I think I read that some of you in the SoCal area were going to the one in San Diego. If you did, how was it? I am probably going to go the the one this week in Denver. I'm pretty sure traingeekboy is also going to go. Anybody else in the Denver area going to go? Eric
I went up there on Saturday, two hours drive in the pouring rain-up and back. In my opinion; not very well attended by manufacturers but they had an excellent variety of operating layouts. The N scale layout was HUGE. Dealer prices-high. Nothing new to see. Brian
Was there Saturday and Sunday (LB Convention Center, Long Beach, CA). Decent assortment of manufacturers (Kato, Bachmann, Atlas, and others I might have missed). Athearn was unfortunately a no-show, thanks to prior commitments back east. Lots of vendors, some of which had decent deals if you looked; one was selling various P2k, Athearn, and other make diesels at various levels of discount - a friend bought an Atlas U33C in Espee for $45. Another I went to had Accurail 89' pig flats in various roads, with a pair of 45' trailers, for $10 each; I bought a couple. Overall, the show was well attended, with the aisleways choked and almost impassable at certain times of the day. Very diverse crowd, too, which I was glad to see. Also lots of families - good to see all of this, since the more people we can expose to the hobby, the better. Traffic count I heard for Saturday was 14,000, with similar numbers for Sunday. Not bad!
If downtown parking gets you down, there is always light rail. They have a park N ride next to the old gates company building. There is also a Park N ride behind the K mart across B-way from caboose hobbies. Parking is free but you have to pay to ride a train to get to the show. The train goes right through UP's burnham yard, so you have to look at a diesel service facility on your way to the train show. Pretty harrowing experience if you ask me. Railfanning your way to a train show. Ouch. Oh yeah they have a light rail station under the new convention center downtown.
I always get on the RTD Light Rail in Littleton which is cool since you travel all along the BNSF line into downtown. With the stop now at the Convension Center I'm sure more will take it to shows like this too.
I'll be there, helping a fellow club member Saturday morning. Then, I'll be helping watch the Rio Grande Modeling and Historical Society tables. With time in between, to get some New Product information about upcoming Rio Grande releases. Well......Hoping to anyway. Look for me. I'll have a Rio Grande shirt on, with no less than 2 name badges - RR club and Historical society badges. And an Exhibitor badge. Also carrying a notebook and digital camera! Hope I can take light rail downtown, with a small luggage cart and rubbermaid tub full of magazines and some other display stuff. Cheaper than parking, from info I've seen!
Paul, I'll see what I can come up with as the weekend progresses!! From what I've been told of at least a couple of recent WGH shows, Denver can probably look foward to maybe between 20,000 and 30,000 people for the weekend, maybe more. Looks like I have a job, although unpaid, as WGH photographer!! Not gonna pay the bills, but it'll be a blast!
Updated traffic figures I got for last weekend's show in Long Beach was 15,000 for Saturday, 13,000 on Sunday. Nice turnout for a train shwo, especially on the West Coast. I was pleasantly surprised with the crowd!
Just checking back about the show today. I went to the show with Colorado50/eric. I'd say that great train show is better. A good deal is hard to find at any train show these days, the WGH has no deals. I heard that they were charging 500.00 Per table/booth, thats alot of cash for a small time operation to cover. We did find one booth with deals for N scalers. Yesteryear models was giving good deals on their older stock. they had some old IM car kits for 8 bucks each. other IM stuff was going for 30% off. But that was it. I got a custom painted grain car for 15 $ The same layouts were on display that we see at all the train shows. I'm not putting down any layouts here. I recall enjoying seeing all of them... the first two times I saw them. I've seen all these layouts numerous times now. We did get to talk to the Walthers rep. We harrassed him about the need for their new building modules in N scale and found out they are producing them in N scale in a few months so that is really good news for people who need large brick structures in N scale. We also saw samples of the smooth side coaches by IM. I'm not sure of exact prototypes, but I could use a set of those cars painted up for Illinois central. Nice looking samples BTW. I hope IM does whole sets of cars for us N scalers soon. There was a definate pause over the Atlas O scale cars. You have to understand that both Eric and I are predominantly N scalers, but the Atlas O just looks really good. Model railroading magazine was giving away free copies of their mag. It just happens to have a fairly good article on car forwarding. I like the over all look of this magazine. Thanks model railroading! So for 10 bucks to get in and 15 for a train car I got off pretty good. If it is any indication of how good/bad the train show was, we went to caboose hobbies afterwards and shopped there for a bit. The prices were pretty much the same as at the train show, except caboose has lots of stuff marked down for clearance.
I have heard similar reports, like the prices. I also heard it is cheaper to eat at Cheyenne Frontier Days (if you have been there, you know what I mean. If you haven't, picture the prices of a coke and hotdog at any pro sports event, and you'll get the idea) than at WGH show... Over 6 bucks for a hotdog and a coke! Yipes! I managed to visit Don's Hobbies in Greeley, CO, and prolly fared better... I scored some decals, March 05 CTC Board, and a 2005 Model RR Planning mag, along with a new VHS copy of the Railfair '91, and some paint supplies.
I went to the Denver show and was happy to see so many people there. That's good for the hobby. I can always find a few detail parts at Neals booth but the prices were pretty nuch retail. The addmission of $9 and the parking at $7 is a rip off and the price of food is even worse. I was curious to see what it would be like and the manufacture reps were good to talk to but other than that a GATS show would have the same stuff. The one new layout I saw was the Z scale set up done by one person from around this area. It was very nice and worth the trip.
I was at last weekends LB show...the Ntrak layout was massive...with plans for this summer's Ntrak convention in San Diego to be even bigger! The only really nice deal I saw was for the Kato CZ set and ABA set of locos for $355
I hope I did not sound to engative about the show. It was definately good to get out and look at train stuff and just be in a room full of railfans. I agree with john about the vendors. I was really impressed with how excited the walthers rep was over their new products. He probably sat there all day and gave the same schpiel to everyone who came by, but when model railroader 10,573 came by... that's me, he was very energetic about explaining his whole product line. But I would have liked to see the prices just a dollar lower.
