This was the view on the drive home. Not the best of weather to be out for a train show, but the April 2016 Strasburg Show was worth the adventure. The show was well attended. The foot traffic inside was steady all day and only slowed down just before the close of the show. I even was able to get a quote from John Dunn about the weather for a Strasburg Show.

In the Proto48 crowd we missed Jim Hawk and Carl Jackson at the show, they both regularly have tables at the show. But there were a number of new dealers at the show.

For Reading Modelers, I did see a number of locomotives at the beginning of the show. There was an SGL G3 with a set of passenger cars, a couple of Weaver G1’s and three tempting camelbacks on a table just across for where we were located. All but one of these steam locomotives found new homes during the show. Fran Pfiel also had a nicely decorated Custom Brass Alco switcher in the Reading Pullman Green.

Other things of interest, there were a number of the hard to find Pacific Limited brass box cars. I saw an Erie ’32 ARA box car, a NYC USRA Design 9’4″ IH door and a half with AB brakes and Gilroy doors, A P&LE USRA box car and a couple of PRR X23 box car. There were also a number of the not so hard to find Pacific Limited cars like the H21a’s and the X23 work cars.

I also saw some Parri cars on at least three different tables. What I remember were a WM fish belly hopper car an N&W triple hopper, a PRR H35 class hopper and a PRR G22 gondola.

There was also some of Norm’s Proto48 Flex track on one table and some High Sierra Models Proto48 turnout parts. Nice to see these also find new homes.

It was great to see and talk with the familiar faces at the show, I also noticed a number of new faces in the buying crowd which was very encouraging. All in all it was another nice show put on by John Dunn and Rich Yoder.

The October 2015 Strasburg O scale Show was this past weekend. They again had over a hundred tables sold inside the fire hall. This was another well attended show. The crowd wasn’t a mad rush at the opening of the doors, instead it was a steady crowd all morning long.

There were the usual vendors along with guys selling off excess stuff. In addition there was a new vendor in attendance, Scale City Designs  showing off their resin building kits and laser engraved signs. Their big news was that they had purchased Keil-Line Products. They mentioned that they are just getting started going through the inventory with the thought of putting it on their website.

For the Reading modeler there were a number of older models on the tables, including the pair of Car and Locomotive Works FM Trainmasters that were at the last show, a Weaver G-1 and a SGL G-3 with a set of eight passenger cars. Just as an FYI, the set of eight SGL Reading coaches were sold in the first five minutes of the doors opening, the two Trainmasters returned home with their seller.

The August 2015 Strasburg O scale Show was this past weekend. They had over a hundred tables sold inside the fire hall. They had another well attended show. The crowd was steady all morning.

While no new models were being announced during the show, Rich Yoder did continue to show his pre-production models of the Mather Box and Stock cars. In addition, he had three gondola models for sale on his table that have long been sold out. The three gondolas were, the Virginian Battleship Gondola, a Reading USRA gondola and a B&O USRA clone gondolas with containers. (photos at the bottom of this post) While the Reading gondola looked very nice, I past of the car because of the early paint scheme on the car.

Jim Cantner was there from Indianapolis, Indiana, both with a number of models on his table and promoting the 2015 O Scale National which will be held in Indy this September. He showed me photos of a template he is working on that goes between the ties of a double track main line and spaces both an inner and outer track radii spacing both sets of ties at the same time. It was made out of Aluminum and he hopes to further develop it into a full product later this year. Since we all remember Jim’s turnout templates from a number of years ago (I know I have a number of them here) this will be something to look forward to.

At the end of the show Bob Heil (the Sunset 3rd Rail dealer) came up to me and asked if I thought a Reading K1 2-10-2 could get enough reservations to meet the production number for Sunset to produce the model. I tried to do everything I could to convince him that it could. Lets hope Sunset decides to announce it and see how many reservations it can get, I know I’ll reserve a pair of them. That would take two models off my “Projects To Build” list. So if you have an interest in Seeing Sunset 3rd Rail produce a Reading K1 2-10-2 let them know about it.

The April 2015 Strasburg O scale Show was this past weekend. They had 102 tables with 23 dealers and 42 regular guys selling out of their collections spread out inside the fire hall. They had their best ever attendance for the show. It’s really nice to see the show continue to grow.

No newly announced models to talk about. Not really sure why that is. Maybe being a week before the York TCA show or maybe just that there is not that much new in the O scale market at this time. We did have some new announcements at Chicago and that was just a month ago.

Other than that there were lots of models to choose from, some with real pricing which found new homes and some fine models with fantasy pricing which went back home with their original owners.