So, I finally got to the show today around lunchtime. Some quick notes:
It was heavily attended today, but a ghost town yesterday. Lots of children and young people. Even saw a young guy having his girlfriend helping him carry a bunch of train boxes with him out to the parking lot.
Lionel was set up! I mention this because this is my third or fourth year going and they have never supported this show in that time. I spoke to the lionel folks and they confirmed this was the first time they had set up at this show in 9 years. Was nice to see. They did not have a VLBB with them. A lot of kids were watching the PE on their layout.
MTH had the RK Challenger (greyhound) on a shelf. A lot nicer than I expected. The selective compression was artfully done. They also had the latest Euro loco, the black one with all the red wheels. Was surprised at how nice it is in-person. Also surprised that it seemed smallish considering it is scaled a little larger than American O. Guess the actual loco isn't all that big.
Atlas as was set up. The Zephyr cars were there and beautiful on the outside. I only have some steam era freight cars from Atlas so this was my first time seeing in-person an Atlas passenger car. I used my iPhone flsshlight to view the interior and, gotta say, disappointing. I'm used to the MTH and Lionel cars having detailed interiors with passengers. These cars, for a considerably larger MSRP have no passengers?
Lots of sellers and very many of them happy to share and offer help.
JT Smoke (Jeb) was there. First time meeting him and - what a class act! Bought gallons (well, maybe not quite that much) of his smoke. Including the Eliminator which is a purge product for the smoke system, allowing the pure scents of his other products to then be maximized.
RCS was there and as usual, an amazing array of turnouts and other goodies (like their turntable).
Peter
