Post Train Show Purchases
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| My New York Central passenger set, headed by a Dreyfuss Hudson streamlined locomotive. |
As I mentioned in previous blog posts, I came home from the annual Amherst Railway Society's train show empty-handed this year. During our drive back home, I decided to do some model railroad shopping online when we arrived home.
Before we headed to the train show, I put together a pretty good sized list of things I might buy at the show if the price was right. From my experiences at past shows, I knew that I would not find three quarters of the stuff on my list so I made sure I had a pretty lengthy list to improve my odds of coming across something I wanted.
I had products on this wishlist from a number of different scales... N scale, HO scale, O scale (narrow gauge, 2-rail and 3-rail stuff), and even one F scale locomotive. I even had some products on my list which are not scale specific (ie, various power controllers, scenery products, etc). Even with this many products on my wishlist, I still came away from the show with no new toys.
It may sound as though I'm disappointed but that simply is not true... not in the least. I don't go to this show or any train show with a specific intention of buying products. I go to shows to get out of town with my lovely fiance... to spend some time with friends... to view operating model railroads... to see new products being demonstrated by manufacturers... to see new products and techniques being demonstrated by vendors... and lastly, to shop for hard to find deals on trains. I never expect to find hard to find deals though... any hard to find deals would just be a bonus to attending the show. Coming home with no new toys was not disappointing in the least. We had an awesome time with friends and family!
After checking what is left of my finances after a month of significant travel while factoring in my ongoing medical costs, I quickly turned my focus to some relatively inexpensive things rather than some of the more expensive items on my wishlist (which meant a new locomotive was out of the question at this point).
In the end, I decided to add a couple more passenger cars to my New York Central passenger set in HO scale. There still is a lot to add to this set but I'm liking what I've collected thus far.
The funny thing is, I'm not really an HO scale modeler. I just can't get comfortable with this scale at 1:87. I spent my early childhood with Lionel trains (O scale) which are considerably larger at 1:48. Then in high school, I moved into N scale which is a considerably smaller scale (and less expensive) at 1:160. The advantage of N scale is the ability to run longer trains since the trains are so small. I really prefer O scale and N scale to HO scale. Ideally, I would love to model in S scale, 1:64, but this scale is very limited and very expensive. Lately, I'm really enjoying the significantly larger scale of F scale at 1:20.3. However, for collecting and displaying a long passenger train, it made more sense to choose a smaller scale. In this case, I chose HO scale... mostly because of the vast selection of merchandise available at a relatively low cost and secondarily because it is still a fairly small scale.
Even though this is a rather small purchase and it is a purchase after the train show, I'm definitely looking forward to adding these two new passenger cars in the next few days when my package arrives at my door!
I really need to start designing some nice display shelves for my growing collection of trains...
EDIT: One of my usual vendors called me to say they no longer have one of the Coaches I ordered in stock, so... I checked a few other vendors around the country... I found one in stock someplace else... and I found an Observation Car... So now, rather than having two passenger cars coming, I have three passenger cars coming... an Observation car, a Clerestory Coach, and a Baggage car. I'm going to need a looonnnnngggg shelf...
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