2024 Springfield Show Information

[NS4122]

The list of exhibitors and floor plans are now available for the Springfield show on January 27th and 28th 2024. Look under who's who:

railroadhobbyshow.com

Interesting to note that Lombard Hobbies is on the list of exhibitors this year. Keep in mind the list will be updated periodically leading up to the show.

[riogrande]

The Timonium show is this weekend but I went a month ago so not going this one. Maybe the next show. Lombard has come to Timonium before.

I went to the Springfield show 3 times while I lived in central NY and it was 3.5 hours distance; the weather was always baltic for me, as my wife says. It was so bad on one trip, my windshield kept icing up so I couldn't see forward and had to stop on the side of the NYS Thuway to clear the windshield.

[NS4122]

Did Lombard actually sell at Timonium or were they just there to publicize themselves? Looking at the floor plan, it looks like they are sharing space with BLI.

Dec 3, 2023 14:50:25 GMT -8 riogrande said:

The Timonium show is this weekend but I went a month ago so not going this one. Maybe the next show. Lombard has come to Timonium before.

I went to the Springfield show 3 times while I lived in central NY and it was 3.5 hours distance; the weather was always baltic for me, as my wife says. It was so bad on one trip, my windshield kept icing up so I couldn't see forward and had to stop on the side of the NYS Thuway to clear the windshield.

[riogrande]

Sorry, meant Spring Creek

[hudsonyard]

the weather is always god awful, i remember one of the first years i went we skipped sunday to railfan the B&A and being up on washington hill on a clear 20 degree day with a stiff breeze is as cold as i've ever been while railfanning. and i've been up on the DMIR missabe sub in -10 in the dead of a minnesota winter.

maybe i'll go this year, maybe i wont. probably wont. i always end up saving train show $$$ for the mother seaton show in clark, NJ every year. always get more out of that show than anything else.

[fishbelly]

It has been six years since my pilgrimage to this show. I will be making a pilgrimage again in 2024.

I look forward to it.

Brian

[lvrr325]

I don't remember the weather being too bad other than one year we went and it had snowed and the crowd was down, and was it 2021? Real bad storm on Saturday and hardly anyone there, I watched people's live feeds on Youtube and we went Sunday instead.

I remember a drive back from the Albany Great Train Exposition where I had to keep stopping to clear the wipers. Have had a few poor weather experiences coming up from Scranton or Binghamton too. But it's winter weather, you never know what will happen. The November WNYRHS show's been cancelled twice because of storms dropping feet of snow overnight.

Now that my dad is 79 I suggested we go Friday and stay overnight in a hotel instead of trying to drive all of it in one day and that seemed to be a good idea. Much less tired to walk around Saturday morning.

[JohnJ]

I flew back into Connecticut this evening from a business trip. Two guys from Broadway Limited were down at the baggage claim on the Hartford end and had been on my flight from Atlanta.

[lvrr325]

Good maybe I can ask them when or if the exclusive NYS&W and Clinchfield SD45s are coming.

[wagnersteve]

Friday, 1/26/2024, starting 8:59 a.m., EST

I hope everyone going to the big show in West Springfield, Mass., this weekend has a grand time.

I would have liked to get there for part of tomorrow but almost surely won't be able to go. My wife is dealing with serious physical problems and needs a lot of help at home. I got hurt when I fell while walking on a slippery road near home a week ago yesterday, had to go the ER, got tests and treatment, but am not 100% fit yet. She is very vulnerable to any infection, and I ought to stay away from such crowded venues. I should be getting a new car today very different from any I've driven in the past, and I really shouldn't drive it until the frames for my latest eyeglasses, which were badly damaged when I fell, can be repaired or replaced. I also have a lot of tossing, recycling, cleaning & organizing to do at home. Etc., etc.

So I will be very eager to hear any news from the show ASAP, particularly relevant to modelers of the D&H, the B&M and New England, Canadian railways, northeastern and midwestern U.S. railroads, primarily 1940s-1980s. Kalmbach won't be there, so I don't know how much that firm's people will be able to report.

[riogrande]

I'm sure it's going to be great having been to Springfield MA on 3 occasions but not since I moved to northern Virginia. It would eat 3 full days to go and I just don't have that much time available to take away from working on the house. Happy wife, happy life.

[NS4122]

Hopefully it will be a good show. A couple of big dealers that were at Timonium in October will be at Springfield for the first time. AA Hobbies not coming back has left a huge void the last couple years so this is good news.

[markfj]

BLI has first announcement (as far as I know) from Amherst:

PRR 5 Car Passenger Set, HO Scale

Thanks, Mark

[markfj]

ST GP40 announcement is now up:

RIVET COUNTER HO SCALE EMD GP40

[ed]

Jan 26, 2024 9:59:45 GMT -8 riogrande said:

AAA hobbies. Man, I was out there in the late 1990's for an environmental project and as was my habit, liked to visit hobby shops when in other cities. I visited AAA several times and still have models and books I bought there. He even let me go to the basement to peruse shelves down there. In a way I'm surprised after all this time they are still around.

John has had some health problems over the past few years but he is hanging in. I was in their basement to look for a couple of things a few years ago. An amazing amount of quality stuff!

[sauconyard]

Seemed well attended and first time for me in several years. The Mallary Complex has a lot of really great layouts and the space to walk around them is much nicer than them being packed into the other buildings. Good selection of vendors, manufacturers and clubs, although no Tony's Trains or any DCC specific vendors, unless I missed them.

I don't think the manufacturers decide to get as much "wow" from announcing at the show as they did prior. What I did notice when browsing vendors, there is a lot of Rapido and Tangent product now on the street. The Tangent product still holding value, but it seems vendors are discounting Rapido more than I would have expected.

There is so much product in HO that just wasn't available in such quality 30 years ago. It's unbelievably impressive.

[wagnersteve]

1/27/2024, starting 5:32 p.m., EST

Gents, again, I didn't get to go to the show. But I've been able to help my wife quite a bit at home, and our older son has helped me get a new car, which I'm learning to drive, and new frames for my eyeglasses that had been damaged when I fell while walking on a slippery street over a week ago. Treatment for injuries is working well, too.

The forthcoming BLI Pennsy passenger cars should be much better than some Bachmann ones I bought many years ago. I have strong memories of seeing quite a few PRR and later PC and probably Conrail "office cars" parked under Philly's 30th Street Station years ago. I've made longer trips on the PRR, NYC and B&O than on any other lines.

Where is AAA Hobbies?

I know where Timonium is but have never been to that show.

I remember Saucon Yard near Bethlehem Steel in its namesake city from spending time doing research for my Ph.D. dissertation at Lehigh University (among many other places) in the 1980s.

[hudsonyard]

Saucon and Iron Hill yard would be two locations on the RDG i'd consider modeling. The Bethlehem branch was one heck of a stretch of railroad, some tough grades, lots of tonnage.

[sauconyard]

Grew up in Bethlehem in 70s and 80s, but now live in New England, not far from Springfield. Seeing the RCTHS layout today was great. Don’t think I’ve seen that since the late 80s early / 90s at train shows at Dieruff HS in Allentown.

Dad took me to the CNJ Bethlehem yard as a kid and I was hooked. The colorful early Conrail days must have been terrible for the guys working there, but I can recall lines of mothballed EL, LV, RDG, etc Alcos and EMDs at the roundhouse.

[NS4122]

It seemed like one of the most crowded shows that I can remember. Maybe that's because most people went today to avoid the bad weather tomorrow. The show was much better this year with new vendors such as Makin Tracks, Southeast Hobbies, and Whiterose Hobbies all coming for the first time. At one dealer I couldn't pass up an Atlas Multi-Max autorack for $45; an unbelievable bargain.

[JohnJ]

Jan 27, 2024 19:48:49 GMT -8 NS4122 said:

It seemed like one of the most crowded shows that I can remember. Maybe that's because most people went today to avoid the bad weather tomorrow. The show was much better this year with new vendors such as Makin Tracks, Southeast Hobbies, and Whiterose Hobbies all coming for the first time. At one dealer I couldn't pass up an Atlas Multi-Max autorack for $45; an unbelievable bargain.

We went Sunday and ran into a friend who is affiliated with one of the big club layouts at the show. He said Saturday was a show record with more than 15,000 attendees. We drove from Worcester Sunday morning and the road conditions were horrible on the Pike. We expected the show to be empty, but there were a lot of people there. While it would have been nice to have the place to ourselves, good attendance ensures a steady supply of vendors for next year.

[hudsonyard]

the huge crowds is one reason I stay away to be honest, wandering around a massive building surrounded by ten thousand other model railroaders sounds like existential hell to me.

[wagnersteve]

1/29/2074, starting 7:44, but I'll have to write this in several short bursts between doing other necessary things

I haven't been at the Big E show since COVID19 started here, but for future reference:

It's not one huge building but four sizable ones. I can't take the crowds for more than about 6 hours max. That means getting there earlier, preferably on the Saturday if the weather is decent, having mapped out exhibitors -- vendors and others -- I really want to see. I minimize eating and drinking at the show. I try to get off my feet every once in a while. There are places where you can do that. Pace yourself. Don't carry too much. Do take notes for future reference. I don't much like driving after dark, so I try to make sure that any of that is on very familiar roads. Et cetera, et cetera.

[lvrr325]

Jan 29, 2024 16:04:38 GMT -8 hudsonyard said:

the huge crowds is one reason I stay away to be honest, wandering around a massive building surrounded by ten thousand other model railroaders sounds like existential hell to me.

It's not as bad as say a concert or a nightclub.  People tend to be polite but walking around can be frustrating because many don't pay any attention to anyone else, walk in front of you, stop, talk to their friends in groups blocking aisles, and the noise never stops.  The noise is what gets to me.  It never used to bother me until one Hamburg (Buffalo) show by Sunday noonish I felt terrible - until I went outside and sat in the car a few minutes and my headache vanished, and I realized what the problem was.  Springfield is the same continuous din but dialed up to about 15, and I'm happy to leave by 1:00 or so.

I'd probably lose my mind trying to sell there, the only way would be to be in like the small building, fairly close to a door and with some help.  You'd never get a chance to get away from the table otherwise.  

Which actually reminds me, apparently they had a water leak in that building, they moved the tables around, one guy was telling me when they rearranged things they shorted him a couple tables and someone else got them.  He had a vintage train set box set out inside the booth trying to dry it out. 


I will say for the huge crowd it wasn't a big deal to get in and out of the bathrooms.  That's usually the gauge of whether or not they're at capacity. 


I would never buy food in there, the prices are jacked way up because they have you captive there.  I just chuck a couple bottles of water in my bag and if I need it I have it, plus there's more in the car.  There's plenty of places you can stop after leaving if you need a bite.  We usually just get out of town and stop for dinner around Albany somewhere.