There has been plenty of discussion about Lionel at Comic-Con, but nothing about everyone else at York. I did see a picture of the WTIU, but that's it.
So folks. What are you all seeing and hearing?
Original Post
Replies sorted oldest to newest
Oh I did hear the power was out for a while this morning
Not much right now - We are experiencing a power outage throughout the fairgrounds
Lucky us 😊
Power just came back on.
One item I noticed was the Cab3 prices were all over the place. Huge swing in pricing.
I hear the weather has been great. NO RAIN all week. This was the 1st time I didn't go in 47 years. When I go in April 2025 It will rain all week.
@romiller49 posted:One item I noticed was the Cab3 prices were all over the place. Huge swing in pricing.
Rod - can you provide the price range you saw? Thx.
I was only there Thursday and tried to cover the whole show in one swoop, so needless to say I may have missed some things. overall it didn’t seem too crowded and the tables were spread out. It’s not like the old days where you had to park far from the buildings and fight the crowds in the halls. Oh, the weather was great - dry, sunny and brisk.
Regarding specifics, I shop for a pretty wide variety of items including European LGB, 2 rail O scale, 3 rail O scale, modern tinplate O, modern tinplate standard gauge and holiday themed traditional o gauge.
Here are my findings:
LGB European - very little compared to past years, and almost nothing made recently, like from the Marklin era of LGB. There was some US LGB and all of it was old.
2 rail O scale - I hit the jackpot here with a huge collection of Atlas O 2 rail in the orange hall, much of it hard to find older items.
3 rail O scale - there was plenty of newer product here and I was able to get some newly released Lionel freight cars that I’ve been looking for.
Modern tinplate O - not much in the way of tinplate traditions or Lionel corp O.
Modern standard gauge tinplate - a phenomenal selection spread throughout the show of hard to find items at reasonable prices. Both TT and Lionel corp stuff. Some good accessories too.
Holiday items - plenty of these as well.
@Mark V. Spadaro posted:Rod - can you provide the price range you saw? Thx.
I noticed $400 to almost $500 for the Base 3.
Thx, Mike.
There seemed to be more crowds than last year on Thursday and Friday morning. Things seemed to slow with the power outage lasting most of the afternoon. It wasn’t totally dark in the halls but some sellers in the member halls freaked out, packed their toys and left. Maybe they wanted a reason to leave anyway.
Thanks Mike. That’s what I was seeing. I think even below 400.00
I was there today. My take: Purple Hall was nearly empty. Red and White Halls had lots of empty tables, not much of a crowd. Orange Hall tables were nearly full but less people than two years ago when I last went to York. Silver and Blue Halls were crowded and active.
I normally frequent Orange Hall for the newer stuff, but a lot of it felt like a member hall. Mainly looking for new in box Atlas products and similar items, like reefers, ranged from $45 to $70. Good deals were there if you looked.
Blue and Silver halls were much more crowded than the past 2 years. Orange hall had much more dealer product and good crowds. Parking lots were the fullest I’ve seen in years. The red and white seemed about the same. Long lines for good vendors. Not the same as 30 years ago but definitely better attendance
@CAPPilot posted:I was there today. My take: Purple Hall was nearly empty. ...
During the pre-meet meet (I choose to call it that because I'm amused by the concept), Purple had a lot of vendors. At least 2/3 of the pre-meet vendors chose not to stay for the regular meet, which is why the hall seemed empty.
Good crowds on Thursday and Friday, and the parking lot was more full than it's been for many years.
This is the second time I've found an item to purchase at the Trainz booth where that item was not on their website. Keep looking, even under tables. If not you might miss out on something you are searching for.
Generally, I thought prices were high. I didn’t see much that I wanted to buy. As much as I was anticipating this York, the actual meet was a bit of a letdown. Still, I saw a bunch of friends and that more than made up for it.
I didn’t see folks leaving with scads of boxes. A friend of mine who regularly sells in the Silver Hall commented that business on Thursday was good, but Friday had more “tire kickers” than buyers.
George
Lots of fun and much too crowded. I missed out on a couple of items because I was carrying boxes out and didn’t get back in time to claim what was mine before some stooges picked the items like buzzards on a carcass! But I still had a great few days in the big leagues.
The power outage didn’t deter me. The Voices guided me where I had to go!
It seems someone working in the neighborhood cut a power line and knocked out a lot of the area around the Fairgrounds. Power was restored around 4:30pm.
Brian - had the same thing happen to me today on 2 items - walked away to “think about it” came back and the items were gone 😳 - haven’t had that happen in YEARS 😊 - not the end of the world and I guess that’s a good thing for the hobby 👍🏼
Several people commented on how crowded the parking areas were - more so than recent meets
All good
@dorfj2 posted:Brian - had the same thing happen to me today on 2 items - walked away to “think about it” came back and the items were gone 😳 - haven’t had that happen in YEARS 😊 - not the end of the world and I guess that’s a good thing for the hobby 👍🏼
Several people commented on how crowded the parking areas were - more so than recent meets
All good
Yeah, too many people getting in the way. That’s why nobody goes to the York Meet anymore. It’s too crowded.
I had a very enjoyable York, starting with the annual York breakfast at Round the Clock Diner on Thursday morning. Again, thank you Peter for organizing!
I then went over to the Orange Hall where I literally just enjoyed the next three hours talking with old friends and meeting new ones. (The guys from Cleveland)
We all decided to go to the Blue and Silver Halls first. A good sized crowd waiting to get in. I found a couple of nice Marklin 0 accessory pieces and French Hornby pieces early on.
I then walked the rest of the halls ending up in the Orange Hall at the end of the day.
Friday morning I returned with my wife and it was her first York. She has been to a lot of shows over the years. She agreed with me that it was full, but not packed. An interesting observation she had was that she thought prices were all over the place.
We left around lunch time, made a stop at White Rose Hobbies, a great shop, picked up some supplies and finished with lunch at Round the Clock.
In summation, a great show, well attended and I came home far from empty handed.
Miketg
Seems folks have been buying more freely again, especially big steam, when priced right.
I was selling in the White Hall. Crowds were pretty anemic there. I guess they were in the Orange and Blue/Silver Halls because they were not in the White Hall.
I arrived at 9:30 Friday and was surprised to have to park by the old OGR Grandstand area due to the crowds. I spoke to someone at registration who said the crowds were “like the good old days”. I did notice White hall was fairly empty though.
Many items were high priced, but there were many deals to be had. The biggest price difference I saw was the Base 2. I saw one for $500, and another for $1,800! I also saw some tables asking double for used engines and rolling stock than other tables. (Moral of the story: just like in dating, “my momma told me you better shop around”)
This York is probably going to be best remembered as the “York in the Dark”. The lights went out throughout the complex for a few hours. The complex had generators for emergency power, but many of the older halls were difficult to shop. Some people struggled on, but others gave up and left or socialized. Also, food vendors inside had to close.
Overall, this was wasn’t a big purchase York for me, but still a great time as always!
I arrived Thursday afternoon and I looked around at everything the vendors had then I went back to check in at my place I was staying at and then I went to Quaker Lube for the forum get together which was a great time as always. Friday was a good day as I picked up the MTH Railking Penn Central SD-45 diesel locomotive from Berwyn Trains which I was looking to get and looked around some more and then the power failure hit the building which took everyone including myself by surprise but I did not let that deter me from looking around the place until I decided to head back home around 4;30.It was a fun two days at York for sure.
I visited York Thursday and Friday. Both days saw lots of empty tables at the Silver and Gray halls . Traffick did not seem as heavy in past years. The orange hall was good. The White hall was where I ended up spending a large chunk of my money. The red and white halls were a pleasure to shop ,,,, small crowds and plenty of walking space. Once the power went in the halls we headed home.
Overall this was one of my best York experiences.
I spent both Thursday and Friday. Between schedule and budgets, chose not to stay overnight and made the 2 hr drive from/to the Philly suburbs each day. My son came as guest on Friday.
Agree with all sentiments above. Red and White Halls we found some bucket list items at very reasonable prices. My Orange Hall find was early into the show on Thursday when picked up MTH PS3 MILW RD Little Joe from Trains & Things (Trenton, NJ). It is the plainer freight scheme, and I wanted the passenger, but jumped at it as the MTH O gauge Little Joe's are hard to find. I saw one at last York, but waited until Friday and it was gone, so I wasn't waiting this time.
Power outage was a bummer. Hopefully anyone running stuff didn't suffer any damage when power surged back on.
@Traindiesel posted:Lots of fun and much too crowded. I missed out on a couple of items because I was carrying boxes out and didn’t get back in time to claim what was mine before some stooges picked the items like buzzards on a carcass! But I still had a great few days in the big leagues.
Oh! So that was you in the Gritty outfit carrying those boxes. 
George
Attendance was good. As usual, Blue and Silver were the most crowded due to narrow aisles and lots of people. But I could walk at a good pace and rarely had to wait for people or scooters to clear. Vendor spaces were largely filled except for White Hall.
There was probably the biggest selection of quality scale Legacy, TMCC and PS2/3 locomotives I have seen in my 25 York shows thanks to Vince's Trains, Trainz.com, BobsTrains4U, and others. Vince had the best prices. Trainz.com had good prices until the last 2 meets. They seem to be moving to high margins rather than volume.
Small dealers and members were divided into the 2 usual categories: 1. I'm here to deal 2. I'm here to display my overpriced trains. As usual, it pays to shop around. One vendor had the Lionel TMCC Century Club ABBA PRR Sharks for $399 (great deal). Another vendor only had ABA for double the price $799!
There were Visionline Triplexes everywhere in every fantasy paint scheme. The wheel slip is impressive. It was nice to see the WTIU in the flesh. I overheard the MTH rep say that it responds much faster than the regular TIU. I hope this applies to acquiring engines.
All in all it was another fun show.
Bob
I went out Wednesday morning because I wanted to see what the "bandit" meet was like at the Purple Hall. It wasn't like the bandit meets of old, that's for sure. It was eeehhhh ... interesting. The Windham had the same dealers inside and not much outside. Personally, I wouldn't bother to go again. Decades ago, I was a big fan of the bandit shows, but they (and I) were a lot different. As to the bandit shows, the name stays on and the quality is gone.
A big thanks to Dave Hikel and Atlas for the DCS dinner. And I guess MTH also. Great group, lots of fun and information. I'll have to think about a WTIU. I like running MTH with both my handheld and a tablet and the TIU & WIU combination seems best to me for now.
As always, Peter's Thursday breakfast was a really good group gathering. I roamed the Orange, Silver & Blue halls early on Thursday. Found a bunch of die cast cars that I was looking for in the Blue Hall. Also connected with Robert Wilkins, who does great custom painting. He's near the registration area and worth finding if you want that. Near the end of Thursday, I did the other member halls. Nothing there for me. The OGR dinner at Quaker State was good.
Friday I re-did the Orange, Blue & Silver halls. Bought some stuff from Vince's Trains. I've bought from him for a long time. Then left before the power outage.
I thought prices were reasonable for the most part, but there are some sellers who live in a fantasy land. That stuff will probably be available at future York shows.
Gerry
@dorfj2 posted:Brian - had the same thing happen to me today on 2 items - walked away to “think about it” came back and the items were gone 😳 - haven’t had that happen in YEARS 😊 - not the end of the world and I guess that’s a good thing for the hobby 👍🏼
Several people commented on how crowded the parking areas were - more so than recent meets
All good
Do we need to have a refresher course on rule #1 at York?
And I agree about the parking lot - way busier than I've seen for at least 10 years.
@gmorlitz posted:
...I thought prices were reasonable for the most part, but there are some sellers who live in a fantasy land. That stuff will probably be available at future York shows.
Operator-grade postwar is getting more reasonable the past couple of years, but you're right - a lot of people, especially in Blue and Silver, haven't gotten the memo.
I was able to get 75% of my “want” list purchased, at below internet prices. One dealer said he had a lot of tire-kickers, another said things were just ok.
Also I’ve never seen so many old ZW’s for sale ! (just my 2nd York)
It was fun to go & see so much stuff & talk to people, the Orange Hall sellers were much more accessible this year.
Rich
My experience was the show had good activity Thursday and Friday up until the power outage. The power outage was from what I was told to someone outside of the grounds working and hit an electrical poll so it also affected the area just outside of the fairgrounds. Saturday was okay from about 930am until just before noon. This was my first time back in 5 years so it was good to return but still far less attendance than I am normal to seeing. Didn’t see the aisle where people couldn’t pass. You did see people buying so there were definitely items there to grab.
I had a fun time at York, as I always do. Arrived early evening on Wednesday and left a bit after noon on Friday (apparently just before the power went out). I did not leave empty handed, and got a MTH Christmas locomotive from one dealer and a matching caboose from another. Was supposed to pick up a new Lionel A5 switcher (U.S. Army) from Mr. Muffin, but whoever loaded the truck back in Indiana sent along a Pennsy version by mistake. No problem because Steve will ship to me, and I'm just glad I looked closely at the shipping carton before I walked away with the wrong item, which I may not have noticed until I got back home.
Peter Condro deserves a lot of thanks, as usual, for arranging/promoting the Thursday morning breakfast at the Round-the-Clock diner. Great food with great friends!
I had planned to make it over to Quaker Steak & Lube for the OGR gathering Thursday evening, but got tied-up with some business-related stuff over dinner and wouldn't have made it to Quaker Steak until quite late.
Posted a few photos from the meet on my FB page, and will repost them here. Just a small sampling of things I saw.
Attachments
Images (10)
I got to go on Friday and Saturday. I do just about all my shopping in the Orange Hall and I was disappointed to see a lot of stuff that is usually in the member halls now in the Orange Hall. Little to no items like scenery and diecast items. I’m a member of the MTH Facebook group and they did a great job with their scavenger hunt. There was a lot of happy people went home with some pretty nice pieces of rolling stock for free, great job to the admins that ran that event . For me the shopping part was not too great except for the Cass Railway Shay I purchased from Bob’s Trains 4 U. The layouts were okay. Hopefully the dealers in the Orange Hall will get back to what it was pre pandemic but all we can do is wait and see.
I can echo much of what has been said. It was good to see the WTIU - both from a product perspective and also from an MTH viability perspective - and that parts and sales is well stocked generally and with PS-3 boards. Both were very encouraging signs. Also saw a fair number of young people, particularly on Saturday.
Great layout in the lobby of the Orange Hall!
@prr4935 posted:I spent both Thursday and Friday. Between schedule and budgets, chose not to stay overnight and made the 2 hr drive from/to the Philly suburbs each day. My son came as guest on Friday.
Agree with all sentiments above. Red and White Halls we found some bucket list items at very reasonable prices. My Orange Hall find was early into the show on Thursday when picked up MTH PS3 MILW RD Little Joe from Trains & Things (Trenton, NJ). It is the plainer freight scheme, and I wanted the passenger, but jumped at it as the MTH O gauge Little Joe's are hard to find. I saw one at last York, but waited until Friday and it was gone, so I wasn't waiting this time.
Power outage was a bummer. Hopefully anyone running stuff didn't suffer any damage when power surged back on.
Kids Creek had access to a couple wind ups during the power outage, including a Mickey Mouse handcar; needless to say we had something running. One of our members and I from the Mod Squad were very tempted to hook our trucks 120 outlets and run an extension cord to try power the layout, but we didn't as we figured not enough power would've been produced.
@Ray Lombardo posted:I can echo much of what has been said. It was good to see the WTIU - both from a product perspective and also from an MTH viability perspective - and that parts and sales is well stocked generally and with PS-3 boards. Both were very encouraging signs. Also saw a fair number of young people, particularly on Saturday.
Great layout in the lobby of the Orange Hall!
Thank you for the compliments Ray! As a member of the Mod Squad, we were excited to participate by having the yard and several members including myself to bring our modules from the Cleveland area. We're hoping to do it again next year!
@G3750 posted:Oh! So that was you in the Gritty outfit carrying those boxes.
George
No, George, that wasn’t me. I’ve been looking for a formal Gritty outfit for a while but haven’t found one yet. 
@Traindiesel posted:No, George, that wasn’t me. I’ve been looking for a formal Gritty outfit for a while but haven’t found one yet.
🤣🤣🤣🤣🤣
Uh, huh. Cool story, bro. 😎
George
