2016 Amherst Railroad Show Report

[seusscaboose]

Quick recap

Woodland scenic light kits look cool

BLI booth was fun to see the M1 in paint

Rapido guys were helpful with boxcar coupler issue

ESM new gon looks hot and it is nicely weighed

FVM wasn't at his table...missed saying hi

Kato wasn't much help

Scenic express booth clinic on static grass was helpful

Alta's Corey was in Germany
No Paul

MTL booth was helpful with Eric Smith

Missed intermountain booth

N scale architect was helpful with some HO buildings available in N

lunde had $10 off per building... A new building as well

1 new building at CRM

Tony's train exchange was helpful with a PSX-4  / Auto Reverser question

Conrail booth was hopping

More stuff I am sure I forgot

Pics tomorrow

[ljudice]

So why pick the ex-Conrail numbers for the CSX and NS engines and yet put the wrong truck on them, its not like CSX or NS have other SD40-2 with HTC trucks. Glad I did not order any.

I emailed them on this when they were announced - pointing this out - and they RESPONDED saying they were well aware of the details on specific units.

[daniel_leavitt2000]

Model Power: MRC has assisted with QC. New run of Moguls and Americans. Sagami motor, totally new electrical work and needlepoint pickups. New runs of the FP-7 are coming. Again, new motor and electrical work. They want to retool their ore car. They are also very interested in some flavor of PRR Atlantic? Not sure if it's an E6. Rep mentioned the prototype had gloss paint. Will be released in  HO as a Mantua first.

[muktown128]

Model Power: MRC has assisted with QC. New run of Moguls and Americans. Sagami motor, totally new electrical work and needlepoint pickups. New runs of the FP-7 are coming. Again, new motor and electrical work. They want to retool their ore car. They are also very interested in some flavor of PRR Atlantic? Not sure if it's an E6. Rep mentioned the prototype had gloss paint. Will be released in  HO as a Mantua first.

Will Victor finally get his Atlantic?

[Englewood]

I'd sure love to know the status of the FVM regular cab GP60s that seem to have fallen off the face of the earth...

[Specter3]

Ohhhh a large drivered Atlantic would be nice. I keep hoping they might start sticking other shells on these chassis for us non-SPFs.

[daniel_leavitt2000]

I think he was referring to the E6. He was calling it a Lindbergh? I'm not familiar with the engine.

[central.vermont]

I think he was referring to the E6. He was calling it a Lindbergh? I'm not familiar with the engine.

Go here Daniel son and learn the PRR wisdom. 

http://www.rrmuseumpa.org/membership/milepost/lindy/taletwomemos.htm

Jon

[VonRyan]

I think he was referring to the E6. He was calling it a Lindbergh? I'm not familiar with the engine.

The Lindbergh engine is PRR E6 No.460 and by god if Model Power makes an E6 in N, I'll jump for joy and prepare to create some PRSL goodness.

[peteski]

It was a fairly well attended show. Here is my contribution to this threadl

I spoke with the BLI sales reps at the Springfield show.
Centipedes are on the way from BLI to the distributors.
M1s are currently in production. IIRC he said they will be delivered in March 2016.

One of my NTRAK friends borrowed the pair of Centipedes from the BLI display and ran them on our layout.  But I didn't have a chance to talk to her to ask her how they ran.  Sorry!

National Bergen Laser
Chatted with Dave and couldn't resist purchasing the Finer Iron & Metal Co. (and the stencils for the sign). What a gorgeous building and a superb laser-cut kit! Dave's show sales greatly exceeded his expectations.  He now has to scramble to make more kits for the Timonium show.

Sylvan Scale Models
Clare introduced 4 all-new N scale vehicles.  He gave credit to our own Rasputin (Brian) for convincing him to go ahead with production.  The models are similar in construction to Rasputin's: hollow body with open windows and an interior/wheels as a separate piece.  Each 3-pack is $10 US. If they sell well, Clare will produce other similar models.

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Spoke to Kato USA rep (Japanese gentleman) and we discussed the red plasticky-looking (non-sprung) pantographs and electrical system on the roof of the ACS-64.  Most European models of electric locos (made by Kato and other manufacturers) feature sprung-metal pantographs and electric roof wiring using painted metal rods which look much more realistic. He agreed that it is not optimal, and when I hinted that this is probably a cost-saving measure he didn't disagree.

I also brought up the unscheduled uncoupling of the Kato couplers. He said that I was the first person who brought this up to his attention.  He seemed genuinely interested in the problem.  We discussed possible causes of the problem and a possible solution.

I ended up bringing up a pair of Kato passenger trucks and a pair of MT-coupler equipped trucks and demonstrating to him how easily the Kato couplers uncouple by gently shifting the trucks sideways (simulating traveling through an S-curve) while MTs stay solidly coupled.  He ended up taking a smart-phone video of my demonstration. He mentioned that he is in direct contact with Kato design engineers and that he will pass this info to them.  Hopefully, Kato will redesign their knuckle coupler to be more reliable.  In the past I lobbied Micro-Trains to make a drop-in coupe replacement which would fit Kato's coupler boxes (since MTs are much more reliable), but that never gained any traction - maybe I'll have better luck with Kato.

[OldEastRR]

Leave it to Peteski to be carrying trucks and cars in his pockets to whip put and put on an instant  demonstration of what he means.

[daniel_leavitt2000]

Haha... Yep he did that at my booth. 10 minutes later I had samples of my own on display. Brian (rasputan) lives only a few hours away from Clare (Sylvan). That must have been a fun dinner party! Anyway, as long as Brian is up to shrink, Clare will cast and market them in his product line. The Emeryville and Cracker Box will make their way to N. Clare is also retooling the current truck line to simplify construction.

[sirenwerks]

Clare, if you're reading... Think GMC 860, Cannonball, White 9000, and Mack B75 next...

[reinhardtjh]

It was a fairly well attended show. Here is my contribution to this threadl

I spoke with the BLI sales reps at the Springfield show.
Centipedes are on the way from BLI to the distributors.
M1s are currently in production. IIRC he said they will be delivered in March 2016.

Fantastic news!

One of my NTRAK friends borrowed the pair of Centipedes from the BLI display and ran them on our layout.  But I didn't have a chance to talk to her to ask her how they ran.  Sorry!

Do you know Sheila?  She's a member of the PRR Nscale modeler's group on Facebook.  She had pics and a video of the Centipedes running around an Ntrak layout.

[VonRyan]

Sheila let a member of the PRR Defense Corps run the centipedes for a lap and they look good in operation, and sound pretty good as well.
From what I saw, they're pretty good runners.
It was almost enough to tempt me to buy a set, but then I remembered the sky-high price-tag.

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