Any York News or Observations?

This York was the first where I spent the whole week in York, Monday through Saturday.  Here are my observations and experiences:

Monday -- Stopped at Tommy Gilbert's Hobby Shop in Gettysburg on the way in.  Not much O gauge there, but did have a good amount of scenery, paint, and scratch-building supplies.  Only made it to the Wyndham and Four Points Bandit Meets and the Purple Hall Pre Show.  There were only a handful of outdoor vendors at the Wyndham, but there were a good number of people inside (it seemed busier than April).  The Four Points was not busy (about the same as always).  The Purple Hall was a lot busier and had more vendors than in April.

Tuesday -- This was the busiest day at the Bandit Meets.  More outdoor vendors at the Wyndham, the fire hall seemed busy, the Four Points seemed to have a little more activity than Monday, and Purple Hall had a good amount of activity.  After the Bandits, we took a little trip to Gettysburg to visit Carver's Toy Trains on the West side of town.  This is a cool shop and is packed with lots of trains, accessories and toys, new and old.  It looks small from the outside, but seems a lot bigger once inside (must be a TARDIS ).  Afterwards we went to the EDTCA Welcoming Party in the Orange Hall lobby.  This is a great time, and the food is good (the $10 admission gets you basically an all-you-can-eat BBQ buffet with soft drinks, and the ticket gets you one free adult beverage with it being a cash bar after that).  There was a little drama resulting from an attempt to squash some rumors, but I will leave the details up to the TCA to make public.  Got to socialize a bit, then we headed off to Pap's Modular Railroad -- a private modular setup at a park about 5 miles from the fairgrounds.  Their railroad is setup primarily for kids to enjoy, and they host evenings where kids get to run the trains -- a great way to promote the hobby!

Wednesday -- Hit the Bandits and Pre Show again.  Fewer outdoor vendors at the Wyndham than Tuesday, but there were a good number of people walking around.  Vendors were already starting to pack up mid-morning.  Same with the Pre Show -- many vendors were packing up to either leave or move into another hall, but there were still a good number of shoppers.  After the Bandits, we went to the Strasburg Train Shop for their sidewalk sale, and on the way back to York, we stopped by the Lower Susquehanna Valley Railroad Club for their open house (always a good time and highly recommended).

Thursday -- Blue Hall was very busy.  I never got away from my tables (I usually at least get to do a run around Blue Hall) until the hall closed, then did a quick run through Orange before heading off to dinner at a new restaurant that was recommended to us.

Friday -- Blue Hall was busy again, but I did manage to make a quick run through all the member halls and arrived back in Blue just after the power went out.  The emergency lighting in the hall was enough to keep people shopping (although there were some that jumped ship).  Did another run through Orange after the member halls closed before heading off to dinner.

Saturday -- Seemed like more people were in attendance for a Saturday.  I sold 2-3 times what I normally do for a Saturday.  We must be getting good at packing up as we had the trailer loaded up and locked in little under an hour after closing.  Then we headed off for our late lunch / early dinner before our gang split up to head home.

Each night (except Saturday) after the food and festivities, we set up in a hotel lobby where some of us were staying to enjoy some adult beverages and continue the socializing.

I had a great and memorable time, as did the rest of our gang in the alcove area of Blue Hall, and I got to meet and chat with a number of Forum people in person, some for the first time.

I even had a couple of amusing incidents.  The first took place along the road between Orange and Blue Halls where I had stopped to chat with Erol G.("LocoLawyer") when a woman pulled up to us and asked which building had the oysters... we had no idea where she got the idea, unless she was looking for the York Fish & Oyster Co. just past the fairgrounds where N. Highland St. meets W. Market St.  The second happened in Blue Hall -- I had just made a sale and thanked the buyer when his phone's Siri immediately chimed in to reply "You're welcome."   He was as surprised as I was and said, "Wow, they really are listening to us!"

Andy

@poconotrain posted:

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....

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.

Re the scenery items, the vendor that used to set up in Orange (Scenic Express?) relocated to someplace west - Colorado I think.  No longer a viable drive for them.

In the new BTO world, dealers don't buy as much inventory on spec as they used to, so there isn't as much excess to blow out.  I suspect that's why Ro and Trainworld have cut back or eliminated their presence at York.  However, several other major dealers still maintain a large presence - Gryzbozski's, Nicholas Smith, and JusTrains to name a few, and Trainz seems to use more space each time.  There's plenty of stuff to spend money on in the Orange hall.     

Had a great time talking to people at the DCS Meeting, the Thursday AM RTC Diner breakfast, Quaker Steak and our Friday Night Olive Garden dinner. Thank you to all that attended and made it fun.

Since I have three GP9s coming soon, I was a little subdued. However, I did get three new Korber building kits from Mr Muffin (thank you Steve and Liz for bringing them), a few assorted rolling stock and, of course, a few reasonably priced Giraffe cars (4 for $85 total).

I spoke to Roger Carp about his new CTT special issue, which he autographed for me. Visited the layouts and helped man ours.

A word on empty tables…..about 15-20 Vendors/Table Holders had to cancel due to the double hurricanes…. Many lost everything. I know the ED moved a lot of tables around to fill spots in the halls.

Lastly, a big thank you to the ED for all the work you guys do to put on the meet.

Peter

I was there the whole week.

Four Points has shrunk.  Wyndham is about the same.  Purple Hall pre show was good; 80% full.

Blue, Silver, and Orange halls were full.  Good deals if you knew where to look.  I got a Chessie 2-8-4, a Southern 60' streamliner set, and an MPC 665 Hudson remake at good prices.  Got Williams freight cars at $ 12.50 each and junk freight cars to retruck them.

The power outage clobbered the Blue and Silver halls.  Orange hall had sufficient light to see and sell by.  A lot of people haven't gotten the "price things to sell" message.  OTOH, TCA put out a lot of modern Marx at their deaccession table and someone said "I'll take it all" before I got a chance to look at it.

More people than in recent years.  Parking lot is fuller.

Returning home from York I stopped at the East Broad Top.  Progress south is impressive.  There's a crew that has started work on the Pogue bridge.  Visit EBT while the "traditional" EBT is still there.  As EBT puts more trackage into service there's going to be more equipment, more trains, and more development.  Think hotels and restaurants; Orbisonia and Rockhill Furnace are going to become a lot like Durango, Colorado.

@Mallard4468 posted:

Re the scenery items, the vendor that used to set up in Orange (Scenic Express?) relocated to someplace west - Colorado I think.  No longer a viable drive for them.

In the new BTO world, dealers don't buy as much inventory on spec as they used to, so there isn't as much excess to blow out.  I suspect that's why Ro and Trainworld have cut back or eliminated their presence at York.  However, several other major dealers still maintain a large presence - Gryzbozski's, Nicholas Smith, and JusTrains to name a few, and Trainz seems to use more space each time.  There's plenty of stuff to spend money on in the Orange hall.     

I maybe could have worded it a little differently but the point I was trying to make was there was way too much of the old stuff in the Orange Hall. I know about Scenic Express I still order from them. True there were plenty of new dealers to spend your money. Thanks Bob’s Trains for U for the good deal on the new Shay and Log cars. Anyway there was a very noticeable lack of items like Diecast items, DHS Diecast comes to mind and others that used to be there. There were a few dealers with minimum inventory on Scenery items. The whole thing comes down to the Orange Hall is not what it used to be but nothing ever stays the same. If I insulted or upset someone with this post it was not intended to do that. Just my observation of what I saw. All in all I did have a great time talking with friends I have made over the past 24 years and I hope everyone did the same. It’s not always about the trains it’s about the people that make up this wonderful hobby.

Thursday: Arrived around 9am after hustling down from NYC at 4:30am, missing the exit for I-78, but kept on-course by my phone's trusty GPS which led us to the alternate route via the Pennsy Turnpike. I bring a lighter-socket to USB power port and a windshield mount for the phone to make this as passive as possible. Even when not using it for navigation (i.e. the "show you where you are" mode) it's also useful for re-tracing previous routes with greater precision in Google maps as the co-ordinates are stored in your phone for recall via the Timeline feature (this was recently changed so the data resides only on your mobile device, you can't access it from desktop anymore for privacy reasons)

As the halls opened, I was aware that I really didn't have anything in mind to look for (for a change). I had a list of parts and hobby tools to find for a friend back in NY, but for myself...blank slate. Going by Brady's Trains I perused their MTH offerings, made quicker by the photos they placed on the box ends, whereupon I spotted a CSX coke hopper just like in April, I kept looking, not expecting to find a NS version, but one did indeed turn up. Consulting my April '24 post in the BACL ('Buy Anything Cool Lately?") thread, I saw that this car (20-97350) was indeed a different number from the one I bought previously...and about seven years newer. Coke hopper #16 joined my fleet, that first purchase  nearly equaling what I spent on food between breakfast and dinner that day.

Friday: At East Coast Train Parts, I found one of the parts on my list, a pair of boxcar doors for a 6464-900 NYC boxcar he acquired from...well he's not sure where it came from since he primarily operates LGB, with a particular bent toward the Denver, South Park & Pacific. For myself, I identified a number of candidates, specifically some MTH Union Pacific water tenders for my Challenger and future FEF (but I was really looking for the American Flag version). I did see a large UP logo like the one I have--at least I think that's the version I have--, the small text ("Jim Jordan") version, and the black version. I also saw some Weaver boxcars at Uncle Jack's Trains (diagonally across from MrMuffins') that sparked a memory, that one of the first railcars I ever drew a picture of as a child, inspired by a Ralston Purina boxcar with it's big checkerboard logo, that I saw sitting in the Hunts Point yards as I rolled by in the family car on the Bruckner Expressway alongside. Well, there were two on the table, with different car numbers. These were 40' boxcars and I was thinking that the real ones would have been 50-footers, like the Seaboard System boxcar sitting about a foot away. Ultimately I did not buy anything for myself that day, though at Grzyboski's setup I did get a few laughs pointing out the K-Line FEMA voltmeter "disaster response" boxcar, made a rolling oxymoron by recent events.

I was moving through Red Hall, having just come from White (it seemed to have a lot of Flyer there, which considerably speeded up my journey thru there ) when the lights flickered and died. Well, there was enough light coming thru the doors so I completed my circuit of the hall, peeked inside the Black hall, noting that the Standard gauge display had ground to a halt (this was before I learned the entire fairgrounds, and a portion of the surrounding area had also lost power) toured the ghost town known as Purple Hall, then walked over to Orange, where I knew the food trailers parked outside would probably have generators (they did) and I had a light lunch.

I was all but resigned to having only bought one piece of rolling stock this York, despite having come "loaded for bear" just in case. When while wandering the Orange Hall, I spotted something in Train Loft's booth that caught my eye...their custom-run MTH Santa Fe bluebonnet SD35. It looked really good to me, and I remembered seeing it in the MTH email announcement way back, and thinking that it would look especially good as a double-header (there were two road numbers available) but it was a trifle spendy as an impulse purchase.

I was thinking the same as I got a into a conversation at their booth, and that was where I learned that there were only 40 of these produced...and that was after increasing the order from 30 when those sold out almost immediately. I was mentally running estimates on what getting both would cost since it was a "now or never" situation, when I hit on just buying one cash and the other on plastic, saving at least the tax on the first one and leaving me enough to cover my share of the motel and gas. Well, that plan changed when, as they had intended to bring both road numbers, but accidentally brought only one of the two. They were pretty sure they had the other road numbers back at the store, and could ship the second to me after they returned. So, I bought the first loco cash, and made a promise to call them at the store Monday at a good time (2pm) to place an order for the second roadnumber. Which I did today, right on time. In fact my promised call was a topic of discussion when I phoned in .

Saturday: Since I had already toured the member halls the previous day, I mostly stuck to Orange hall, I picked up the rest of the tool supplies at B&B Hobby, and made another trip around the hall as dealers started organizing their wares for "the big pack-up"... along with an increasing number of folks sporting the 'thousand-yard stare' from three days of train shopping. Visiting Uncle Jack's Trains one more time, I finally decided that at $15 each I could give those three Weaver cars a home and said as much. No boxes, but at least they still had the cardboard inserts that Weaver cars usually come strapped to so they'd survive the trip home.

All in all, a fun trip, and by dint of sheer caution, also avoided spilling anything on my big Amtrak logo hoodie

---PCJ

Although my focus is very narrow on what I am looking for and I am not even tempted to buy items not within that focus, I thought prices were on the high side.  I commented so to my daughter after we had walked the Blue and Silver halls.

I am not longer into Standard Guage but feel that York is the only show that has any amount of it at all.  Allentown and the Big E are complete disappointments for such.

I also feel that many of the reviews are biased by what the reviewer is looking for.  I'm looking for modern O, but not the latest stuff.  To say the show is not that good just because you didn't find anything is not fair.  I was surprised that I bought 3 items this time.  Last time I purchased nothing, and the time before that 1 thing.  I've always had a good time just browsing.

So York #? is in the books since attending every show from 1992, missing it once for illness and 3 times for the pandemic. Still, another good one for me.
I bought a Lionel gold Hudson on the Tuesday before York at a super attractive price. Just need the caboose now. Did get a Lionel wooden base with acrylic case at York at a very reasonable price.
Saw and bought a cab1L remote from a guy in the red hall for 1/2 of what they are going for. The cab 1L does work well as my club uses them. Did buy a railking gold boxcar that MTH made a long time ago for a set they made. And at the last table on Saturday in the silver hall, I found a few 2400 Lionel passenger cars in nice condition for $20 each, something to add to the others I have to run with the postwar(never die) alcos.

Always fun to attend York to see the trains and see friends there from around the country.  

Ted's avatar is strikingly similar to his pose from York!

As a first time seller I was totally amazed at how well it went with selling my O gauge collection. So well I'm planning for the fall next year with my G scale collection. Didn't see that coming at all. I was positive this was my last trip.  Old age comes automatically with issues.

For all practical purposes you could say the trailer was empty coming back to Tennessee.

Thank you Andy for all the help answering my stupid questions prior to York. It made things go very well. It was a pleasure meeting you and maybe lord willing we will have one of those adult beverages together next time. I also got to meet several other pleasant and friendly OGR members as well.

Over all this was a A+ meet for me as a seller. lol my first.  But Really, all 5 of my York meets have been A+.  After all it's all about Trains.

@Larry Sr. posted:

It was a pleasure meeting you and maybe lord willing we will have one of those adult beverages together next time.

I'm sure we can make that happen. 

Andy

Larry Sr.,

Pleasure to stop and shoot the breeze for a few minutes. Yes, it sure looked like you sold off a lot of goods at York.

@MartyE posted:

Ted's avatar is strikingly similar to his pose from York!

Except he's missing the remote in this pose.

I saw a lot of Unique Art F units in nice condition at reasonable prices at York.  Mine were purchased at York in 2017.  These are good runners with some tweaking.  With a prewar coupler on the rear, I've got a tinplate diesel locomotive pulling a tinplate train.

"A lot of" is relative.  Unique Art F units are rare; there were 5 or 6 Big Boys for every Unique Art F unit.

Got back home late Saturday night from York and we had a fantastic show. Thanks to all who stopped by our booth. We were slammed most of Thursday and Friday and even Saturday had more people in the hall than normal. I know many of you had to try a few times to a get a word with me. Lots of people and see and talk to. My voice and throat reminded me of that! Also, as I mentioned to many of those stopping by we are working hard to get roundhouse kits shipping out before the end of the year. We are busy getting our new CNC up and running parts. Also a shout out to TCA board & staff and Eastern Division of the TCA for all they do! Had a great time.

I had a great time, as well as my teenage son.  We found some great deals and will remember this one as the one the power went out.  I feel bad for the people set up in the Purple hall.  TCA should really do something but it's probably confusing as some people set up and then leave before the actual show.  It just seemed strange that it was full for the pre-show and then very sparse for the main show.  There was never many people looking around at their stuff either.

I also agree prices were all over the place.  You could buy the same item in the same condition for say 60 bucks or 120.00.  I think some sellers seemed to be a little bummed they weren't selling much but it's hard if your stuff is priced a lot more than many other sellers.  

Does anyone have fall 2024 attendance numbers? Usually by now someone has chimed in on this topic. I’m interested in whether my perception of larger crowds was reality.

@steam posted:

I feel bad for the people set up in the Purple hall.  TCA should really do something but it's probably confusing as some people set up and then leave before the actual show.  It just seemed strange that it was full for the pre-show and then very sparse for the main show.

A number of the pre-show sellers migrated to other halls.  I know some went to Orange Hall.  I don't know what they could do beyond offering a big discount or more tables to stay in Purple,  as I don't think people in Orange want to give up their prime spaces.  There were some sellers at the pre-show that are not TCA members and may have been people that used to set up in the parking lot at the Wyndham Bandit Meet (lots of Bandit Meet sellers do not sell at the main event).

Andy

@RailRide posted:

Thursday: Arrived around 9am after hustling down from NYC at 4:30am, missing the exit for I-78, but kept on-course by my phone's trusty GPS which led us to the alternate route via the Pennsy Turnpike. I bring a lighter-socket to USB power port and a windshield mount for the phone to make this as passive as possible. Even when not using it for navigation (i.e. the "show you where you are" mode) it's also useful for re-tracing previous routes with greater precision in Google maps as the co-ordinates are stored in your phone for recall via the Timeline feature (this was recently changed so the data resides only on your mobile device, you can't access it from desktop anymore for privacy reasons)

As the halls opened, I was aware that I really didn't have anything in mind to look for (for a change). I had a list of parts and hobby tools to find for a friend back in NY, but for myself...blank slate. Going by Brady's Trains I perused their MTH offerings, made quicker by the photos they placed on the box ends, whereupon I spotted a CSX coke hopper just like in April, I kept looking, not expecting to find a NS version, but one did indeed turn up. Consulting my April '24 post in the BACL ('Buy Anything Cool Lately?") thread, I saw that this car (20-97350) was indeed a different number from the one I bought previously...and about seven years newer. Coke hopper #16 joined my fleet, that first purchase  nearly equaling what I spent on food between breakfast and dinner that day.

Friday: At East Coast Train Parts, I found one of the parts on my list, a pair of boxcar doors for a 6464-900 NYC boxcar he acquired from...well he's not sure where it came from since he primarily operates LGB, with a particular bent toward the Denver, South Park & Pacific. For myself, I identified a number of candidates, specifically some MTH Union Pacific water tenders for my Challenger and future FEF (but I was really looking for the American Flag version). I did see a large UP logo like the one I have--at least I think that's the version I have--, the small text ("Jim Jordan") version, and the black version. I also saw some Weaver boxcars at Uncle Jack's Trains (diagonally across from MrMuffins') that sparked a memory, that one of the first railcars I ever drew a picture of as a child, inspired by a Ralston Purina boxcar with it's big checkerboard logo, that I saw sitting in the Hunts Point yards as I rolled by in the family car on the Bruckner Expressway alongside. Well, there were two on the table, with different car numbers. These were 40' boxcars and I was thinking that the real ones would have been 50-footers, like the Seaboard System boxcar sitting about a foot away. Ultimately I did not buy anything for myself that day, though at Grzyboski's setup I did get a few laughs pointing out the K-Line FEMA voltmeter "disaster response" boxcar, made a rolling oxymoron by recent events.

I was moving through Red Hall, having just come from White (it seemed to have a lot of Flyer there, which considerably speeded up my journey thru there ) when the lights flickered and died. Well, there was enough light coming thru the doors so I completed my circuit of the hall, peeked inside the Black hall, noting that the Standard gauge display had ground to a halt (this was before I learned the entire fairgrounds, and a portion of the surrounding area had also lost power) toured the ghost town known as Purple Hall, then walked over to Orange, where I knew the food trailers parked outside would probably have generators (they did) and I had a light lunch.

I was all but resigned to having only bought one piece of rolling stock this York, despite having come "loaded for bear" just in case. When while wandering the Orange Hall, I spotted something in Train Loft's booth that caught my eye...their custom-run MTH Santa Fe bluebonnet SD35. It looked really good to me, and I remembered seeing it in the MTH email announcement way back, and thinking that it would look especially good as a double-header (there were two road numbers available) but it was a trifle spendy as an impulse purchase.

I was thinking the same as I got a into a conversation at their booth, and that was where I learned that there were only 40 of these produced...and that was after increasing the order from 30 when those sold out almost immediately. I was mentally running estimates on what getting both would cost since it was a "now or never" situation, when I hit on just buying one cash and the other on plastic, saving at least the tax on the first one and leaving me enough to cover my share of the motel and gas. Well, that plan changed when, as they had intended to bring both road numbers, but accidentally brought only one of the two. They were pretty sure they had the other road numbers back at the store, and could ship the second to me after they returned. So, I bought the first loco cash, and made a promise to call them at the store Monday at a good time (2pm) to place an order for the second roadnumber. Which I did today, right on time. In fact my promised call was a topic of discussion when I phoned in .

Saturday: Since I had already toured the member halls the previous day, I mostly stuck to Orange hall, I picked up the rest of the tool supplies at B&B Hobby, and made another trip around the hall as dealers started organizing their wares for "the big pack-up"... along with an increasing number of folks sporting the 'thousand-yard stare' from three days of train shopping. Visiting Uncle Jack's Trains one more time, I finally decided that at $15 each I could give those three Weaver cars a home and said as much. No boxes, but at least they still had the cardboard inserts that Weaver cars usually come strapped to so they'd survive the trip home.

All in all, a fun trip, and by dint of sheer caution, also avoided spilling anything on my big Amtrak logo hoodie

---PCJ

Where was the Train Loft? They were not on the dealer list and I don't recall ever having seen them before at a York Meet. Thanks.

Pat

@irish rifle posted:

Where was the Train Loft? They were not on the dealer list and I don't recall ever having seen them before at a York Meet. Thanks.

Pat

Isn’t Jeff Konczal the proprietor of the Train Loft……..I remember he was near the LCCA and the map shows JJ9.

Isn’t he the guy that did the fantasy N&W Triplex’s?

Peter

@Putnam Division posted:

Isn’t Jeff Konczal the proprietor of the Train Loft……..I remember he was near the LCCA and the map shows JJ9.

Isn’t he the guy that did the fantasy N&W Triplex’s?

Peter

Jeff's the guy with the N&W Triplex's. I got this only photo of them showing off their paint schemes.

@Nathan B posted:

Jeff's the guy with the N&W Triplex's. I got this only photo of them showing off their paint schemes.

That’s him! Thanks, Nathan……

Peter

@irish rifle posted:

Where was the Train Loft? They were not on the dealer list and I don't recall ever having seen them before at a York Meet. Thanks.

Pat

They were at the opposite end of the aisle where Grzyboski's was.

<looks at dealer chart> Ah, they were listed by the owner's name, Jeffrey Konczal, booth JJ-9. You can see his booth in 'PghTrainFanatic's YouTube recap here: (jump to 26:36 since "start at time" doesn't work in embeds )

---PCJ

@RailRide posted:

They were at the opposite end of the aisle where Grzyboski's was.

<looks at dealer chart> Ah, they were listed by the owner's name, Jeffrey Konczal, booth JJ-9. You can see his booth in 'PghTrainFanatic's YouTube recap here: (jump to 26:36 since "start at time" doesn't work in embeds )

---PCJ

Thanks for the explanation. I wonder why Jeff did not use his company name, which everyone would recognize. In any event, I will know what to look for in the future. I have bought a lot of stuff from the Train Loft over the years, particularly K-Line special run freight cars and K-Line cabooses, and would certainly have been interested in what Jeff brought to York.

Pat

Jeff had a table in the Purple Hall at April’s Meet. He said it was his first attendance in many years. It was great to see Train Loft and some others coming back to the Meet.