York Train Show.

@Andy Hummell posted:

I had a good York.  Arrived in York on Tuesday morning, found some treasures at the Four Points and Wyndham bandits, and my club mates found some treasures at the and the fire hall and Purple Hall. We then went to Hanover to visit the antique co-op that has a small train store inside where I found a couple of Civil War RR books - one from the train shop, and one from another vendor in the co-op.  We then returned to York for the TCA Welcome Party (I highly recommend it if you come this early - excellent meal and one beer or glass of wine for only $10).  We finished the evening at one of our hotels with some Scotch, Bourbon and whiskey and some fine conversation.

On Wednesday, we hit the bandits again, and I found another small treasure.  We then headed out to Intercourse, PA to visit Barry's Car Barn.  This collection has to be seen in person.  Classic cars, muscle cars, Corvettes, Shelby Cobras, motorcycles, memorabilia, and even a display case with a number of nice sets of standard gauge and Postwar train sets, and a lot more!  From there we went to DJ's Diner for a quick dinner and then to the Strasburg Train Shop, and then on to the Lower Susquehanna club open house before returning to York to enjoy another evening of adult beverages and fine conversation, this time with more participants.

On Thursday, I was fairly busy at my tables and sold some trains.  After the meet closed, we headed to one of our favorite restaurants in York, Shangri La.  The lady that runs this restaurant is incredible -  she remembers our preferences and even our previous orders, and we only go there twice a year!  After dinner We continued our beverage/conversation tradition.

Friday saw some more sales at my tables, and I picked up an item on my "Unicorn List" in the Orange Hall, then dinner and drinks afterward.

Saturday saw a few sales at my tables, I registered for October, late lunch at the Lyndon Diner, and then made the trek home.

We ate breakfast every day from Tuesday through Saturday at Round the Clock Diner.

Overall, it was a fantastic trip!  Now the task at hand is to weather the long wait until October!

Andy

Excellent review Andy. I would have really liked following you around. Except maybe after the scotch and the classic cars, I might have forgot the train show.lol

Thanks all for reports! As old timer 66-1559 certainly miss my tables in white hall B-20,21. my first show was at the Gurnsey sales pavilion last was April 2015:  Hard to believe its been 10 years!!                                                                                                                         The closing of an Era For our family! August 23 2014 At approximately 4:15 PM today "a chapter in the book of life" closed after a 66 year run. The last of my Train accumulation was packed and "left the Building". A bit nostalgic to say the least! Many of the Lionel boxes were marked" for father's day, Tom's Birthday, Christmas (many years listed) almost any occasion was a good excuse (oops reason) to acquire rolling stock , Locomotives scenery, and accessories. Many Boxes carried stickers/markings from the stores they were purchased from: Many of the names will be familiar: Bob's cycle shop, Joes Bike shop, Horn & Taylor, Western Auto Athens and Waverly Stores, Bolich Hardware, Bunis Toys and Hobbies in Elmira, Limoncelli Tire, Iszards, , Madison Hardware( New York city) Gilbert's Hobbies in Gettysburg, and Farmer's train shop in Pine city. Many were bought from individuals that had decided to "get out of Trains." Met a lot of people and had many good times . Christine remembers the "Train club" that came on Monday Nights to help with Layout. Bill & Christine Remembers the many trips to York to attend the Train shows each April and October. Yes I did retain some special Items to "pass on" My original Train set a switch Engine and 3 cars box is marked "Tommy's first train X-mas 1948" Whew that's a rough one! Where’s the tear button? Some Large scale Engines (3) that are unique and some assorted cars and track again to family. There is an O Gauge Locomotive that My Father built from an All-Nation kit and Scale model I had built in 1969 that is an exact Model of the Last big locomotive that The Lehigh Valley acquired from the Alco Locomotive works. A bit hard to let go but in same respect someone else will get to enjoy the trains! And that's what "playing with trains” is all about. God Speed

@Mikado 4501 posted:

...TrainWorld wasn't there, nor was TM Books & Video, and a few other noteworthy faces I always look forward to seeing with these meets specifically. It was nice to see Atlas and MTH, as well as other familiar faces, but I don't know. These are mostly my father's words than mine, but I can't hep but share a lot of the same opinion.

Maybe it's also because we don't have time to experience the events pre- and post-show. Maybe if we did, our opinions would change, but this is just going off those who come for a day and stay for the show itself...

I was told by one of the Orange vendors that TW had to cancel on short notice due to Ken Jr.'s wife giving birth.  Not sure why TM didn't make it, but they haven't had any new product lately, and some of Tom McComas' trains are being auctioned by Stout's, so I wonder what is going on. 

OTOH, Nicholas Smith returned after missing several shows, and I was told that they plan to come back.

There are many meetings, dinners, and open houses during the show - I wholeheartedly recommend including some of them in your itinerary.

@MartyE posted:

I guess I'll chime in.  I thought the "crowds" were light especially Saturday.  ...

On Friday the excitement of the day was the small brawl that broke out in the Red Hall.  We witnessed the tail end of the authorities being there.  My brother said there was definitely some contact.  Other than that a fairly uneventful York.

...

Re Saturday, I wasn't there but I saw nothing regarding being open to the public.  Has ED given up on this?

Details on the brawl - time, location within the hall, reason?  I know several people in Red, and have heard nothing.

It was another great week at York. I did very well selling in the blue hall. Picked up some goodies at the bandit meets. I believe this was my last York, but you never know. TED, It was nice talking with you on Friday at our tables.

Wyndham rates were the same last fall, this spring and will be the same for 2024 fall.

I had a good time at York this weekend. I found plenty of good buys on Friday and especially on Saturday. Fridays attendance was good while Saturdays attendance was thin as usual. But I did see more kids in attendance on Saturday.
Spring York always seems to be less crowded with a lesser vibe than the fall meet. I’m hoping the fall meet will have the increased excitement of past fall meets. I hope to be there!

I finally got back after a 5 years . I had a very successful weekend selling (That was my first time doing that) I also had a few good finds. Saw many people I haven’t seen in years and also met up with people face to face for the first time. I got to talk with some of the young YouTube guys. Chris aka RBP, Zac of Country Bunkers Trains and Shawn, the man behind Dakman Productions all these guys were very approachable. All said and done it was a great weekend.

I walked into the red hall around mid morning on Saturday, just as the arguement between two dealers was going on. The yelling was so loud we heard it outside the hall before we even opened the doors. A younger dealer with the nice post and prewar trains near the door was being yelled at by a dealer from along the wall on the white hall side. The screaming match went back and forth for a few minutes before security and other members intervened. Had something to do with a cell phone. It got a little crazy for a bit.

Overall had a fun York trip. First time in a long time I didn't by any trains.  Just purchased some parts, smoke fluid, detail parts and scenery items, but I still had a blast.

York, like life, is what you make it. I choose to enjoy it.

We weren't able to spend a lot of time at York this year (April is always a busy time for us). I was hoping to attend the OGR Thursday night dinner and meet some of you but couldn't fit it in this time.

We were there on Friday from about 10:30 am to 2:30 pm. We spent most of our time in the Orange Hall, where I picked up my pre-ordered Lionel I Love Maryland boxcar from Trainz and purchased a fun animated Lemax Yulemeister brewery. We also went to the purple hall and viewed the layouts there.

People were buying, but it wasn't what I would call crowded.

Will I go again? Yes, but probably not every single York. We need to make some progress on actually building the layout before buying more stuff.

@NJCJOE posted:

I walked into the red hall around mid morning on Saturday, just as the arguement between two dealers was going on. The yelling was so loud we heard it outside the hall before we even opened the doors. A younger dealer with the nice post and prewar trains near the door was being yelled at by a dealer from along the wall on the white hall side. The screaming match went back and forth for a few minutes before security and other members intervened. Had something to do with a cell phone. It got a little crazy for a bit.

Overall had a fun York trip. First time in a long time I didn't by any trains.  Just purchased some parts, smoke fluid, detail parts and scenery items, but I still had a blast.

York, like life, is what you make it. I choose to enjoy it.

That must have been what we saw the tail end of.  I thought it was Friday but it was a long weekend.

@chessiechick posted:

...

Will I go again? Yes, but probably not every single York. We need to make some progress on actually building the layout before buying more stuff.

My sweetie says the same thing.  She used to say "why don't we spend the week working on the layout instead of going in April?".  Now that we're retired and no longer burning vacation days for the trip, I don't hear it as often.  But layout progress has still been slow.

Hope you can spend more time at the meet in October.  I've mentioned it before, but the various activities - modular layouts, meetings, and dinners are great ways to meet people, learn new things, and get inspired.

This was my second time to York (last October was the first) had a great time. Got some great deals!

Now we need a thread for want did you get at York April 2024.

The Meet got off to a terrific start with the traditional breakfast at the Round-the-Clock Diner run by Peter. It was great to be with many of you, and the breakfast there is by far the best in the area.

I spent a good deal of my time at the East Coast Enterprises booth in the Orange Hall helping Rich and Stan. They were able to sell approximately 70% of the bridges and buildings they brought with them and to get many more orders. So, it was clearly a very successful Meet for them.

I was able to get away from the booth and to purchase a number of freight cars from Grzyboski's Trains, Berwyn's Trains, JustTrains, and Stockyard Express. I also purchased an MTH NPR special run signal tower from Stockyard Express, one of the three cool Trolleys that Allan Miller sold at the Meet, some bottles of smoke fluid and Arttista figures from JT Mega-Steam and some lit passenger cars and vehicles from Jack Pearce.

My take on the attendance from what I saw at the Orange Hall was that it was very busy when the doors first opened on Thursday at noon through the early afternoon and then leveled out, was surprisingly low on Friday morning but steadily increased over the course of the day and was very light on Saturday. However, the silver lining was that those who came were buying. I spent limited time in the member halls, and was only able to visit the Blue and Silver Halls. When I visited them on Friday afternoon, attendance at both was good.

I think the attendance numbers quoted for the Meet sound accurate to me, although I would not be surprised if the final numbers turn out a little higher. My expectation is that attendance at the October Meet will be considerably higher, as it always is. Also, I expect Lionel to be there based upon what Ryan told me at the Amherst Train Show in January.

Pat  

I had a great York Week!

Setup in the Purple Hall for the Preshow.

Monday at the preshow was probably the busiest at the preshow. There were a few empty tables on Monday as two vendors arrived late. Their loss. Had good sales all week!

The Welcome Party was a great time as always!

For the second time having the preshow 7 vendors stayed  in the Purple Hall Thursday - Saturday. Also a few more were asking questions about staying in the fall and expressing interest in staying.

@irish rifle posted:

My expectation is that attendance at the October Meet will be considerably higher, as it always is. Also, I expect Lionel to be there based upon what Ryan told me at the Amherst Train Show in January.

I hope this becomes a norm again. Lionel coming to show off their upcoming product was always one of the highlights of the York shows in the past. The Amherst show is a bit of a trek to get to in comparison to York.

@Mallard4468 posted:

I was told by one of the Orange vendors that TW had to cancel on short notice due to Ken Jr.'s wife giving birth.  Not sure why TM didn't make it, but they haven't had any new product lately, and some of Tom McComas' trains are being auctioned by Stout's, so I wonder what is going on.

OTOH, Nicholas Smith returned after missing several shows, and I was told that they plan to come back.

There are many meetings, dinners, and open houses during the show - I wholeheartedly recommend including some of them in your itinerary.

If that's the case, that makes a lot more sense.

I didn't know Tom was auctioning off his collection, but I know he is pushing 90 years old right now. The rest of his team have been apparently busy with some other priorities, but they did just make a new I Love Toy Trains video, among other things they've been working on.

My dad just recently recovered from brain surgery, so this year was just not the right time to do more than the show, but we'll keep options open for later shows.

@irish rifle posted:

My expectation is that attendance at the October Meet will be considerably higher, as it always is. Also, I expect Lionel to be there based upon what Ryan told me at the Amherst Train Show in January.

Pat  

If Lionel plans to be there, I'll need to confirm that, then we will try to have a Base3 Users Group Meeting if Lionel will join us. The Virtual Meeting was a big success so we may have to weigh it against that.

If we do it will be most likely Friday mid morning.  This is all dependent on the availability of space.  Chances are it would NOT be in the orange hall.  We'll just have to see what Lionel's plans are.

@MartyE posted:

If Lionel plans to be there, I'll need to confirm that, then we will try to have a Base3 Users Group Meeting if Lionel will join us. The Virtual Meeting was a big success so we may have to weigh it against that.

If we do it will be most likely Friday mid morning.  This is all dependent on the availability of space.  Chances are it would NOT be in the orange hall.  We'll just have to see what Lionel's plans are.

Marty:

Definitely should check in advance. I plan to do so as well. "It ain't over 'till it's over."

Pat

At first I didn’t care that Lionel didn’t participate at York, however I’ve changed and truly think they would be a drawing card to the meet.

Another great York in the books. Been attending since 1992, so this is 62 or 63, lost exact count. Have seen York go through the changes from HUGE crowds on the 2 day event to the 3 day format.
Hats off to EDTCA for putting on another Great York. I always thank Mike Petronella for his efforts and get my semi-annual hug from Debbie Geiser for her work at the show. Her crew misses the Oreos, chips ahoy and mallomars that I use to bring them in my Nabisco working days!
Still found what was on my bucket buy list and I got excellent deals on what I hauled home.

The President had a good time there, I missed a few folks there but did see some there.
And the York countdown begins…

People always say twice a year how ‘small’ the crowds are at the York Meet.  If the attendance ever got back to 14,000+ they’d still say the attendance was light.

Maybe they should have the Meet at my house, then it will always look crowded!

When I first went to York attendance was about 11,000 and TCA membership was about 21,000. About 50% of members attended. Now it would take about 90% of the TCA membership to attend to get those numbers. That's sad.

I'm hoping to go in October if everything works out, and I hope 95% of TCA go. If anything those washroom attendants need our support.

@cbojanower posted:

...

I'm hoping to go in October if everything works out, and I hope 95% of TCA go. If anything those washroom attendants need our support.

I was thinking about the restroom attendants too.  Between the closed restrooms in White, the temporary potty trailer, and the reduced number of attendants in Orange (I only saw one - used to be 2 or 3), they might be hurting.  OTOH, jobs are plentiful these days, so maybe the attendants have better options.  Tough way to make a living.  Tipping in the restroom is something I've not seen anywhere else, but they make the facilities more pleasant.

It's nice to walk into a clean rest room. I only went once, and tipped a $1.

@eddie g posted:

It's nice to walk into a clean rest room. I only went once, and tipped a $1.

Geez Eddie, what are you a camel?

The argument in the Red hall was between a dealer and the hall captain. The dealer disconnected the test track to charge his phone and the hall captain removed/confiscated the phone and it went downhill from there. The dealer was ejected.

I marked off yet another York attendance, an unbroken (as in, I don't recall missing one) string going back to 1999, taking in Thu-Sat.

Thursday:

Left NYC at 4am, arrived at 9:30am, cooled our heels in the car waiting for the 12pm opening. First stop was Trainz, where I had a MTH dual-output wall charger for 5v and 3v units waiting for me, ordered on-line, and York delivery selected. Didn't even have to show my order number, as the boxes were marked with the buyer's name. Slick

Next up was a purchase at Grzyboski's, mindful of the "first Rule of York", I spotted amongst their K-Line offerings, a coil-steel car in Burlington Northern markings. Now, I know I bought one just like it at JusTrains in the Spring 2022 York, and like the pair of BNSF coil cars I bought...somewhere, there were at least two road numbers. Into the "Buy Anyting Cool Lately" thread where I had posted photos of my recent acquisitions, and eventually found the photo of the other BN car from 04/22 and its different road number. Sold!

I followed this up with a visit to Brady's Train Outlet, not expecting anything...till I spotted a MTH coke hopper, lettered for CSX "C O K E  E X P R E S S ". Intrigued, I looked around their MTH offerings and found the NS version. Now, I haven't posted any photos or talked about them, but I am building a NS coke train after seeing a number of them on Jaw Tooth's YouTube channel. I acquired a pair of plated four-packs and later a black four-pack from Ebay, followed by a pair of separate-sale plated cars from MrMuffin's. With this car, I'd have 15 cars. Add in the ten-pack of 2024 reissues I pre-ordered  (also from MrMuffin's) I'll have a 25-car NS coke train by the end of the summer

Friday:

From JusTrains I picked up the 2024 RailKing Airslide hoppers in UP and Chessie, and returning to Trainz, a piece that defied the "First Rule of York" (I saw it Thursday) was a Premier BNSF Airslide hopper. While holding that one I spied an Atlas O CNTX 33,000-gallon tanker. Another "sinister-looking black tank car", and just like that I bought two more cars.

Saturday:

Late in the day Friday I looked over a table in Silver hall replete with Kusan trains. Among them I spotted a pair of gondolas lettered with "Kusan" as their roadname. both rubber-banded together for $10. The seller claimed little knowledge of Kusan products, whereupon I offered some of my info on the subject. This resulted in an offer to take the entire table if no significant sales occurred by the close of the meet (actually noon) tomorrow, otherwise they'd go to auction and the hospice-bound owner he was selling them for might get "a penny on the dollar rather than five cents" and he'd rather they go to someone who knew what these were. While I would have liked to have taken him up on the offer, my collection is at the "playing Tetris to store stuff" stage and I said I could only pick out a portion of the offerings. Returning Saturday morning, I picked out five gondolas (the two Kusan-lettered ones, a Bexel, a boxed Nickel Plate and one undecorated example). Added to these were C&EI and GE two-bay hoppers, plus three KMT boxcars (PRR, Erie, and a boxed REA reefer that appears to be near mint). All ten cars went for $80. I might've picked out even more, but all the rest were duplicates of cars I already had (some of which are already dupes of previously acquired cars), and I still needed to pay my share of the gas and hotel bill.

Returning to Orange hall I finished up my purchasing with a couple of "presents" for my Lima UK Class 33 diesel: a pair of pickup rollers for its unpowered truck, and a ERR Mini Commander ('cause there's no way this loco is pulling enough weight to overload one). I had to leave early since my ride had to detour to a service for a recently-deceased friend of his family, but I had everything I looked for, and a little on top of that.

There'll be photos of these in my next "Buy Anything Cool..." entry after I get done photographing these in a week or so (after cleaning the Kusan cars). I expect to copy almost all of this post to accompany the pix, as I spent too much time running off at the keyboard describing them already

---PCJ

@richabr posted:

The argument in the Red hall was between a dealer and the hall captain. The dealer disconnected the test track to charge his phone and the hall captain removed/confiscated the phone and it went downhill from there. The dealer was ejected.

As Paul Harvey said "now the rest of the story!"

@eddie g posted:

It's nice to walk into a clean rest room. I only went once, and tipped a $1.

Dang, with all my surgeries due to my bladder cancer, I'd settle for once an hour

Wow, so the argument in the red hall involved the hall captain and a dealer? I personally know Al and Barbara, 2 of the nicest people you would want to know. I read why it started and that had to tick Al off unplugging the test track to charge a phone.

I'm not sure what happened. The dealer was ejected from the show? How do you eject someone from the show, Take his badge away?

@eddie g posted:

..How do you eject someone....

I usually hit the red button under the dashboard 😎.   (I'll see myself out)

Overall, I had a great time for visiting York for the first time. Had a long travel day on Tuesday so just ended up having a late dinner at Cheddar's. On Wednesday, went to Strasburg visiting the museums and had the parlor car on the Strasburg Railroad pretty much to myself. It was a nice break from wandering around on my feet all day. Considered having dinner in the Lancaster area, but US30 traffic was pretty heavy so decided to eat at RTC which was a good choice as it was very close to my hotel (Tru by Hilton) and very good. On Thursday did the RTC breakfast with everyone and made my way to the fairgrounds got familiar with the place. Other than dealing with US30, found that driving around York was pretty easy.

Started in the Blue and Silver halls and pretty much had to have your head on a swivel going up those one way aisles. I concentrated on looking for the American Flyer and Ives prewar pieces and AF postwar passenger cars. It took me about 5 hrs to cover all of the halls before heading to QSL for dinner. Food was good although not as good as Cheddars, but couldn't beat the social aspect. You're really missing something if you don't go as the socializing is really what this is all about as I can buy trains anywhere. The OGR Forum folks that I met were pretty top notch across the board. Everyone was friendly and made me feel part of the group even though it was all new.

Friday was an all-out day bracketed by the informal RTC breakfast and Olive Garden dinner get togethers. Here , I went after the rest of the list - postwar AF freight cars, and parts, so probably spent most of the time in Orange, but brought things in all of the halls. I splurged and bought a postwar 2349 NP Geep and sent it via FedEx who was setup in the Blue/Silver lobby. Definitely not cheap, but packed extremely well with multiple layers of bubble wrap and paper packing and came in a good sized box yesterday ( a week from purchasing) with no issues.

I had taken an extra suitcase with USPS flat rate boxes and bubble wrap which I used to pack up the AF freight cars. I dropped them off at the PO on the way to the fairgrounds on Saturday. I had both delivered to me on Monday,  so that is an excellent option if you can't take everything back yourself. The passenger cars and the rest were bubble wrapped and securely packed and these all came home with me safely. On Saturday I only had a couple hours before having to return to Baltimore for the flight back to Portland, so I found some small purchases (a couple tenders, a Christmas caboose and some parts) that I stuffed in the luggage.

I definitely saw items that you don't see at the show, though I was surprised on the things that I didn't see or expect to see. I was looking for a number of MPC items, and there really wasn't that much there. MPC parts were pretty much unavailable and had to go to all of the parts dealers to find the rest. There were pockets of it here and there with a lot of it with pretty high prices especially for unboxed locomotives. I found very little Marx 3/16 cars that weren't in sets and none of the more uncommon cars. I swear that almost every other table in the member halls had some postwar AF on it, although only found one beat up example of the Rocket green stripe combine that I was looking for. Lots of postwar and lots of MTH so anyone local with an empty vehicle and a good sized money bag could have a field day especially for obtaining modern pieces!

I will definitely be back, but probably not for 2 to 3 years as other time commitments are in the way plus I would need to establish a new want list...

@eddie g posted:

I'm not sure what happened. The dealer was ejected from the show? How do you eject someone from the show, Take his badge away?

You tell them it's time to leave, buh bye. Remember York is a semi private event. EDTCA can say who gets to be there.  I'm sure there will be TCA action against the member involved

@cbojanower posted:

I'm sure there will be TCA action against the member involved

You are right about that.  There was a fight in Blue Hall a couple of years ago fairly close to my tables.  The member who was determined to be in the wrong was asked to pack up his tables early and was barred from coming to York in any capacity for a couple of Yorks (he did eventually come back).

Andy