Main selling room, with air-conditioning.

John Dunn and Rich Yoder held another fine O scale train show in Strasburg, PA today. The weather was great for a Lancaster County Summer day. The humidity was not as high as it often gets in August and the temperatures were in the mid 80’s. The show was very well attended, someone mentioned they thought it was one of the best attended Strasburg shows. It was nice to see and talk with so many friends again.

The selling seemed to be brisk during the whole day. Unlike some shows were it falls off in the middle of the morning. My friend whose table I placed some stuff on seemed to do well. I moved some used parts and O scale trucks.

EY Model of a ATSF SK-2 stock car

Rich Yoder had his recent run of ATSF BX-3 and BX-6 on the table and a couple of the Sk-2 stock cars. They looked nice. He did have information on the table about a possible run of Bethlehem Steel Gondolas.

Joe Foehrkolb from Baldwin Forge and Machine was there and he had some tire blanks for my N1 conversion. Hopefully that will get that project moving forward again.

They set up one isle in the fire hall with the first three tables being Jim Hawk,  Mac McEwan and Carl Jackson in a row, sort-of a Proto48 corner. It was nice to see those guys again at the show.

Jack Hill was at the show walking around. I spoke to him for a short time. He has continued to work on his railroad, but has not posted much on his blog recently about what he’s done.

Part of the Fire Hall selling area.

On Saturday, I attended this Spring’s Strasburg O Scale show.

John Dunn and Rich Yoder did a fine job of putting on this show. The attendance was crowded enough to make you think the isles were smaller this year. I was glad to see it. Plenty of new and second hand O scale models were on the tables.

Carl Jackson made the trip from Indianapolis, IN and Norm Pullen from Norm’s O Scale Trains made it down from Maine. Nice to see these vendors making the trip to Strasburg.

There were some new products at the show. Tom Thorpe was showing more examples of the turnouts he is promoting. They looked very nice. I was told of a couple of pilot models being in the room, but I was running my mouth too much to get to see them or get any images.

Rich Yoder did have his long awaited PRR 2D-F8 trucks at his table. The first run of these are sold out. I will have a post on them in the next couple of days.

I attended the Fall Strasburg Show today. I have to say that was a good show today for me. I got the chance to catch up with a lot of folks today and I came home with a lot of stuff. I hope everybody else there also had a good show.

There were lots on new things to see and learn about today. RCS America was at the show demonstrating their new Raillinx System. I was impressed with their system and the way it was installed on their sample models. Dead Rail is getting closer to being a reality.

I also got to look at the new Weaver Milwaulkee Boxcar. Bob Hiel had a pilot model from Weaver on his table today. Below are images of the car:

One thing I always enjoy about going to a Strasburg Show, is just being in the Amish country. Even their parking lot are fun to look at.

Eastbound train going through Lebanon, PA

I attended the Strasburg show today. Even though it was only three weeks from the National, it appeared to be well attended. I saw a number of vendors that were not at the National. So we were not looking at the same materials on the tables that didn’t sell at the National as some had feared.

There was the typical stuff on the tables, some dealers but more guys selling off some of their extra stuff, some at bargin prices and some high prices. I did pick up a few kits and even found a box of proto48 wheelsets, but nothing big. The highlight of the day for me was Bob Jones brought me a set of pilot castings from his T-1 kit. They are a two part casting for the pilot. There are some differences but they are very close to the K-1 pilots.

Joe G. was showing off a couple of new things at his table. He had an example of the new turnouts the he has recently posted about on his site. There was a rather large crowd around the times I passed by.  That and being they are gauged for O scale and not proto48, I didn’t get a good look at the new products.

For the first time in a while, I was not selling off some of my surplus models at the show. It felt good to be just a modeler in the crowd. I got to see and talk with a bunch of other modelers today instead of having my conversations interupted by other’s questions about stuff on the table.

Another nice part about not being behind a table, I didn’t have to stay at the show until the end. I got in walked around for about an hour and then my wife and I had the day to wonder through the countryside.

We started our wondering with a late breakfast at Jennie’s Diner out on RT30.  I have been stopping there after the shows for a couple of year’s now. It’s a Silk City Diner built in Paterson, NJ in 1959. Love it’s look and the food is not bad either.

Then we headed up through Cornwall, PA to Lebanon, PA. I wanted to see what was left in Lebanon since studing photos from the ’50’s. The Station is there but not much else. Not one siding downtown anymore.

We worked our way east on the Reading Lebanon Valley Branch. Besides exploring Lebanon, we wondered through Prescott, Myerstown and Richland. I even got to see a couple of Norfolk Southern movements on the line.

Jennie’s Diner on Route 30

Station area Lebanon, PA

Myerstown, PA

Richland, PA

Another Strasburg O Scale show is in the rear history books. This was a very nice show. It was their largest show so far,  they added another row of tables in the firehouse and that was in spite of the fact that one of the bigger dealers had another commitment and could not attend the show. Don’t know about the attendance but it was solid most of the day and people were in a buying mood.

For me it turned out to be another milestone show. The last of over 800 feet of O scale flex track moved off my table at the show. Last year when I made the choice to move back to Proto48, I wondered how long that might take to move all that O scale flex track. Turned out to be just about a year.

Ben Brown was at the show thinning his collection down as he prepares to build a new Proto48 layout. Ben had some beautifully built cars and structures on his table that as he put it “were priced to move.” My thought was that he was selling them at a quarter of their value. In some cases they were they were beautifully built kits with full underbody detail for less then what other dealers in the show were asking for the basic kits.

Ben like many O scale modelers who have finished O scale layouts, had said that if they started over again that he would build their new layout in proto48, but he is the only one that I have known, that has actually done it. He has started a new layout in a new location and is modeling in Proto48.

Most of the usual suspects were at the show, and it was good to see them again. I do have to say that there were some new faces in the crowd.  The HO modeler that was asking about O scale at the recent RPM meet was at the show buying O scale models.

I left the camera in the car when I first arrived, I thought I’d have some slow time to go back out and get it. I was wrong, so I don’t have any photos of the show to share.

This past Saturday there was a Strasburg O Scale show.  It turned out to be a nice show, well attended, with a lot of stuff moving off the tables. I know I came home with a lot less stuff then I started the day with.

I was very happy to start the sale of my O scale track at the show. I was surprised that my Old Atlas Black-tie flex track sold before the new Atlas flex track and even the Micro Engineering flex track. I did sell some of the Micro Engineering code 125 at the table. 

I also sold off the second tender to the Sunset Y-3’s I bought last year. So now there is no turning back, the two Y-3’s have to become Reading N1’s.

Some of the prices on the models on some tables were high at the show and some were down right steals. Rich Yoder had some PRR locomtives on a side table from his imports and he had some give-away pricing on them. One of them was close to half of what I sold an Sunset PRR H10 for at the National.  There were also a number of good buys at the White Elephant table.