I will identify myself as David Russell…aka Chicken Legs.
Sorry-
I won’t be meeting any of you Saturday — big plumbing problem with a shower valve leak in bathroom wall.
I hope there will be another chance.
Wendell
The Pizza Layout Meet Location worked out great! I met with Vic, Greg, Doug and a new large scaler from Lancaster… Sorry that I have forgotten your name.
Greg, we need to discuss DCC a bit more, I did go on your website, and of course always informative.
Was planning to purchase a bunch of switches from Gold Coast, but he was selling only Piko switches.
Ended up with a Piko Misson, Upland Trains building (buy one every year), 1 LGB 18050 switch, a powered tender for the Patron Transportation Authority and the wife bought a LGB Euro trolley and trailer painted and lettered for PE!
Ton’s of modular layouts, sellers seem to be dropping like flies.
John
What manufacturers were at the show?
My guess: USA, Accucraft, PIKO, Bachmann, LGB, MTH, were the options.
Any or all with a booth or display?
I hope Marklin is making an effort to keep LGB alive. This brand name was the one that brought people into the hobby.
Wendell
I attended on Saturday. Of the majors, I saw Accucraft, Bachmann, Piko and USA. Large booths for Brige Masters and Gold Coast Station. I also remember ELM. Lots of turnover among the smaller players and structure/building vendors. As usual, it had the feel of a swap meet. Lots of stuff and some bargains if you know what to look for. The modular layouts were there in all gauges and a lot of fun to view. Del Oro had their usual massive display. I hope the show stabilizes and can show a profit for the promoters and exhibitors. I appreciate being able to see so many items in one location. As a code 332 guy. I really like the track and switch offerings from Piko. They had a nice display in conjunction with Gold Coast Station.
I was pretty busy most of the time, there are 2 members of our Z scale group who never seem to get to run trains at the shows, me (Mr. Electronics and Mr. Computer) and my buddy Don, who can make any loco run like a swiss watch and can put 1:220 scale ditch lights in any loco.
Had a nice talk with the Piko guys, and got a good calibration of where they are at. First all the complaining about wanting to buy one without a decoder, well, forget it. Their sales of decoder-equipped locos outstrips the non equipped ones by about 6 to 1. Don’t forget the pull through sales of their DCC system (oem’d by Massoth).
These guys have found a comfortable niche in terms of price / features. I did try to get some real numbers of the additional cost of the DCC system, and he tried the $200 thing, because they sell the decoder separately for $200. If you can buy the loco for $470 (his number) then maybe $200 is it, but I don’t believe it. In any case, it’s going to continue.
Nice long talk with Charlie Ro, about his relationship with Sanda Kan / Kader, and why he was able to survive and work with them and Aristo could not. He was very politically correct, as always, but he said about his relationship with Kader and getting a higher quality (fewer defects) was maybe that Kader liked them. The bottom line, is that USAT clearly worked better with Sanda Kan / Kader than Aristo and the lower defect rate is proof.
Pressed him on a Prestige Series 4-8-4 Northern, there is something there it seems… he looked a little startled at first. Told him it would be a great loco.
Accucraft is getting closer on the GP-60 and they are already talking about the next loco in 1:29 after the GP-60 will be a SD-9. Sounds great, went over some of the mechanical issues and recommendations for the drive train, I keep making sure they know that 1:29 people will run the locos, not make them shelf queens or pull 4 car trains.
Eaglewings was there, lots of stuff on sale, but you can see that business is not as good as it way. I like Dan a lot, but even powder coated steel is no good in coastal California, need aluminum or stainless or pvc.
Al Kramer was there… I guess he no longer owns the San Val Trains “name”, got 4 ultimate series reefers for $275, unbelievable deal. He also had the 0-6-0 docksider for $299.
Silver State Trains (Mark) had the most floor space, dwarfing the other vendors. He had cars from a large estate sale, the private collection from the Train Mountain guy who passed away 6 years ago… all the cars, mostly aristo, were not run, but had metal wheels added, and the wheels are apparently Gary Raymond, very nice, blackened wheels. If you need any Aristo stuff, gons, box, hoppers, evans, give him a call, I inspected several cars, and they are all perfect shape, looks like only out of the box to swap in the metal wheels.
Well, I had fun, tiring and it was hot on setup day (they turn off the AC) not so bad Sunday afternoon.
Regards, Greg
Being a one man dog and pony show means I dont get to walk around much during the shows, what I got to see was either before the show opened or during the brief periods of relief thanks to Sandra and Bob Baxter who graciously offered to man my layout so I could get a bit to eat.
I was very aggravated to see Piko just HAD to bring along their new Camelback, damn them! Now I’m going to be alot poorer before this year is out.
Accu had a nice display, I have to admit that IHMO their 7/8ths Fairymead is by far THE prettiest locomotive model I have seen in a long while. They are now offering it also in basic black.
LGB/Marklin was NOT there. To be honest I dont even know if they are even still represented in this country anymore. Gold Coast is now really pushing hard with Piko, which honestly has been making great strides to fill the gap left since LGB’s apparent disappearing act. No MTH either.
Bachmann had a nice setup, even had the Lil Haulers front and center, hopefully that’s a sign they intent to persevere with them
USA also had a nice booth, complete with Big Boy and a couple autoracks, those babies are BIG.
I was told that Bridgemasters sold alot of stuff Saturday, I hope that’s a good sign that the show did well. I know everything I bought was from there, several ‘Just Plain Folk’ figurines that I was in need of ( I ran out of engineer figures so one of my locomotives was manned by a scale model of the B9 robot from Lost In Space) and I also bought off the ‘get it out of here’ discount pile what had to be the most HIDIOUS model locomotive ever produced, a used Aristocraft 0-4-0 “teddy bear express” complete in neon vomit orange and brown paint scheme, but its an OLD 0-4-0 with the good drivetrain that didn’t go to pieces like the last boatload of switchers did. I can easily repaint over the vomit color scheme. And it had a broken off fuel bunker to boot, easily fixable for me. So $25 gets me another good switcher for the Harbor Layout, I’m going to store the broken switcher I have along with the fix it parts for eventual repair sometime later this year.
Otherwise I had a crush of people Saturday from about 11 to 3 and Sunday while not as busy, still had alot of families turn out, for me I got people showing up right up to the closing time of 4, so I hope it was a good show. Kinda mixed about my Siberia corner location, on the plus side I was right next to the Del Oro, and their kids ‘you run it’ layout which gave me alot of spillover but I was way off in a corner, and I suspect not everyone walked all the around the exhibition floor. We’ll see, Angela with the Convention Center said she would try to put me more in the middle next year, I hope so.
Heres a video I made of my layout at the show, (yes it is shameless self promotion)
Nice to meet new folks, and put some faces to some familiar names.
The pizza layout worked OK as a meeting spot, but I think we might have been a tad too loud for the poor lady holding a clinic next to us…oops !
Once more a BIG Thanks to Sandra and Bob Baxter for their help during the show
Glad to hear everyone had a good time. Vic thanks for the video of the Pizza, looks good as always. Someone on the facebook G Scale trains posted a video of your Pizza (too bad they didnt upload it to youtube)
The Pizza Layout is always a hit. Vic does need to add a few lights here and there.
That’s the first show i’ve attended. I didn’t see any live steam parts , and no one running any live steam locos. Is that usually the way it is?
Marty at one time back in the all G show days there was a live steam track set up outside. But issues with the Fire Marshal nixed that…even though it was OUTDOORS. The switch to All Scale show pretty much nailed the door shut for the steamies.
That Ontario fire marshal would have really had a fit in the olden days when they ran live steamers on the ground floor of the Queen Mary and the fumes carried through the upper floors of the show!
In past shows, there were two fellows who set up big loops. One lost his layout sections due to a wildfire that also took their home. The last couple of shows there was another fellow who put up a good sized loop inside the building. He got some help from people like Stan Cedarleaf setting up on Fridays. Guys would come and run their steamers and then go home. Sunday evening, he was all alone taking it all apart. Everyone who was still in the building during take-down time was busy dismantling their layouts and booths. I never saw anyone helping him. I can’t remember his name. Somebody out there might help out with that. It’s possible that we don’t see a steam track for that reason.
Bob I think you are talking about Bob Starr. He used to set up the live steam track at the Queen. Stan Cedarleaf, Dwight Ennis and Mark(Silverstate Trains) used to help with the set up.
Didn’t Bob Starr stop coming because of health reasons? Live steam and the BTS at the OCC have a bit of a rocky history IIRC. I remember they 1st set up under the outdoor canvas structure that used to be out front, then the Fire Marshall started having tizzy fights that they were going to burn the tent down despite the fact that those structures are designed to have the highest fire safety rating of just about anything. Then they set up the track in the same place after OCC dismantled the canvas structure, the steamies brought there own shade tent structure and even then I remember hearing that the Fire Marshall was being a bit of jerk about the tent. I only remember the live steam layout being indoors once, but heard that the FM was also fretting about concerns smoke from the live steamers was going to trigger the smoke detectors, never happened of course. I dont know why the FM was singling out the live steamers so harshly, if you were ever at one of the show you saw that the amount of smoke being produced by all the on board smoke generators on all the locomotives from HO to G put the live steamers to shame!
Yeah, at this last show, they only had 8 carts for moving stuff into the place, and it was HOT.
Then finally, when breaking down Sunday, some people were complaining and they finally let people drive their trailers inside and load up… saved so much time, but the rest of us forced to wheel huge amounts of stuff outside a puny cart at a time were PISSED… I did not say anything, but a few guys were really ticked off, and I cannot blame them…
I want it back at the Fairplex, much nicer venue, with the outdoor layout, a number of places to sit outside, the live steam museum, the better bar and hotel in easy walking distance.
Unfortunately, the convention center “owns” the show apparently.
sux…
Greg
Greg Elmassian said:
I want it back at the Fairplex, much nicer venue, with the outdoor layout, a number of places to sit outside, the live steam museum, the better bar and hotel in easy walking distance.
Greg
I’ll “second” that!
Unfortunately the BTS was never at the Fairplex to begin with. That was the SWGRS and the GTE that have been at the Fairplex.
What I really need to find is a collapsible cart small enough to fit somewhere in my car with the layout that’s also big enough to carry the main body of the pizza, getting the main part out of the car and back into it have always been the weakest link in the show experience. As it is I am always relying on the charity of others just to get the piggy into and out of the show. I saw alot of displayers had the folding type dollies. I also have one but its really small, too small for the pizza but anything bigger and it wont fit inside the car. I am considering one of those aluminum cargo decks off the rear tailgate, that would at the very least give me more ability to carry more boxes and a larger dolly.
So can those of you who attended this show answer one question for the rest of us? Don’t any of you guys own a camera? Remember, “No pictures, Not happening”.
I did booth duty most of the time, I was with the Z scalers with 3 layouts, and the few times I was out on the floor, I was picking the brains of Accucraft, Piko, USAT, etc.
I got there at noon on Friday, left on Sunday, and was there from about 8 am to closing on all the show days…
Sorry…
Greg