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.