If you were into antiques and collectibles, there were tables where you could buy almost anything related to railroads from lanterns...
to switch locks ....
to conductor hats!
I was invited to help out at the Friends of the East Broad Top Railroad booth for a couple of hours each day, and received a vendor's pass allowing free access to all the exhibits both during the show and prior to opening each day. Jim Vliet is a fellow member of the FEBT and hauls the display all the way from Long Island each year, along with boxes of books, tapes and handouts.
I had a good time chatting with fellow narrow gauge enthusiasts who stopped by during the show. Among them I should mention George Cook, an octagenarian with an encycopedic knowledge of narrow gauge railroads, especially the EBT. He expounded on the McKelvey Brothers logging road that once interchanged with the EBT in Rockhill. George had actually interviewed a number of folks who once worked for the logging road back in the 1920s, and is transcribing the interviews using the latest high tech Dragon word recognition software! Who says you can't teach an old dog new tricks?
Also stopping by was Malcolm Houck, who was born and spent part of his childhood in the EBT's southern terminus of Robertsdale. I have been working on a model of the little mining town, and Mal had lots of stories about growing up in a stern Pennsylvania Dutch family way up in the mountains of south central Pennsylvania. Turns out his great grandfather discovered one of the first seams of Broad Top Coal, identified as the Houck seam for many years. Mal is also the leading expert on the O & W (sometimes known as the Old and Weary) Railroad in Pennsylvania anthracite country. He's written the definitive books on the road, and I believe he has modeled every locomotive they ever owned. He had a display just down from the FEBT table, and I took this picture of his diorama.
Since I model the East Broad Top, the last operating narrow gauge railroad east of the Mississippi, many of my modeling friends are into narrow gauge as well. So the first place I visited was the SoundTraxx booth, also located in the same building as the FEBT table. SoundTraxx produces top of the line sound decoders under the name Tsunami, and also a stunning array of narrow gauge engines and cars under the Blackstone logo. Blackstone makes some of the finest narrow gauge equipment in the industry, extremely free rolling and equipped with incredible sound.
If you look carefully at the cars on display above, you may notice the steel triple hopper car right behind the engine and tender. That's Blackstone's new EBT hopper car, due out in late April or early May -- the first new version of the car in years. The new hopper cars, like all Blackstone products, will be extremely free rolling and highly detailed. They are a little pricey, but well worth it. The EBT had a fleet of hoppers numbering in the hundreds, almost all produced at their shops in Rockhill, Pennsylvania. Those of us who model the EBT have to be satisfied with a somewhat smaller fleet of cars (at $50 a pop!)
A friend of mine, Dave Trimble, joined me at the Blackstone booth. We were fortunate to talk with Nancy, the owner of SoundTraxx, who assured me their next narrow gauge locomotive (the third run of K-27 Rio Grande engines) would be out in 2-3 weeks. When questioned about an EBT engine, she was a little reticent, saying only that their next major entry in the market would be a K-36 heavy mikado, but that the EBT engines were not out of consideration. However, she explained that it takes at least 2-3 years to develop and produce a new locomotive, so EBT fans: Don't hold your breath!
By the way, for those with other DCC systems, there were also displays by Digitrax, NCE, TCS and many other manufacturers. Clinics ranged from how to build, paint and weather roofs to the latest in electronics and command control. Dave met up with me right after a seminar on the new JMRI software interface for those who like to control their layouts by computer!
Narrow gauge engines and rolling stock weren't the only new products to be seen. A lot of new stuff was considerably less expensive and more immediately relevant to my own layout. For example, if you are interested in adding rock formations to your railroad, but hesitant to get involved in plaster castings, you might want to contact Cripplebush and find out about their new line of rubber rocks! These rocks can be cemented directly to your layout, cut to fit your needs, and when painted, they look incredibly real. The prices are not bad either. I bought a length of sedimentary rock to try out. Here is a diorama showing some of the new rubber rocks.
Another vendor was Brian Bollinger from B.E.S.T. models. He was also a participant in the Fine Scale Modeling Show I attended last November in Peabody, Massachusetts. He offers a nice collection of wooden structure kits, modeled on buildings he has measured himself. He had several buildings on display with laser cut shingle siding that was unbelievably realistic. I couldn't stop myself from buying a sheet to try out on my own layout. This picture doesn't do it justice. The roof is covered with paper shingles, but the sides are laser cut wood.
Some of the displays and modular layouts were simply incredible in their realism and detail. Here, for example is a photo of a working bascule bridge that still operates on the Amtrak mainline from New York to Boston. The gentleman who built it (that's him with the microphone) spent three years of his life constructing it. There are over 33,000 actual rivets in the O Scale model, which was raised and lowered every 30 minutes during the show, and always worked perfectly!
Here are a few examples of modules from some of the operating layouts. (There were layouts in almost every scale, from Z to G.) Some of these modules had won a number of awards at National Model Railroad Association contests and conventions.
If you preferred something a little larger, you could walk over to another building where a dozen large scale, live steam locomotives were on display. This one, a working Shay logging locomotive, won my heart the minute I saw it. Of course, it probably weighs over 500 pounds.
Needless to say, by the end of the day on Sunday I was one pooped model railroader! I felt a little like this life sized, ancient mechanical conductor at one of the displays, who stood and quivered throughout the weekend. But it was worth it..... I came home with an armful of tools, scenick materials, miniature trees, rubber rocks, bottles of modeling stain, railroad photos, and a lot of memories. In fact, I am charged up and ready to get back to work on my own layout. And that's what these shows are all about -- a chance to be refreshed and renewed in the hobby we love.
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