Allentown Spring Thaw Meet

Was there at 8am this morning, better show then in November, Dealers werent  grouchy this time around...Picked up 2 rare Plasticville Pieces, and Lionels PWC Western Pacific F3's Sealed..Great seeing the OGR booth!!!

Was not looking for anything, but these deals were to good to be true.  $160 for all three.

Great show as usual.

Interesting though the number of times I heard folks walking the aisles and uttering these words:

• $60-$70 for a freight car?  Who's gonna buy at that price?

• Those 21" passenger cars are nice, but I don't have the room to run them.

 

Regarding the first comment... Just goes to show the uphill battle ahead to bring new blood into the hobby.  The prices are a definite impediment.

Regarding the second comment... Perhaps not everyone is jumping on the 21" passenger car bandwagon as we were led to believe.  Time will tell.

Good crowd overall.  Should be interesting to hear how dealers viewed the show thus far.

David

It was pretty packed early, but the time John and I left early afternoon, it had thinned out considerably.  Good show, got to see a number of folks, and even made a small purchase.   I couldn't find my 18" Reading heavyweights, so it wasn't a great show.

John - I did see a pair of K-Line Reading heavyweights. What were you looking for?

I may have seen those, I want the ones with full interiors.  I saw a couple sets with silhouettes.

My first time there, I scored some k-line deals. 

Grzyboski Trains had a TON of K-Line stuff.  More so than I've seen in YEARS!!!  I'd estimate between 1/4 to 1/3 of their display wall was K-Line at this show.    I surmise they're picking up this stuff at estate sales or from guys who are just dumping their collection to have somebody else sell it.  There's only a select handful of unique K-Line rolling stock I'd purchase nowadays, but I didn't see any of it at Allentown.

David

I saw that!  They had a lot. I like sticking with select k-line only, makes finding the deals more fun. 

Just got home from there, it was my first time going! It was a great size, not too overwhelming, and most every table owner was friendly! 

I was really intregued by the Amtrack Beep at the OGR booth, and had a good conversation with Ed about it, but it would require a lot of other other stuff to run it on my layout, and UPS brought my new SW1500 yesterday, so I decided not to "press my luck". 

Im already looking forward to November!

Another Allentown K-line deal: a PRR B6 with TMCC.  Identical on the outside to the new Legacy version, but without the Legacy electronics or price.  Boy, K-line made some nice stuff towards the end.

Bob

I saw one just like it, or maybe that one exactly.  If I didn't already have the Legacy model, I'd have pulled the trigger, it looks great.

RRDOC posted:

...  Boy, K-line made some nice stuff towards the end.

...

I loved, loved, LOVED K-Lines business model -- up to the part where they reportedly resorted to some underhanded business practices. 

The stuff they offered at prices that made EVERYONE smile has stood the test of time and then some. Their scale passenger cars with detailed interiors, die-cast freight cars, and aluminum tankers were way ahead of their time without the excess and bloated expense costs of other importers at the time.   

David

I got a really good deal on the PRR B6, but there's no such thing as a free lunch.  The puffer smoke unit wasn't puffing and there was a little motor squeak only at crawling speeds.  So I took it apart.  The ground wire from the smoke element wasn't connected to anything and the puffer piston was stuck.  I ended up sanding down the piston a hair.  While I was in there I replaced the batting.  It smokes fine now.  I could only easily lube one bearing of the motor, and of course it wasn't the squeaky one.  The additional disassembly wasn't worth it to fix the soft squeak.

This K-line uses a tach strip and sensor that looks a lot like GRJ's new project!

Bob

Several dealers had great prices on Woodland Scenics village buildings at the show.  For several hundred dollars, maybe even $1K in total outlay, we can have a complete, "instant village" with lots of character on our layouts.  Unless you absolutely "love" hand-crafting and scratch-building structures like this, you couldn't afford the time-cost to assemble these buildings from DIY kits.

David

Just got back from Sunday's edition of the show. Didn't expect to find anything, but I kept my eyes open to possibilities, and then...

I spotted these hi-cube boxcars at JustTrains. I also spotted the new autoracks. But I already have fifty of the latter, and none of the former. I bought these near the end of the show. The doors do open--they're flush-fitting when fully closed, but move outward and slide neatly over the sides of the car.

 

Almost missed these Kusan cars on a table near the train races. I have a small family of Kusan freight cars that started with some forlorn throw-ins from an estate sale that I cleaned up and repaired to make them run-able. I added a pair of flatcars, a gondola and a pair of tank cars, and now these two. (The Atlas box behind them is one of four from the Big E show--I've yet to add them to my records)

They're virtually spotless, their plastic wheelsets pristine and shiny, not even a speck of dust in the mold gates on the wheel treads (what possessed Kusan to put them there?)

(hidden motive, dating when and where I got these when I finally get around to putting them in my electronic database)

---PCJ

RailRide posted:

Just got back from Sunday's edition of the show. Didn't expect to find anything, but I kept my eyes open to possibilities, and then...

I spotted these hi-cube boxcars at JustTrains. ...

Great find, RailRide.  Yes, JusTrains had some great prices on a nice selection of MTH Premier as well as Railking cars.  I have the two Canadian Pacific high-cubes from the recent run, and they are terrific cars.  I was tempted yesterday to grab those TTX high-cubes, but I'm glad they found a nice home anyway.

David

We were there on Saturday mid morning/early afternoon time frame. The show was crowded, and there was a decent selection of equipment, some at very good prices.  Was looking for specific Eastern road name rolling stock but did not find what I was looking for. Departed around 1 PM empty handed but not disappointed. While every dealer space was sold and the attendees were numerous, I didn't notice a lot of buying activity so I was probably not alone. Still an excellent and fun show to look for train stuff and we look forward to the "First Frost" show later this year. The Allentown shows are the best privately run train show events in PA.