Category Archives: TCA Meets

TCA Eastern Division York Train Meet – April 2024

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Today, I attended my third TCA Eastern Division York Train Meet (aka York). Do these shows hold much interest for a Proto48’er? More than I use to think. The image above shows one of the five halls. While there are very few 2 rail O Scale models on the tables, there are some. Here is a USH PRR I1 with a price of $450 on it.

Having come from the Chicago March Meet which had just over 300 tables of 2 rail O Scale and the Strasburg O Scale 2 Rail Meet with over 90 tables of 2 rail O Scale. This show is massive. They even have a shuttle bus for getting between the Halls.

The show had newly released Atlas-O models. The Atlas site had indicated that the non-powered units did not ship with last month’s powered unit shipping. But there was one of the new unpowered Reading F7’s on the tables. I will post more about these in a couple of weeks.

There were guys selling custom weathered cars at the show. This example of an Atlas-O Trainman 70 ton triple hopper wearing the as-built 1956 paint. This weathering is heavier than I prefer, YMMV.

There are a number of tables of vendors selling trucks and automobiles. These models don’t care how many or how far apart your rails are.

I saw an interesting pairing on a table a CNJ Trainmaster and a CNJ Heritage unit. Kind of a sharp contrast. I have to say that I saw examples of the later Trainmasters from Lionel and MTH which both looked very nice.

The 3 rail Trainmasters almost looks like a better starting point than a Sunset brass model. Both were nicely painted, just have to fix the pilots and convert them. Not sure I really want to add another project to the list for models out of my era.

This was an interesting car on a table. Way too modern for me, but it is amazing what they are producing in the 3 rail world.

This was my third time attending a York show. I had dismissed this show in the past. Now I look forward to it. I didn’t buy a lot, couple of freight cars, a couple of automobiles, and some tools. It was a great day not to be at work and see some friends in the halls.

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.

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.