Saturday

Enjoy Strasburg with your son.  You will not miss anything.

Richie

NOTICEABLY less crowded than the other days.  If you've been there Thursday/Friday, you've probably seen what you're gonna see.  By noontime Saturday, the place thins out dramatically.  If you drive by mid- to late-afternoon, you won't even know there was train show there the past couple of days. 

David

I wouldn't say that you won't miss anything. Got some of my best deals on Saturdays but if you've already been there Thursday and Friday you might want to decompress at Strasburg.

Jerry

Because I was twice with a modular group, I saw what it was like on a Saturday. Hardly any crowd, no "hot sales" that I could see (Orange Hall only), and some sellers starting to pack just before noon. We had to start taking the layout down around 11am since it was so large, and a wedding party was booked for half of the Black Hall at 5pm. Still worth up to a 2 hour drive, IMO.

I have not been to the show on Saturday in many years. My buddy and I normally leave at noon on Friday.
We get there at noon on Thursday.
By Friday noon, I've been though all the halls a couple of times.

It's slower, but you never know when you may either see something you missed before or you get a good deal on something.

I found a 1979 Convention Disneyland Mint car (with coin being the key here) that I missed when I walked the hall the day before (might have been covered, I don't know). 

I went back to look at some MTH log cars that were on my "maybe" list, saw it looked like they were gone.  Chatted with the seller for a moment just to make sure he hadn't maybe moved them to another part of the table or something.  Turns out someone else got a good deal from him on all of them earlier in the morning.  There were 4 and they had been marked $25 each.  The guy who bought them asked if he'd do $80 for the 4, which the seller seemed very happy with to sell all 4 of them.

So there are deals or finds to be had.  Whether it's worth an extra hotel night is always a matter of personal circumstance (travel distance, etc) and opinion.

-Dave

I arrived at about 9:15. The grass field was, for all intents and purposes, almost completely empty.  I walked over to the Blue Hall, and a gent was standing outside. Since this was my first year, I asked if there was a later start time on Saturday, since there was no one there. He acknowledged that while Saturdays were traditionally thin, this was a very thin crowd. He also noted that all of the doors on the Blue Hall were locked! You had to go all the way down to the center area between blue and silver, and even some of *those* doors were locked!

Glad I went, though. Found that one item that would fit exactly in the only remaining place I had in my carryon luggage -  #50 gang car! Great price, too.