poor weather helps

We have found in past years that light snow or a light rain brings in more people to the show. As for the wind that is one reason why we have canopies lined up like hall ways from building to building.

Canopies

Those were a welcome addition you went to multiple buildings. I have been going since it was a one day, one building event.

In the morning, I hit Memo's across the street first. Place is really packed compared to most days.

Rich

Memo's

 I'll be at Memo's about 6am Thursday morning before we start setting up.

Will be there

Yea, weather sounds cold for sure. We fly out Thursday  only a 13 hour flight with layovers  Portland to Boston. Hope to be at the show by noon Friday setting up. Stop by and say hi Booth 164 in the Mallary building 

I'll stop by

     I'll stop by. What do you sell at Beyond Real?

MRH will be there as well

MRH will be there in the Mallary building as well, front half, in the right hand back corner as you enter the door.

I (Joe Fugate) am planning to be there on Saturday, so do stop by and say hi, tell me what you like and don't like, or just shoot the breeze about our favorite hobby.

23F is balmy! When I was

23F is balmy!

When I was there in 2009 it got up to a high of 8F. And they didn't turn on the heaters on Thursday when MRH was setting up (we spent a bunch of time weather sealing the leaky window shutters behind us with bubblewrap and packing tape to avoid freezing to death)

Charlie

Not Bad

Love those warm winter Days for Model Railroading.

Yeh, Charlie

Charlie, that was the year it got down to 60 below wind chill at night.

The Big E Amherst show in Springfield, MA is amazing - that year with the 60 below wind chill, over 20,000 ravenous model railroaders came out over the weekend.

This show puts the National Train Show to shame ... 5 times the floor space and 20 times the number of model railroaders ready to buy in attendance. It's in the dead of winter and modelers with cabin fever turn out in droves, driving from as far as 8 hours away.

The show organizer told me they fill the cash machines on site with $400,000 and then later that day they refill them again - and so it goes all weekend. The show organizer estimates there's well over $1 million in business transacted at this show.

By all accounts I've heard, this one event is the largest model railroading event of its kind in the world, hands down. Every model railroader owes it to themselves to attend this show at least once in their life.

Nice weekend

    Weather is looking better. Snow showers on Friday 26 degrees, Saturday partly cloudy 22 winds 13mph, Sunday 28 mostly sunny winds 9mph.

  Joe hope to stop by and say hi. Maybe if you guys behave they will let you out of the corner (just kidding).

I will be there both days.

Springfield is where I discovered MRH, almost 3 years ago.  I'd been back in model railroading for only a few months, while I was laid up, and that got me back into the hobby.  MRH showed me what 30 years had done to change it--and it't eh only magazine I get regularly.

Under the floor power trucks?

Does anyone know if there's a vendor that has under the floor power trucks at Springfield?

First Day

Hello all, I just got back from the show and today we had 12,838 people attend the show.

Saw Joe in the corner but he was busy with other people for me to say hi.

Going today.

  Up early and getting ready for the 3 hour drive. One whole degree outside with 20 to 30 mph wind gusts.

  Just glad I am not moving my modules anymore. I retired them last year after ten years of lugging them to shows around New England. It always seemed that the weather was against us every train show we went to. Snow, wind, pouring rain, and slush were not only hard on the modules but the owner too.

        Pete

Nice to meet you face to face Joe!

Good meeting you Joe and Les.  Had a great time at the show and look forward to next year!

Thanks

What a Number!

Dear Joe

I've been to about three shows in and around Atlanta and can't imagine 13,000 people at one of them.

I didn't realize the hobby was doing so well.

Maybe one day my son and I can attend the Amherst show.

Second Day

 Well its all over and my legs feel like rubber.

Yesterday total I said was a little off. We had about 12,080. Today we had about 8,000 so we broke into the 20,000 people for the two day show. down about 4,000 from last year.

Our modular layout was 96' x 74'. Each mainline (2 mainlines) was 514' of track each which is 8.48 scale miles each. See a PDF of it Here. ( I could not get a clickable link to work)

http://www.amherstrail.org/abl/2013show/wss2013layout.pdf

We use NCE system. We had a 5 amp command station with 6 - 5 amp booster = 35 amps of power. We had 7 districts

We ran 100% radio all weekend but we did have the UTPs hooked up incase radios went down.

For a while we had all our club radio cab (12) out being used and many member owned radio cabs out in use, I'm guessing we had around 22- 26 cabs in use at once. The NCE radio system slowed down a little but it was working fine.  Another reason why NCE is a great product.

All for now

I aspire to attend the

I aspire to attend the Amherst show some day! A few years back, the WGH on tour came to a new expo center outside Philly. The attendance on the first day was in the 20,000+ range! I waited 1.5 hours on the road trying to get into the place, and then waited in line out in front of the place another hour. After about 45 minutes of the line not moving, I gave up and went home. The crowd was incredible.

Jody