Amherst Train Show

[fishbelly]

Myself and a good friend left at 3 am Friday morning for our 13.5 hour trek north to Springfield. I stayed in CT by the airport. At Fredericksburg, VA we detoured off I95 North and headed west to avoid the mess of traffic in Washington DC, Baltimore, NJ and NY. That was a good thing because another friend and his group decided to go through all those placed and added an extra four hours onto their trip. We arrived about 4:30 pm settled in and had a great Italian dinner at a family owned (not corporate) restaurant. Fantastic!

Saturday morning was exciting of course. I already paid for entry and had my wristband so I would not have to wait in line. We walked right in and I started my journey. This show is truly a must at least once in your life. This is my second pilgrimage to it. The layouts were great. I especially like three of them that were in the Mallory building. Very nicely done. I met a couple people that recognized me from my Youtube videos. It was really nice chatting with them for a while. I had a good long conversation with my Friend Chris Palomerez from Intermountain. I had no idea he now owns Caboose Hobbies. I had wondered where he went off to after Athearn. I also enjoyed a lengthy conversation with Steven Preist from Class One about their GP40. This model sounds very promising. Matt from 3D Central was great to talk too. Nothing he would not tell you about his printing process. All the setups, resins and such. Really great guy and I really enjoyed sharing thought with him on the process and what he is doing. Caught up on old times with the folks from Des Plaines Hobbies. That was my go to store when I grew up and lived in Illinois. Ron's daughter runs the store now along with her husband Matt. It has been some time since Ron passed. Great man. Always good to me over the years I knew him. As mentioned in another post, I had a good conversation with the ScaleTrains folks. Again, the GP40 is really nice. Just wish they would offer it in undecorated form. I am VERY excited about Bowsers C415. I believe I was told that it will be available mid next year. The test shots of the shell by 3D Central was outstanding looking. WOW, what a cool model it is going to be. I think I also overheard that there is going to be a new Century series which leads me to believe it will be the C420, 424 and 425. Very cool if it is. Always a joy to talk to Dan from Tangent. Loads of fun and a great guy.

I finally met Chris from Home Shops. What a wonderful person. Very kind and exciting to talk to. I had a great conversation about the next possible Copper State Railway car. I am very excited about it and will get started on the artwork soon. 

Lots to see there. Shopping was fun. I went looking for some specific items. I could not find any of the books I wanted nor any of the Walther's PS 4427 CD Low Side Hoppers. I did find some things I was looking for and of course some things that I was not intending to buy.

- Four Atlas Kato RS11's.
- Two 3D Central D&H transfer cabooses.
- Five Cannon & Co. fan kits.
- Two Tangent undecorated 1971 built BN cabooses
- One Exactrail Big John hopper.
- Two 50 packs of Kadee short shank scale head couplers.
- Two Walther's Mainline corrugated gondolas.

Brian

[lvrr325]

There were no shortage of Atlas-Kato units for decent prices. I watched a D&H sell for $40 in the box I considered buying - I sold one the week before for $50 without the box. RSD12s were floating around too. And one table had two Kato GP35s out for $40 each.

We did not buy tickets far enough out to get bands mailed to us, and there's no advantage to buying ahead and exchanging for a band at the booth - you pay an extra buck but at 8:30 am there was hardly any line. In fact I felt like the crowd was on the light side even when it got super busy at noon-ish. It was certainly busy but not packed like past years.

My big stop was Tangent, I bought six cars there, four LV covered hoppers among them.


I made a couple of trips south some years ago and going north I did the same, cut west at Fredericksburg via US-17 and US-15. One of the trips I had to deliver a transmission in New Jersey so I ended up going down 95. I was lucky most of the traffic was northbound save the DC beltway was bumper to bumper. Never again. But going where I am it makes more sense to cut west there anyways.

My probably-should-have-bought was a vintage brass elevated or subway car of some sort. So old it had a vertical armature drive. It sold by noon or so. I hesitated because it was a tad higher than I wanted to spend on it, and with no box it was going to take a ton of research to figure out what exactly it was.

[JohnJ]

As I indicated in my other post, I want three of the upcoming Atlas U30Cs, so I took it easy at the show. My one purchase was a Rapido Northeastern caboose in the CNJ scheme. Good lesson for my son who was with me; I only saw a couple of vendors with this product. I held out to the bitter end, and wound up getting it for $11 less at Spring Creek than another vendor where I first spotted it. My son didn’t get anything; he’s more of a prototype enthusiast but enjoys the atmosphere of the show and seeing the layouts.

[NS4122]

I guess you weren't there on Saturday, they set an attendance record. The place was packed. I arrived just after 9:30 and there was a long line to get in the parking lot and a good size line at the ticket booths. Another posted mentioned that attendance was 15,000 for Saturday. Total for the weekend was 22, 657.

In years past it worked out well getting the tickets in advance and picking up the wrist band at the booth, but that wasn't the case this year. There should've been a dedicated window that was clearly marked. Everyone was on the same line and I heard other people that bought in advance grumbling that there was no advantage to it.

Also, they left the floor plan out of the program this year for some reason. That would've been helpful if they included it like past years.

Jan 30, 2024 13:17:09 GMT -8 lvrr325 said:

There were no shortage of Atlas-Kato units for decent prices. I watched a D&H sell for $40 in the box I considered buying - I sold one the week before for $50 without the box. RSD12s were floating around too. And one table had two Kato GP35s out for $40 each.

We did not buy tickets far enough out to get bands mailed to us, and there's no advantage to buying ahead and exchanging for a band at the booth - you pay an extra buck but at 8:30 am there was hardly any line. In fact I felt like the crowd was on the light side even when it got super busy at noon-ish. It was certainly busy but not packed like past years.

My big stop was Tangent, I bought six cars there, four LV covered hoppers among them.


I made a couple of trips south some years ago and going north I did the same, cut west at Fredericksburg via US-17 and US-15. One of the trips I had to deliver a transmission in New Jersey so I ended up going down 95. I was lucky most of the traffic was northbound save the DC beltway was bumper to bumper. Never again. But going where I am it makes more sense to cut west there anyways.

My probably-should-have-bought was a vintage brass elevated or subway car of some sort. So old it had a vertical armature drive. It sold by noon or so. I hesitated because it was a tad higher than I wanted to spend on it, and with no box it was going to take a ton of research to figure out what exactly it was.

[hudsonyard]

The prospect of bowser doing C420s has my ears up for sure, just as i've closed in on most of the LHR numbers atlas has done...

[lvrr325]

Jan 30, 2024 19:30:27 GMT -8 NS4122 said:

I guess you weren't there on Saturday, they set an attendance record. The place was packed. I arrived just after 9:30 and there was a long line to get in the parking lot and a good size line at the ticket booths. Another posted mentioned that attendance was 15,000 for Saturday. Total for the weekend was 22, 657.

In years past it worked out well getting the tickets in advance and picking up the wrist band at the booth, but that wasn't the case this year. There should've been a dedicated window that was clearly marked. Everyone was on the same line and I heard other people that bought in advance grumbling that there was no advantage to it.

Also, they left the floor plan out of the program this year for some reason. That would've been helpful if they included it like past years.

Was there Saturday from around 8:30 until 1.  Got there early enough we got to park behind the big slide.  

The main building was busy but the others never got that packed.  But when we left there was about a 75 person line for tickets.  No line coming in at that point as far as traffic though.  

I remember in past years barely being able to walk around particularly carrying a large bag.  

I saw someone selling the Rapido cabooses for $84, that's a decent deal. 

[JohnJ]

I paid $84 for my Rapido caboose at the Spring Creek setup.

[sd80mac]

A Bowser C424/C425 would be outstanding.

[cemr5396]

Jan 31, 2024 7:24:54 GMT -8 sd80mac said:

A Bowser C424/C425 would be outstanding.

Myself and a friend had a great chat with Lee last year at the Supertrain show in Calgary, Lee said that he is seriously considering doing them, but due to all the other things they have going right now it will be several years down the line.

[cpr4200]

Bowser quality C420/424/425's will be awesome. Too bad Atlas hasn't seen fit to retool their Classic Centuries. The 420's are nice, but the 424/425's leave something to be desired.