Author Archives: George Losse

TCA Eastern Division York Train Meet – October 2023

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Yesterday, I attended my second TCA Eastern Division York Train Meet (aka York). I had always thought that as a Proto48’er that these shows held little to no interest for me. I can say, I was wrong. While there are very few 2 rail O Scale models on the tables, there are some. I came home with two “new to me” brass cars from both the Spring show and now the Fall show.

In addition there were some building manufactures there, tool suppliers and also people you haven’t seen in ages. One them was Robbie Kimmey, who I used to see over at Fran Pfiel’s house. It was really nice catching up after almost 20 years. Robbie is shown here with John Dunn.

The York show is big and there are many halls. Below was just one hall and I was standing about half way inside the hall.

Altoona Model Works was there displaying their model offerings. I always liked their Brewery complex model.

As I said there were 2 rail models in the show. Here is an image within the Trainz display. Nothing on the table for a Reading modeler, but still great to see nice 2 rail models being offered for sale at what I always thought was a 3 rail tinplate show.

After walking around the show it was nice to go out for a nice dinner at the local Hoss’s Steak and Sea House. Walking into the lobby you are quickly reminded that we are in York, PA, the home of the Harley Davidson assembly plant.

2023 Strasburg O Scale Show – October

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Today, the October Strasburg O Scale Show was held. Attendance on both sides of the tables seemed good. Some of the usual faces that were not there in August were there today. I was pleased to see a number of new faces in the room.

There were a number of fine models in the room. I had been looking for one of the Pacific Limited C&O/NKP 1932 ARA boxcar for a number of years. Since I found one last year, this was the third show I’ve been to this year with one on the table.

There wasn’t as much for a Reading modeler, and even less for a Proto48 modeler. But there were plenty of fine models available in the room.

Rich also held the show auction to benefit the Fire House again this year. They managed to raise close to $1200 for the Fire House by auctioning off four items.

It was a good show, I had the chance to talk with a number of folks from various parts of the country and also buy and sell some models. It was a fun day even though the rain made it an adventure to get stuff in and out of the show. Hard to believe we have to wait all Winter now for another Strasburg Show.

Are We Too Hard On Ourselves?

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This morning I was studying diagrams and photos to try to see if I could find a simpler way to construct one of the Reading signature covered hopper cars, the LOb. I was looking to see if I was missing an option of a way to build them.

I opened one of the scans of a Reading Company builder’s photo of the LOb. When I noticed how banged up the ribs were. The ribs were reclaimed for 18 year old 70 ton quad hopper from the HTl and HTn classes. So they were not new. But look at the dents in the ribs.

Then I noticed a couple of things that made me laugh a little.

First, check out the bottom of the closest rib, it’s not cut square to the side of the car.

Next, check out how the board in the tack board on the frame is larger than the hold downs on either side. Would we consider rebuilding those details if it came out looking like that? Most of us would.

Next, look at the class stenciled on the car, “LOb”. The “B” is slightly lower than the “LO”. Even the stenciled built date doesn’t exactly line up level. As O scalers, we do not have as many options for decals as the smaller scales do. We often have to letter a car from bits and pieces of decal sets for different cars. Splicing a class together is common. I know I would have kept fussing with this one to make it line up better.

So are we too hard on ourselves? Maybe a little?

2023 Strasburg O Scale Show – August

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On Saturday, the August Strasburg O Scale Show was held. Attendance on both sides of the tables seemed to be down a little. Some of the usual faces we see were not there, but there were a number of new faces in the room. There were even some younger people in the room.

After the show I had a conversation with Rich Yoder about attendance. Rich mentioned that attendance was actually up over the April show. He mentioned that even though a number of the regulars were not at the show, there were enough new attendees to actually increase the number of people through the door.

Rich Yoder had a some trucks on his table. The inventory is dwindling, if you need something from him don’t wait. He might already be sold out. He did have a few Proto48 trucks on the table but they are in very short supply.

I did get the chance to see and meet a new vendor at the show. Chris Coarse of Conowingo Models was there with his line of kits on display. It was a pleasure to meet him at the show and see a nice new line of models entering the O Scale market.

Bob Heil was there representing Sunset and golden gate Depot at the show. He had some B&O models that were made from older Mac Shop kits but they represent the B&O cars that Golden Gate is about to import.

The car on the top is a Golden Gate car from a previous run. Bob mentioned that these are about to go into production.

Chooch Ultra Scale II Line of Resin Kits Acquired by Hangman Creek Diorama Company

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The former Chooch Ultra Scale II building and freight car kits are returning to production.  Hangman Creek Diorama Company acquired the rights to these fantastic kits and the line of detail parts.  The new owners are Jess Dozier and Lisa Lund. 

The injection molded plastic parts from the old stock are on their website now. They say they will have the parts back into production sometime in August. 

The building kits and freight car car kits will be later in the year. The Facebook post states, “I expect to be in production and release kits progressively by Jan 2024!!!”

Hangman Creek Diorama Company
Facebook –  Website

This is great news!

Photos from Hangman Creek Diorama Company Facebook post.

WOW! Really? $1731

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I will admit to looking at what hits the auction site. I have picked up a few things there over the years. Ok, more than I want to admit to, but this auction this week really amazes me. A Golden Gate Depot PRR 10-6 Pullman Factory painted sold for $1731.00.

Someone REALLY WANTED this one. I hope they don’t change their modeling focus in a year or two and try to sell it for this price.

We have all watched auctions that the seller set too high a starting price for something and then it sits on the auction site for months while everyone waits for the seller to lower the price. We all also know folks that have no patience and go after some of that overpriced stuff just because they think they may never see another one and they have to have THAT one.

This one started at a reasonable price of $100. I know I watched it with the thought of turning it into something other than PRR if it stayed low enough. It didn’t.

To put this into context, the new B&O 10-6 Pullmans that Golden Gate Depot has on their website currently are priced at $349 each.

This was not an accident. There were 29 bids on this car. I don’t get it. It’s not a set of cars. It was ONE car!

I’m happy for the seller, we all know the background in the images. Here are some of the images of the car from the auction.

TCA Eastern Division York Train Meet – April 2023

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Today, I attended the TCA Eastern Division York Train Meet. So you might ask, what is a Proto48 modeler doing at a TCA Train Meet? Truth is, I was having fun.

The size of the show is beyond belief. One of the halls was bigger than most of the train shows I have attended, and there were 5 different halls. The biggest surprise of the day was how important the shuttle bus running between the halls actually was.

Now in reality, the amount of 2-rail models in the halls is probably closer to that of a small club show. And we won’t talk about the amount of Proto48 in the halls, none. The amount of 1/4 inch to the foot models was a different story.

There was a lot of early Lionel and Standard Gauge throughout the show. I didn’t experience any of those models growing up and they hold little interest to me, but they did to a lot of people attending.

Before the show, I wanted to go looking for building models and scenery materials for the layout. It turned out that I did learn more about some of the building models currently available that might work on the layout. And I did find some scale 2-rail scale models at very good prices.

There was some O Scale brass mixed throughout the show, but you mostly had to look very closely for it. What comes to mind was a few USH steam locomotives, some early Sunset steam and a pair of Custom Brass PRR MP54’s. There were a few brass freight cars throughout the show and one vendor had some PSC, Overland and a couple of Pacific Limited cars.

I’m trying now to have better focus and staying away from some of the nice modern prototype offerings. You can’t model everything. But there were a lot of ’70’s and ’80’s prototypes there at very good pricing just calling out to be converted to 2-rail or proto48.

I was very surprised by how much S Scale and American flyer I saw at the show. I dipped my toe into the S Scale waters about twenty years ago, but decided that wasn’t my path. It was difficult to resist some of the S scale models in the show. Even some that I have said to myself, if I were to find them, I’d purchase them.

I attended the show with John Dunn, he mentioned during the day that it was his 52 year of attended the show. It was my first time attending.

I can say the energy of the show was contagious. I see why he has attended the last 52 years. John was also great to attend the show with, as he kept explaining what I was seeing on some of the tables.

If I had gone to this show looking specifically for just 2-rail or Proto48 models, I might have been disappointed. I went with an open mind, looking for models and ideas for the layout. I found that many times over and had a great day. Now, I’m looking forward to the October Meet.

2023 Strasburg O Scale Show – April

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Today was the Strasburg O Scale Train Show. The Show was very well attended by both table holders and the walk-in attendees through the door. The traffic was steady and busy all through the morning. Which cut down on my ability to get through the hall once the doors opened to the public.

For the Reading modelers in the crowd, I did see a Gem 0-6-0 camelback model on Dave Richter’s tables. I also noticed a couple of the SGL G-3’s and an SGL add on two coach set in the room. Not sure if they found new homes or not. I will tell you a nicely painted Reading Car Works DS4-4-1000 managed to follow me home yesterday. I’ll be posting about that in the next few weeks.

As always it was great to see so many models available for sale. But it was also really nice to see and talk with so many people that we often only get to see in person at the shows. John Dunn was back at the show, now at a table.

They had a couple of clinics during the show. Kerry Kime once again gave her clinic was on making pine trees from heater filters. Kerry did a great job demonstrating haw she has made trees for their home layout using a wood dowel and cut up heater filters. She is also selling trees at her table during the show.

The other clinic was on the Blunami DCC sound decoders. I wasn’t able to get away from my table to attend that one.

After the show, we had a little adventure. We were going to a restaurant for lunch that was about 8 miles from the show. We had five cars headed out for lunch together. The guy leading the group had a different town in mind where the restaurant was. So instead of a short 10 minute drive to lunch it turned into a 45 minute drive. To make matters worse, the guy who knew where we were going managed to loose the four cars following him.

Lucky for us John Dunn remembered the town name where we were going and put that into his navigation. But it did give us a nice scenic drive on some roads without a lot of traffic.

We finally arrived at the restaurant after about a forty minute drive. Then shared in some good-hearted ribbing of the driver that lost us, we all sat down for a late lunch. It all worked out fine, lots of good stories were shared.

April Fools’ Day

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So, I drove 120 miles, one way, today to go to the 2023 Harrisburg All O Scale Meet…
Then I remembered it was April Fools’ Day.

All kidding aside, this is and was a small show. Even though the show was promoted as an “All O Scale Meet” featuring “O Scale 2 Rail – O Scale Traction- Proto48 – On3 On30 – On2 – On18” the dealers were split about 60-40 narrow gauge to standard gauge.

I didn’t see ANY Proto48 at the show.
But I did see some 3 rail and a bunch of tables with S Scale parts.

The O Scale 2 rail dealers were the same dealers I would have seen at Chicago two weeks ago (if I had gone this year) and at the Strasburg Show two weeks from now.

One dealer I had not seen before was Les Davis, who had some absolutely wonderful 3D resin printed figures. That was one of the highlights of the show for me. I did bring home a few of the figures.

Getting the chance to speak with Les at the show was great. It turns out these figures are scanned from real people, mostly his friends, and reduced down to O Scale size. It took a while for that thought to really sink-in with me. Later, I realized, that opens up the possibility of being scanned and an O Scale version of yourself being placed your railroad or in your favorite locomotive. Kind of a cool thought.

Continuing with the 3D printed thought, Dylan Lambert had a sample of the the B&A passenger car and lots of his PCC car drives at the show. So I guess the drives covered the part of the O Scale Traction in the promotions.

There were a couple of table of buildings for sale. But there wasn’t a lot of movement on these tables. Same thing with the one vendor with built up trees and tree building materials. While I thought his prices were very good for the high level of quality of his trees. He seem to have the same amount on his table when I was leaving the show as when I arrived.

After I left the show, I had to sneak over to Enola. I used to shot on the overlook bridge a lot back in the late ’80’s. They have since rebuilt the bridge with openings in the fence on the bridge. It was nice to be back there and catch a couple of trains coming into the yard. I always liked the overhead angles that this location provided. Now with the fixed positions to see through the fencing, the views are a little more restricted than I remember.

Late today I received a message from my traveling companion for the day, “the dealer table sales for the show were up 50% over last year.” Wow, now I’m really glad I did not go last year. I thought this was a small show this year.

So the big question of the day, how was the show? I did buy from three different dealers today. Two of which, I would have seen two weeks ago in Chicago, if I had gone. I think next year I’ll just make sure I go to Chicago and buy from them out there.

April Fools’ Day joke or O Scale Show?
They worked out to be about the same today.

Your mileage may vary.

Mother Seton Train Show

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I attended the Jersey Central Railroad Historical Society’s Train Show in Clark, NJ today. This show is billed as a railroadiana & model train show, or as I have referred to as a “paper show.” Lots of books, magazines, photos, slides, timetables, lanterns and memorabilia. This show was all that.

I was happy to see a number of O Scale modelers at the show that I normally see at our local O Scale shows. There were some models at the show, mostly in the smaller scales but there was one table with O Scale 2-rail models.

But that really wasn’t why I was there. I did bring home another Car Builders Cyclopedia today and a couple of new books. Some of the best purchases of the day were the photographs I picked up from Bob’s Photo. Some good reference for projects that should hit the workbench this year.