The Amherst Train Show should now be a 3 day weekend event!

[MONSTERRAILROAD]

It is less than two weeks away and Monster LEDs and myself are excited again this year! I always look forward to this show and I tell my children that it is "Daddy's Christmas Weekend". My son Adarius Understands that but my daughter Gabriela just says, 'Whatever Daddy'. Anyways It is just a very exciting weekend and the excitement is definitely compared to the way I felt as a child waiting for Christmas Eve and Christmas Day! As a model railroader I believe this is our Christmas! If you Attend the NMRA show or the Timonium Show, well that is Christmas for you too! Amherst is the largest show in the country and by far the most elite in my opinion. The one show anyone would want to attend out of all shows for the year is Amherst Railway train show in West Springfield, MA. at the Big E. The show has gotten to be so big and have so many vendors that it is very hard to see everything in the two short days. I truly believe that we now need to add another day to the weekend show and Perhaps that day could be Friday. Friday show hours could be 12pm to 9pm. If it became a 3 day event I would surely attend all three days and think that many other people would too. What do you think? Is it time for them to add the additional day since they added the additional large (Mallory) building a few years ago? The show has added many new vendors this year and every year. The Mallory building was only half filled up when they first opened that building now it is a full booming building full of vendors and club layouts! We need more time to make it through those four buildings and I think that I need a Huvaround or a scooter so I will not kill my legs for the long weekend walk. Anyways, lets here what you think.

[JohnJ]

That'll be a tough competition for us folks near Hartford. The Connecticut Wedding & Bridal Expo takes place the same weekend at the Connecticut Convention Center. Decisions, decisions.

[lvrr325]

I would be so grumpy and nasty after three days of dealing with crowds I'd have to hibernate for a week. Six hours or so on Saturday is enough.

I miss the vendor with all the old time goodies.

[riogrande]

I'm too far away now so it is moot for me. But it was fun when I did go before I moved out of range. The weather was always Siberian bitter so you usually had to have the Constitution of a Eskimo, at least the years I went. Good riddance to the northeast! Must it has gotten bigger in the last 9 years as I was able to see everything I needed to in the three buildings on the one day I was there each trip.

[rails4dmv]

I'm down for 3 days. Move it to President's Day weekend if possible. The show falls so close to X-mas, I have to juggle attending or paying down the X-mas credit card bills.

Moving it to President's Day weekend would not only allow a third day (Monday), it would allow for any days that might get knocked out due to bad weather.

Tax refunds start to come in around that time also, which could possibly mean more spending money for the show.

Only thing that would suffer, the attendance numbers. Guys having more spending money, means more wives getting left home.....lol

[lvrr325]

The problem with moving shows is you screw up dealers because it's impossible to not have some conflict. In this case Presidents Day weekend puts you against multiple other shows. Although most are too far away to directly conflict, it would cause issue for some vendors who also go to the WNYRHS show in Hamburg, and some of the Greenberg traveling vendors (I see Greenberg leaves Springfield weekend open in their schedule so I presume some of their guys must do this show).

At that point you sit down and crunch the numbers - you're going to sell more at Springfield, sure, but which one do you actually make a higher profit with? Which will vary with the size and speed of your setup and the distance you need to travel to go to the show. In my case, I've never even tried to set up at Springfield, due to the high buy-in cost, the four hour drive, and the inane regulations (right down to how flammable your table cover is) in the People's Republic of Massachusetts.  Oh, and the long, long waiting list.  To try to predict what I might sell there, while there's 4 to 5 times the people of the largest shows I do now,  there's also five times the dealers to compete with, makes me think the odds are good I'd sell about the same as that big show closer to home, but with 3 or 4 times the cost tied up to get there. 


FWIW, I do a three day event in the summer, part of a large car show, and Sundays are just dead; one year I didn't even sell $20 of stuff, usually I do a third maybe of what I sold each of the other two days. Some people pack up and don't even try to stay for it. I only have a 15 minute drive home so I stay later. I can't imagine if I had a four hour drive home, having to wait until 3:00 or later to pack up for a train show, sitting there and probably selling nothing after about 1:00. Although at least the train show stuff packs faster and easier.

[MONSTERRAILROAD]

I am simply astounded that most people think that a 3 day train show is not a good idea. As a visitor I think everyone would love the third day. A lot of people compalin about going on Saturday because it is too packed and how they hate crowds, so they would be happy to attend on the third day whether it is on a Monday Holiday or Sunday after adding Friday for the third day. As a vendor I do understand the dilemma for those poor sellers who are awfully high priced and would not see one customer on the third day. But what they always fail to tell you is that they see very few buyers on the busiest day too because they are simply over priced not because no one is there. That is their own fault. If you sell at a train show where there is a ton of competition at full MSRP or selling junk models at ridiculous prices and expect to be cleaned out in at the end of the two or three days then you are delusional and need to make a business adjustment to meet competition. Those competitively priced sellers that are not selling junk will always do well each day.

[rapidobill]

My personal thought is that two days is enough - It's a tough show to work, I'm not sure that I'd survive three days!

Seriously though, I suspect that the overall attendance wouldn't be any larger, just split over more days. Given that there are no doubt considerable costs to renting and staffing the venue I'm not sure that adding a day would be prudent.

What I WOULD love to see is a time period set aside (maybe Friday afternon) for dealers only to come talk to manufacturers and suppliers. It's nearly impossible to get any time away during the show itself.

Bill

[tangentsm]

We at Tangent Scale Models LOVE to attend large shows since they provide a place for our small team to mingle with our customers and potential customers. We can discuss projects, count rivets together, and generally shoot the breeze and enjoy the renaissance of great equipment modeling in HO scale.

The problem is that even 2 day shows have a lighter day. This is usually caused by inclement weather in the region, or a regional sports event such as a football game. As a shower/vendor (or both), a significant chunk of inbound visits or dollars typically come on one of the two days, which is almost always the first day.

That being said, in my opinion, making Springfield a 3 day show is not a good idea - no offense Al. We too share your excitement for the Springfield event. It is why we go! But please understand from experience that all 3 day shows are a struggle as a vendor, because there is always a "dead day" which is not fair to the vendors. The National Train Show is a good example of that, where the Sunday is almost always a completely dead day after a robust Friday and Saturday. That costs every company both money and time, since we incur an extra day of expenses (hotel, cars, food, etc). If there is no demand, there shouldn't be a third day. Springfield is no different than the NMRA National, Trainfest, and other large shows in terms of attendance (sorry, but the numbers state this cleanly), and by that math it should stay at 2 days.

Bill, Trainfest tried the dealer-only option on Friday afternoons and dropped it reportedly because Friday is a move-in day and people could not be set up in time, or after setting up wanted to take a break, not be required to start working at the show immediately.

Those are my thoughts.

David Lehlbach
Tangent Scale Models

[stevewagner]

The weather at the Amherst Railway Society's Big Railroad Hobby Show at the Eastern States Exposition grounds (the Big E) in West Springfield, Mass. isn't always "Siberian bitter". I'm writing on January 18; the latest forecast for Saturday the 27th is partly cloudy with a high of 45 Fahrenheit and a low of 35; Sunday the 28th is supposed to have a 60% chance of showers with a high of 43 and a low of 26. Unless the forecasts change drastically, I expect to be at the show on Saturday, probably for about six hours. I've attended one day of the show for many years.

I'm not very fond of being in crowds, and six hours at the show is more or less my limit. The show feels much less crowded than it did a few years ago, before the local authorities insisted that the aisles be made wider and the show expanded from three buildings to four. There are a few places where you can sit down to take a break, too. One good one is in the area with special attractions for young children in the Mallory Building.

I highly recommend that modelers print out the list of vendors and displayers and the map of the buildings and mark them before going to the show to make sure they get to visit "must see" exhibitors. I try to get any high-priority shopping (very limited) done early and then relax, gathering news, enjoying the layouts and other displays, chatting with friends, watching kids having fun, etc.

[lvrr325]

Jan 17, 2018 20:16:18 GMT -8 MONSTERRAILROAD said:

 . But what they always fail to tell you is that they see very few buyers on the busiest day too because they are simply over priced not because no one is there.   

That's just flat out wrong. I can pull out my books for not only train shows but car show swap meets going back to 2010 and show you that every single show save two or three (out of eight two or more day shows a year)  that you sell more, usually much more, on the busy day. 

The shows that were exceptions, primarily poor Saturday weather was the cause.  One case, I happened to have some collector Tyco and a collector came along who wanted it.   


With a three day show, people come in for Friday and Saturday and use Sunday to go home so they can go to work on Monday morning.   The ones that stay have been there three days and already bought what they're going to buy.  The only new blood is the usual Sunday tire kickers, people who come for something to do but aren't actually into the hobby to buy anything.  

I should add I make an effort to make sure my prices are competitive, in a few cases purposely undercutting competitors.  Didn't matter, that stuff sold on eBay, not at the show.  


 I actually prefer the busier single day shows.  Get in, get out, no extra costs, everyone who's buying has to do it then and there, and usually it's busy enough to keep me at the table and not bored and falling asleep and consequently walking around and buying things. 


 

[riogrande]

David's comments make a lot of sense from a vendors standpoint so it is logical to keep the shows at a "happy medium", which seems to be where things are at now.

Steve. Hah hah. I guess I was traumatized and had bad luck. The three times I drove out to Springfield to the show was very cold. One trip in particular, I think it was in 2007 or 2008, I was driving my new 2006 Toyota RAV4 out on hwy 90 from Syracuse - through Albany NY and to Springfield. That whole bloody trip my windshield kept icing up - I had the defroster going full tilt - didn't matter. Was so bad I simply couldn't see forward so I had to pull over and scrape it off any number of times. It was nuts. I made it to a parking lot full of snow and like a snow man made it into the buildings. Naturally now that I am way to far away to make it economical to go, the weather is moderate. Go figure. I have noticed it tends to be very wintery cold more often than not for that show. It's just the nature of the beast.

When I did go, I got up early and drove the 3.5 hours there so I could arrive around 10 or 10:30 and would stay until closing and then drive home. It made for a long day. Crowds were usually pretty thick. I did enjoy seeing and meeting with the vendors from many companies - something I rarely, if ever, get to do anymore since I moved to the national capitol region (metro Washington DC area), which seems to a relative model train desert compared to Springfield. I've only met to major vendors outside of Springfield and it's been a long time (one was Steve Stewart of Stewart Hobbies who came to the big Syracuse NY State Fairgrounds show, and the other was John Engstrom of Athearn who actually came to the Chantilly Greenberg show with his PC&F and channel side flat car test shots).

Anyway, wish I could go to Springfield but just too far away now and not economically feasible for me to do for the foreseeable future.

[stevewagner]

Jim, I don't deny that the weather the weekend of the West Springfield show is often very cold and sometimes snowy. And I know how long and cold a drive between Massachusetts and central or western New York can be. For several years my wife and I drive from Maynard, Mass. to my brother Fred's house near Rochester, NY, at Christmas time. She's not up for that any more, for health reasons. I had enjoyed the density of railroad traffic near Fred's place -- much higher than in most of New England. Another time I drove overnight through snow, perhaps just to Ithaca to pick up our older son; I'm sure I proceeded on to Buffalo, where he was visiting friends and it was even colder and snowier. I'm pretty sure I drove back alone, in the daytime. While on that expedition I wrote new words to the tune of "O Sole Mio" including, at a point where the singer slows down, "You're in Manhattan, I've passed Cohoes . . ." In New York that city's name is pronounced coHOES. It's actually a little north of the New York Thruway, which I rhymed near the beginning of the lyric with "I will sing a new way."

Actually, some of the worst conditions I've encountered at the West Springfield show were one time when it was particularly warm and the parking areas that weren't paved or graveled turned to mud!

By the way, the timing of the West Springfield show is far from accidental. It's always the weekend after the NFC and AFC title games, which is always the weekend before the Super Bowl. Scheduling a show coinciding with those games would depress attendance, particularly by men.

[riogrande]

Steve. Don't mind me. LOL. Having grown up in California, cold weather makes me grumpy. My first wife had a rule after my first winter in Rottenchester NY. I could only complain about the cold once a week. I was in Rottenchester (my sisters had a different funny name) for 2 years working as a field geologist and in the winter wore 2 pair of long johns with jeans and insulated overalls and a balaclava! After grad school I returned to Syracuse for another 14 or so. My job was as a field geologist so I just had to suck it up and be out in all kinds of weather all over the place - east to Amherst MA, and Albany, up north to a dam site near Saratoga, over to Buffalo and Cheektowaga (some good train watching over there), Hamburg - It did toughen me up and I can take the cold better now after that long season. My last 4 years were tromping all over south western NY, north western PA and northern WV scouting out old oil wells in the woods and supervising oil well plugging contractors. So you could say I was baptized properly! But I was up to Owego a few weeks ago west of Binghamton to visit my daughter and OH MY, it was bloody cold, down in the single digits - 6 or so. Yeah... I'm glad to be south of the worst of it now in Virginia!

[stevewagner]

Jim, so you're a geologist! Do you know Gardiner Cross? He's a geologist in NY State and also runs a small business with Cripplebush in its name, producing geologically correct "rubber rocks" for use on model railroads. He's a regular vendor at West Springfield. He was also one of the co-authors of Morning Sun Books' D&H Color Guide and is an active member of the Bridge Line Historical Society (Delaware & Hudson fans). At one BLHS meeting a few years ago he gave a slide show of things he'd seen in mainland China, including some very unsafe mining practices. My younger cousin John Wagner taught geology at Clemson for many years.

Owego! Not to be confused with some other New York State locations such as Oswego (even snowier than Rochester, Syracuse and Buffalo -- a meteorologists' organization once had a convention there, and the weathermen got snowed in! -- it's on the east end of Lake Ontario and just west of Tug Hill, one of the wildest and snowiest areas in the state), Otego (northeast of Binghamton, rendered as "Ortega" in the first printing of a recent book on the D&H) and Otsego (the original name of the lake that James Fenimore Cooper called "Glimmerglass").

A long distance truck driver, originally from West Virginia, lived in Owego but came once or twice a year to a former railroad hobby shop in suburban Boston where I used to work part time. What was left of a former Lehigh Valley branch north from Owego is, or at least was, operated by a shortline called Owego & Harford (not with a "t") that had a former Canadian diesel-electric switcher named Bullwinkle (because its spark arrestors resembled antlers) and another loco named Rocky. For a while, they ran excursion trains. The truck driver told me a true story about that line. One time a group chartered a train. As soon as it left the station, its members took off all their clothes -- they were a nudist group. People living near the track spotted them and complained to authorities. I can guarantee you the railroad never chartered a train to that bunch again.

[Great-Northern-Willmar Div]

Three day shows are rough on the vendors, from both a financial and energy draining issue. These shows are tiring. First you will end up setting up on Thursday or the crack of night on Friday morning. Since, most people that spend money at these shows work, many will more than likely not be there for Friday. Some would but how many? Next as with most shows the moment the doors open is when the good deals are swallowed up. This is why on a two day show, Sunday can be a slow day, because if you weren't there for the open on Saturday, the really good deals and rare stuff maybe all sold. 

I've worked train shows with my friend, when he was still in the retail business and we were spent after one day.....I can't begin to imagine three days. Plus, if you are not local and stay overnight, you now have two, three of four days in a hotel. Even if you stay at a less expensive place like Motel 6(We'll leave the light on) its a couple of hundred at least in just lodging, plus food and travel. Vendors are in the business of hopefully making money at these shows, not hemorrhaging money. 

[riogrande]

Steve. I went to University as a geology major and hold both a bachelors and masters (BS & MS) in geology. I did work as a geologist for a number of years but as always you get promoted into your incompetence. I never was trained in business or management so that's why ultimately I left the field and change to IT. I guess geology should be a small world but I never heard of Gardiner Cross. I worked mostly for Environmental Consulting firms when in NY - H & A of New York in Rochester and O'Brien & Gere Engineers in Syracuse. We worked with NY DEC people who were loads of fun. One even left state employment and joined H&A - Vince Dick.

I also did soil vapor surveys with a "random number generator" as one guy called the portable Gas Chromatograph. While in college at Indiana University, one of my Professors (clay mineralogy) had traveled to many exotic locations as a consultant and had some interesting stories to tell with his slide show.

A tie in to my train hobby are the Volclay box cars which carried bentonite from the upper north west. The test wells I used to install used bentonite to seal the well off from surface water as it would expand and seal the well. The drillers would mix bentonite powder with their cement to help it seal and expand rather than contract.

Yeah, I know both Oswego (nuclear power plant and Suny college) and Owego - small town with Lockheed Martin DOD contractor. An old buddy in Syracuse was a career school teacher and commuted up to Oswego where he taught. He retired early in he mid 50's luck sod. I guess NY has a nice pay retirement package. My daughter works for LM in Owego now that she is finished with college and with that financial burden lifted I can move to a bigger basement = trains. =P

I know about the weather all too well having lived in NY for 16-17 years between Rochester and Syracuse and all over the map for work. Jogging my memory with the Tug Hill plateau. Ex had "camp" (cottage) up by Polaski/Sandy Creek on Lake Ontario - really nice in the summer up there.

I do remember working an environmental job on a site south of Syracuse and being told that the RR through there was part of the old Lehigh Valley mainline. I think I'll have to get me one of those Tangent LV white box cars just for the coolness factor - after all the D&RGW had rail cars from all over!

[valenciajim]

Since I live in California, I doubt that I would ever attend the Anherst event. Having said that, I never attend a train show (other than an NMRA convention) for more than a few hours. I would never go for a second, let alone a third day. I usually try to attend as early as possible the first day. After I have seen everything I want to see, I leave.

[lvrr325]

You know, that is another thing, you end up on your feet almost all day on typically a concrete floor and it's rough on your body. I'm not the only one who's said so, either. I usually need an Aleve or two to get through it, my ankles, knees and hips all ache. Summer shows I set up a booth and sit in a chair most of the day, plus they're usually on grass, so it's not so bad.

I've had issues too with the driving, the seat time, if the seat doesn't support my back right, one van I actually swapped out seats with the previous one after I about threw my back doing a show.


FWIW, closest the LV came to Syracuse was Cortland or Auburn.

[Gary P]

After reading all these posts on 2 day vs 3 day events, I'd have to agree that 3 days is a long stretch without much additional gain for the seller. As a consumer, having 3 days to choose from is nice, but I can certainly understand the need to limit it for the sellers sake.

To Jim and Steve - SMALL WORLD! I'm in Endicott, halfway between Binghamton and Owego. I drag race at a small 1/8 mile strip just outside Owego and another track south of Rochester, and go performance powerboating up north near the Buffalo/North Tonawanda area (Niagara River and Lake Erie). Also, we had folks from O'Brien & Gere onsite here at my place of employment for many years, doing groundwater remediation at the old IBM Endicott plant. Small world indeed!

[riogrande]

Jan 18, 2018 22:05:16 GMT -8 lvrr325 said:

FWIW, closest the LV came to Syracuse was Cortland or Auburn.

I worked in the field a lot as a geologist and the line I'm thinking was probably somewhere between Geneva and Buffalo and south of Rochester.

[riogrande]

Gary, It's been nearly 20 years since I worked for OBG, but I do recall they had environmental work in Endicott. They had a satellite office in Vestal which I visited once. I think they also did work at Smith Corona back in the day. The lion share of the environmental work was done between the late 1980's and the late 1990's and it dropped off sharply after that. The division I was in was cut in half around 1997 or so when the work dried up or got very dog eat dog with everyone bidding low to get jobs and can't keep doing that for long. I did some work out at an old Black and Decker Plant in Brockport NY near the canal - lots of boaters and kyackers going by. My daughter now works at Lockheed Martin in Owego - just finished her BS in Biomedical Engineering but it's a pretty transferable type of degree.