It's the biggest show except for maybe Timonium down in Maryland. The Amhearst model railroad club puts it on at the Eastern States Fairground in West Springfield MA. It's big, the train show filled all four of the very big exhibition halls at Eastern States. It pulls in the fans, they can charge $5 parking and $14 admission and get it. I saw license plates from as far away as Maryland and Ontario. Traffic trying to get into the fairgrounds at 9 AM Saturday was fierce. I'm guessing we had 10,000 people for Saturday, and the show runs thru today.
Took me three hours to drive down from Franconia. It was still dark when I got on I91 and I rolled right along. I did try and keep it below 80 mph.
The crowd looked older than it did last time I went to Springfield. Mostly guys, mostly old enough to be retired. Some small grandchildren who were fascinated by the moving model trains. Very few middle and high school kids who would be old enough to build their own model railroads. Not many working age folk. This is clearly an old guy's hobby.
They had dozens of operating layouts on the floor. Big ones. All modular, all take apart and load in a trailer deals. They were all put together and looking very good. They had all the vendors in the world. I bought some decals, some well used rolling stock to serve as projects, and some hard to find detail parts.
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