures about ho to model the local Houston area.
Most shows do not have that.
I know I will be get the heat for this. Parents do not teach children manors anymore. Hence, I am constantly watching at this and other venues, children running. I am afraid of tripping and hurting and the child.What about my "self seteem"?
I go to shows and see the same venders with the same stuff year after year. Sort of like flea market where stuff is just being shuffled around.
We only have a hand full of train shows per year around here and those are mostly HO and smaller scales, very little O gauge. Not worth even going to. The World's Greatest Hobby show is coming this spring, which sounds exciting and I will probably go. Don't think there has been a WGHOT show since I got back in the hobby a few years ago, so they don't come here often.
Disagree. I have a life.
colorado hirailer posted:A weekend without train shows, different ones on the two days, is a wasted weekend.
Might be true, if your real hobby is buying model trains. For those whose hobby is whining on internet forums, such a weekend is an excuse to do so and is thus a good thing. If your hobby is model railroading, there are plenty of enjoyable aspects of the hobby so that you don't even notice train shows so much.
I don't have the opportunity to visit local train shows very often any more, as my job for the last 8 years has me working every weekend from February through June (and most weekends from October - February). That said I do occasionally look to see if there is anything going on in whatever city I'm in for the weekend, and can sometimes manage to make a visit. I don't often find myself aimlessly browsing, but usually have a list of items in my head, and how much I'm willing to spend on them. Over all, the shows for me are something I'll do if I can, and if I can't make it, it doesn't hurt my feelings. Probably better off being at work, making money, than at a train show spending it.
JGL
Disagree. A wasted weekend is one where you can't run trains.
find a live steam track in your area.
at least that show changes.
cheers...gary
Sometimes, there are things happening that are more important than train shows.
Rusty
Two a year is enough for me! I have church, family, job, two boards, a layout and a boat!
Jon 
In the immortal words of John McEnroe: "You cannot be serious!" Last weekend I did a two-day train show here in Tucson. Loaded and unloaded a pickup full of stuff (four tables), spent two days behind a table or humping boxes, and did a few hundred in gross turnover. Bought maybe fifty bucks of miscellaneous stuff. I had a good enough time and unloaded some items that were taking up space, but it wasn't the greatest experience of my life.
On the other hand, last night Pinchas Zukerman and the Royal Philharmonic came to Tucson. Zukerman gave a brilliant, virtuoso performance of Mozart's Violin Concerto #5. This was followed by a superlative, dynamic rendering of Mozart's Piano Concerto #21 by the orchestra and an American pianist I hadn't heard of before. I went with a female friend who lives up the road and loves classical music as much as I do. We had a wonderful time.
Which weekend was better, the one with a train show, or the one without? No contest.
CH,
Got to disagree, my train hobby is only part of my life, granted it is a big part of our Christmas tradition here. However I train Gun Dogs and Teach Fly Fishing all thru the year, and miss a lot of the train shows, I would like to attend, like York! I am trying to participate here on the OGR Forum a lot more than I have before, it's kind of like my train fix!
PCRR/Dave
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We only have a few train shows a year down here in southeast Florida. Northern Florida may have a few more train shows but down near West Palm Beach and Fort Lauderdale almost nothing.
Like somebody else mentioned you need to work on your layout or run trains.
The northeast is especially lucky to have as many train shows as they do.
Lee Fritz
Most every one replying to this thread say's Where they live they have this & that, but never say where they live which would be helpful. Yes, I know you can sometimes find it in there profile, but who wants to go back & forth from the thread to the profile.
Dominic Mazoch posted:We don not have many train shows here in Houston. There is going to be a large one in Stafford Texas next month. That show usually has some great lectures about ho to model the local Houston area.
Most shows do not have that.
I know I will be get the heat for this. Parents do not teach children manors anymore. Hence, I am constantly watching at this and other venues, children running. I am afraid of tripping and hurting and the child.What about my "self seteem"?
In my opinion some people just do not use common sense in regard to watching their children at shows.
We don't have that many train shows here in Indiana. Went to the WGH show last weekend. Really disappointed, not many vendors. The only thing i bought was a set of Kline Madison cars and a tank car. It sure wasn't worth the drive to Indianapolis and the 15.00 to get in. The show was packed though. The same show was here 5 years ago and was the best show i ever went to. Talked to one vendor about the lack of vendors and he said they couldn't get enough stuff to sell. I don't know if i will go to any more train shows.
The Southwest has a dearth of O-scale 2-rail shows, so I attend O Scale West and the Chicago O Scale Meet from time to time, but traveling to those shows is not what I would call a "weekend train show" experience. I wish there were some good 2-rail shows closer to Tucson, but there just aren't. After 45 years of messing around with 2-rail trains in benighted southern Arizona, I have learned to accept my status as a minority within a minority, even to make a virtue of it.
I went to the O Scale National Convention in San Antonio in 1988 (one of two hosted there by Lorell Joiner), only about 920 miles east of Tucson on the Sunset Limited (O-Scale West is almost a tie, at 926 on the Sunset and Coast Starlight to San Jose). The Chicago Meet is 2226 miles away on the Texas Eagle. I think one should try to take the train to a train show.
But if there were a good 2-rail train show close by, I would go by horse or car and call it a weekend well spent.
Minnesota, Eddie, a veritable 3 rail wasteland. That is one thing I hate about this forum, that member's locations are not along side their names with their posts. You have to dig for them. It's not as if they are some big dark secret.
Any weekend I can't run trains is a waste of a weekend
My entire interest in our hobby has shifted for me. Going to two trains shows per weekend was customary for me, back in the late 90s. Then, I reached a point where I knew I had enough train possessions. Totally enough. And I'm glad I realized when that was.
Nowadays, when I need anything for modeling, I go on-line to Scenic Express, Dennis Brennen, Valley Model Trains, and a few other sites.
My modeling for others, via Layout Refinements, allows me to continue having the adventure of crafting a layout. I was actually disappointed once mine was "done." And OGR's presentation of my layout in a couple Runs opened many doors for me, marking a change in what I derived from our hobby.
The treasure of those beautiful trains came to include a new treasure - the large number of clients and customers who bought my Insta-Ramas or hired me for on-site layout work. The farthest I traveled for train shows, from my home in NJ, were Monroeville, PA, Syracuse, NY, Connecticut, and Timonium, MD. But the farthest I have traveled for clients was Kansas City (drove there.)
My wife has observed that my clients became my friends. And when I thought about it, having the work of my hands and imagination included in something as personal and joyful as a hobbyist's layout in his home or in a club he shared with his friends was a distinct privilege for me; at least, that is how it has felt to me. A privilege. Indeed.
So, I can't say that I "agree" or "disagree" with your premise, Colorado Hirailer. Weekends are just different for me, now, as regards train shows or no train shows, because the hobby has changed so much for me. What I get out of the hobby has changed for me. For example, when Lionel contacted me, numerous times, to work on their layout at the Madison Avenue corporate office, and on their layout in F.A.O. Schwarz, I was reaping a whole different adventure and satisfaction from our hobby than I derived wandering the aisles of a train show in search of things.
Other than having presented my work at a booth at the TCA Meet @ York, PA, twice a year, for several years, now, I don't have any need to go to a show again.
Yet, the adventure continues.
FrankM.
I have to disagree. Although I love my trains and enjoy attending train shows I have other outside interests such as hiking, hunting, fishing, cycling, reading and most all my three Ginger Snap grandchildren which prevent me from wasting any of my weekends.
Rod Stewart posted:You guys down east are lucky with all the train shows you have. We got nuthin' like that out here in the west. Probably better for the bank account though!
"All the train shows we have?" This part of Pennsylvania has exactly two train shows a year.
Disagree, 100%.
RJR posted:Disagree. I have a life.
BINGO!!! Life is way too short. We only go around once so make the most of it.
feet posted:We don't have that many train shows here in Indiana. Went to the WGH show last weekend. Really disappointed, not many vendors. The only thing i bought was a set of Kline Madison cars and a tank car. It sure wasn't worth the drive to Indianapolis and the 15.00 to get in. The show was packed though. The same show was here 5 years ago and was the best show i ever went to. Talked to one vendor about the lack of vendors and he said they couldn't get enough stuff to sell. I don't know if i will go to any more train shows.
This is not good news, I was looking forward to going to our WGH show this year, kind of takes the wind out of my sails, but I will still probably go just to see what it's like. 
For those wanting to know the areas that don't have a lot of trains shows, I was talking about the Kansas City area in my previous post. If we did have any good O gauge shows, a couple a year would probably be more than sufficient for me. In the last 4-5 years since I got back in the hobby I have been to 3 of these shows total, but as I said they are not very O gauge friendly. A lot of what little O gauge they did have was post war (most of that was well used) and I am all command control with mostly modern diesels.
Yeah, I go to all the train shows/meets I can, i.e. within a reasonable distance. In fact, I plan on attending a Virginia Train Collectors meet in Suffolk, VA, Sunday January 17.
When I got back into the hobby I went to a lot of shows and was awed by what I saw. Didn't take long to realize, though, that I always saw about the same thing!
I still go to the January show in Springfield MA, and plan to go to Utica tomorrow, primarily because I have never been there. Most of the smaller local shows, however, seem to have the same locals not selling the same worn out old stuff year after year. What I buy at shows is primarily from dealers, especially scenic supplies, it is nice to see the materials in person rather than an on-line pic. I like shows with lots of dealers.
I probably hit 3 - 4 shows a year maximum, probably buy $250 annually at shows. They are not a big part of my life or even of the hobby!
I wouldn't call a weekend without a train show wasted, but there are times when I just really feel the need to go to one. I may not even buy much, but I really enjoy wandering the aisles, seeing what is available, and grabbing something if it grabs me.
I'm in South Jersey, and the number of train shows has really dwindled over the last decade or so, especially the smaller shows. A few that weren't actually cancelled, were moved to a venue much farther from my home, in an area that I really don't enjoy driving to. I may actually head to a show in Brick tomorrow morning, and that looks to be 50 miles from me. I'm having one of those urges.
I've only gone to one here in Chicago since getting back into things - it was just "OK". There was good Lionel representation across the ~75 vendors, but most of the items IMHO were overpriced rolling stock and train sets one could pick up just as easily (and cheaper) off Da Bay. Most of it looked like it had been trucked back-n-forth to meets for years - with the sellers apparently more interested in finding top dollar than in making sales. Bought some used tubular track and switches - but that was it. When my boy is a little older I'll certainly take him to see everything a few times and spend some quality time together. But until then, I probably won't make much of an effort to attend another show.
