NMRA 75: The National Train Show Sunday 7/18/2010 (Very Photo Heavy)

Note: all the photos in their full size (8 & 10MP) versions along with many others (I shot 150 on Sunday alone) are located at http://www.shultzinfosystems.com/gallery159/view_album.php?set_albumName=NMRA2010

Sunday... as I write this, the National Train Show has been over for about an hour, although I had to leave around 3pm.

It's been quite a week. Hopefully this post will answer all of the questions that were asked of me over the past couple days - if it doesn't, ask me again and we'll see if it jostles a couple of neurons together.

The morning started at SoundTraxx at 9:30am, prior to the opening of the show, where Jarette Ireland demonstrated the Gas Turbine Tsunami, which has several features that are distinct from the diesel Tsunami, showed us the newest products from the Blackstone HOn3 line (which we videoed...and I forgot to photograph...) and their new motor only decoders, which come in several formats and allow people who have several units MU'd together to run Tsunami's in some and SoundTraxx motor decoders in others, keeping the same speed table settings and hyperlight functions in all of them. I'd better still have one in  my backpack that I'll be using for a First Look.

Airline is calling.... I'll be back to add more to this when I can get online again.

Okay, I'm back...

After interviewing Soundtraxx, Charlie, who was running the camera, and I went over to see if Rob Pisani at Atlas was available for an interview. Happily he was and we videotaped him explaining about the Thrall 3-unit 53' well car, the Standard 40' Evergreen Container, and the 42' coil car models. Rob also provided some information regarding the delays in the Trainman Plus NRE Genset model and then we got some footage of it pulling a train around the demo layout. I thanked him for maintaining the Atlas forums, as they are one of the places I first hung out on the model railroading internet - as such, they may be directly responsible for my working for Model Railroad Hobbyist in this capacity. And for all those who may be wondering, yes, Atlas does pay attention to the wish lists that pop up on a probably too frequent basis. Who knows, maybe that's why I own a couple of GP39-2s in Portland & Western now?

Later, I caught Rob over talking with Craig Martyn of BLMA - odd how close the shirts look, isn't it?

From Atlas we went over to interview Jason Schron of Rapido about developments in their world, but Jason was in a meeting with a couple of people from another company - think purple shirts. I needed to get some photos of the new N Scale releases from Bachmann, which was nearby, so we wandered over there to both get my photos and wait for Jason to be available. While there we met Lee Riley, who has been in this industry forever and is one of the top three people at Bachmann. Let me tell you - if you ever get the chance to talk to him, take it. But clear your calendar first. Based on a number of times I got to talk with him this weekend, I'm fairly sure Lee's memory is incredible - and it's full of the history of the hobby, all of the people he's known in the hobby and the model railroading industry, and he's very willing to share those experiences with all who are willing to listen. Sometimes you wonder why someone stays in a job - well, I think this photo explains one of Lee's primary motivations:

By the time we got back to Rapido, Jason had disappeared on some task of his own, so Charlie settled down in the very comfortable passenger car seats that Jason rescued from a Via junk heap and I headed over to photograph the Con-Cor U50 and Gas Turbine. Discussing them briefly with Mr. Conway, I wouldn't be too worried about the overly thick handrails and whatnot - those are already in the plans to be fixed. Right now they are in pre-order mode, without a fixed "drop dead" date. I did get the impression that the faster the pre-orders came in, the sooner the model would be produced. Nothing negative is meant by that - it seems obvious to me that the more guaranteed sales he has, the easier it will be to fund the retooling and production. So if you are interested in either of these locomotives, contact Con-Cor to get yourself on the list. Oh - in case you had any doubts, they're in N Scale.

I had a request for photos of the new Intermountain GEVOs, so I wandered down there next, only to find that they only had one - a handsome unit in Canadian Pacific red. While there I also shot some photos of the new production refrigerated car with the truck style reefer units that was sitting there. Test shots of the N Scale bodies for a similar unit were also on the table.

By this time it was time to get back to Rapido and interview Jason - possibly the easiest interview I've done, and certainly the most comfortable, with those wonderful chairs - easily more comfortable than the leather airline seat I'm sitting in as I type this. An Interview with Jason basically goes like this: "Hi Jason, what would you like to tell us about today?" - and then you sit back for the next 15 to 20 minutes while he explains his new products (a couple passenger cars, the FP9A with the correct nose) with great enthusiasm. At that point, my major job is making sure the microphone stays pointed in the general direction of his face and to simply listen to what he's saying. Jason, like pretty much all the other interviewees that I asked, does monitor and post on several forums, and uses them, as well as his newsletter, to post updated information regarding Rapido and it's products. He's even the founder of one mailing list.

From there it was off to interview CMT Trains, who is releasing a new CN specific (although they've been sold or assigned to other railroads as well) caboose in coordination with Rapido. The caboose, or Van as they are called in Canada, is known as the Point St. Charles Van.

With that interview I was pretty much done with my assigned tasks for the show. It was time to look around the show a bit before I had to go catch a plane.

Since I'd been asked to focus a bit more on N Scale releases in my posts, and I knew I needed to branch out a bit, I stopped by the gentlemen at the S Scale booth and asked them if there were any new releases for the show. There weren't, but I did get to photograph a set of nice looking and relatively new PS5344 box cars.

On their recomendation I also wandered over to the Wild West Scale Model Builders display where I found buildings that would probably fit in a western or southwestern layout based around the 1880-1910 era in a variety of scales, including Z, N, and S:

From there I went over to Micro-Trains, where they had flyers up about a new high-side PS-2 3-bay covered hopper. Unforutunately they didn't have a model available for me to photograph yet. They did have some of their new N Scale Heavyweight Passenger cars out though:

Continuing my wandering, I stopped to photograph the Imagine That Laser Art structure which had so impressed me yesterday - it's "La Wow" not "Le Wow."

And here you can see the "earthquake damage."

BLI and Factory Direct Trains had  adjacent booths so I wandered over there to see what I thought interesting to photograph - this included the GS-4 #4449 in the American Freedom Train scheme, the Baldwin Centipede, and a Norfolk & Western Y6B that some lucky person is going to win....

Turning around I saw what I think should have been the star of the show  - a 1/16th scale brass Big Boy at the SJ Imports booth. You know, I don't have to tell you about it - let me simply show you instead:

For $150,000 it can be yours.

Going through the layouts I was struck by this odd sight:

According to the person manning the layout, these are the original engines used in the movie "Runaway Train." There was also a set of repainted Superliners a bit further down that he claimed were from "Under Siege 2" - I wouldn't know, I'm not a Steven Segal fan.

Many people from the Atlas HO forums know David Harrison - not only does he work on the Great Train Project at the Museum of Science and Industry in Chicago, but he has his own sectional layout, complete with Caternary, that he uses to show off his Acela models. The layout definitely portrays a gritty and industrial reality:

Just got home - this will be another break point. BTW, I took 150 photos on Sunday... that's one of the reasons this is taking so long. Flying home is the other - I've been updating this while my wife drives me home from the airport.

  Okay... at this point I was just running around taking photos of stuff - so here we go:

Walthers Broadway Limited Budd 21 Roomette Sleeper:

A collection of test shells for the upcoming Bachmann GE 70 Tonner:

Peter Witt Trolley in N:

4 Bay Trinity Hopper in N from Bachmann:

Bachmann GP9 in N:

Production 2-6-6-2 and pre-production 4-6-0 in N from Bachmann:

Rapido N Scale coaches and sleepers (those are etched brass pieces in the doorways):

One gentleman who's booth was not getting as much attention as I thought it deserved was from Ploesti, Romania - Wespe Models Romania. They have both military models and heavy equipment in scales starting at Z and going  up from there. If you are interested in WW II European prototypes (with a few Fords, Dodges, and Diamonds tossed in as well) in either 1/35th, O  (1/48), or HO (1/87) Scales, or WWII Armored Trains you ought to be looking this company up:

Tangent Scale Models's Bethleham Design 4-bay Coal Hopper - while not pictured, there is underbelly detail including the trainline:

N Scale GEVO by Fox Valley Models:

Milwaukee Road Rib Side Boxcar:

HO  and N Scale 1935 Hiawatha from Fox Valley Models - odd thing about the paint is that the colors are all flat, not glossy at all - anyone know if that's prototypical?:

Assorted N Scale cars from BLMA: 

N scale from ExactRail:

Now, while the models are the stars of the show for the attendees, for the vendors a lot of the fun is getting together with your peers - in the first photo with have Erin, Blaine Hadfield and Chris Clune of ExactRail with Sam Clarke of Kadee:

And here I learn that taking flash photography towards a photo booth is a really bad idea:

Here is what you have when I remember to turn the flash off  - Jennifer and Michael from Model Railroad News, just down I-5 (okay, 200 miles south down I-5) from several of the MRH staff in Oregon:

Well, that's it - the National Model Railroad Convention and National Train Show 2010 in Milwaukee, Wisconsin has come to a close. I hope you enjoyed our coverage of it and invite you to keep an eye out at MRH Theater for all the videos that we shot during the week.