York Roundup Part 3
This is the last post about my visit to the Spring ‘06 York show.
For the first time at York a modular layout was on display. It was located in the "black" hall and was a huge layout built by the National Capital Trackers out of the Washington, DC area. The layout must have been over a 100 ft long and it had some very neat equipment running on it. The day I stopped in they were running a Union Pacific Big Boy and Challenger lashed together pulling numerous Union Pacific boxcars and coal hoppers, probably close to 40+ in total. It was a sight to be seen. They also had a C&O M1 Coal Turbine sitting on a siding with a large consist of streamline passenger cars but I didn’t get to see it running. I also enjoyed their version of Lionel’s "disappearing" layout where the train enters a tunnel, disappears on a loop of track under the layout and appears exiting the same tunnel it entered a few seconds later.
O Gauge Railroading magazine held it’s semi annual Grandstand meeting on Friday and there was a great turnout. OGR invites folks to sit in the Grandstands at York to listen to a number of speakers from the industry. This is where Walter Matuch of Ready Made Toys unveiled his BEEFs and PEEPs. There was some other interesting news as well.
Tom Haedrich of Atlas O indicated that Atlas will be unveiling a steam engine this year, which made many in the crowd happy. The guys at MTH mentioned that the wireless tether technology (eliminating the need for a wired connection between a steam locomotive and it’s tender where the electronics are stored) developed for their new HO locomotive will be finding it’s way into MTH’s O Gauge line of products. There was no representation from Lionel and I’m not sure if that was because they chose not to attend or they were not invited by OGR magazine. SKCS Lance Pructnal, the SeaBee who’s layout in Iraq was featured in run 214 of OGR magazine, was on hand and received a standing ovation for his service. If you haven’t read the story it’s worth picking up a copy of OGR to read it.
My first time to York was a memorable one. It was much bigger and much more fun than I expected. There were lots of trains to see and purchase and lots of great discussion to be had with everyone I met. Experiencing York left me with the impression that the O Gauge model railroad community is a very friendly and a close group. I’m not sure if I’ll attend twice a year (my budget can’t handle it) but may try attend one day of this year’s Fall meet to compare it to the Spring meet.
One last story. I have been searching for a Williams GG1 and came to York expecting to buy one with a 5 Stripe Tuscan Red paint scheme. Well no one had a new one in Tuscan Red but the Ma and Pa Junction booth had an older model in 5 Stripe Tuscan Red with #2360, a reproduction of the GG1 Lionel produced as part of their Pennsylvania RR Congressional Limited train. The price was right but there was a PostIt note (the price tag of choice for most of the vendors at York) that proclaimed it had no horn. I inquired and it turns out there was some question about if it actually had a horn or not. So Roy from Ma and Pa Junction grabs the GG1 and walks me over to the Williams Electric Trains booth and asks Mr. Williams if the model had a horn. Mr. Williams didn’t think so but wanted to make sure by running it on the Williams display layout, which consisted of a couple loops of track that ran through a tunnel. So Mr. Williams places the GG1 on a track that had a set of Amtrak commuter cars running on it. He thought twice about trying to run both the GG1 and the Amtrak set at the same time but he was only going to quickly test the GG1 so what could go wrong. Well he did test it successfully to prove that it ran. When I asked if he could test the horn Mr. Williams put the GG1 in neutral and turned up the juice on the transformer not knowing that the Amtrak commuter was in the tunnel and NOT in neutral. All of a sudden the Amtrak commuter comes screaming out of the tunnel toward the GG1 I was about to buy. I was closest to the site of the potential accident so I was first to act. What I should have done was gracefully lift the GG1 off the track and let the Amtrak past. Instead, in a moment of panic, I reached out and stopped the Amtrak commuter with my hand. Of course this caused quite a derailment, with all the Amtrak cars smacking into each other. I could tell that both Roy and Mr. Williams were thinking "why didn’t you just lift the GG1 off the track?" but Mr. Williams was very polite about the situation and blamed himself for trying to run two trains on one track. In the end I bought the GG1 (which didn’t have a horn) from Roy and now the first GG1 in my collection has a neat story to go with it.
No related posts.
« Williams 0-27 Brochure On Line | Main | Legal Battles May Be Spreading To The World Of DCC »
No Responses to “York Roundup Part 3”
There are no comments yet... Kick things off by filling out the form below.