The train show started an hour later on Sunday, day two of the show, so we got an extra hour of sleep before heading to the fairgrounds which was nice. We stopped at The Cracker Barrel for breakfast again on this morning. There was a roaring fire going in the fireplace which was sorely missing on the previous morning. Breakfast was delicious though and was a nice break from cereal at home.
My spinal injuries were killing me after the previous day of standing and walking around at the show. Actually, we were only at the show for about four hours on the first day and left early due to unbearable spinal pain. Since my extensive spinal injuries were screaming at me on the morning of the second day, I chose to only carry a small compact camera rather than walk around with a camera bag over my shoulder holding my better, bigger and heavier camera and a few lenses. So, all of these photos were shot with my compact Fuji X30 camera that I carried on a wrist strap with no camera bag whatsoever.
This little camera produces some really nice images as can be seen in these photos here in this blog entry! Every time I use this camera, I'm reminded that it was a mistake for Fuji to drop this particular line of classically-styled compact cameras.
The little gift shop at The Cracker Barrel...
I came close to purchasing this rug and checkers for our house. It seems like a nice thing to have on hand for playing with the grandchildren.
The lines at the ticket booths were much shorter on the second morning so that was good. We made our way into the show much more quickly so our time lingering in the cold was minimal on this morning. This time, we started in the fourth building and worked our way toward the first building from day one of the show.
When we got to this model scene, below, on one of the layouts, Sheila said, "Hey look... it is Kenzie taking a selfie!"
Here is a photo of the entrance to one of the buildings housing this giant train show...
There were even a few vendors selling old dishes from defunct railroads of the past...
Below are a couple of new N scale locomotives with sound... something that did not exist when I modeled in N scale. These newer DCC locomotives run much better than the older DC locomotives too.
It took me hours of online research to finally find this product shown below. There was absolutely no information about it at this table where it was displayed at the show. After literally hours of searching for this product, I somehow stumbled upon it by accident while searching for something else!
This is a pretty cool idea. It turns out that these are Kato Mini Dioramas in N scale... each section of track is screwed to its own little scenic base. It is kind of a cool idea but I feel like it was only partially thought through... not complete... not enough options... sort of a prototype of a single, simple idea that isn't ready for the market. I'm definitely not too fond of the "chain of islands" appearance. Each of these mini dioramas are actually too small. In fact, each of these island-like mini dioramas comes with a small track extension because they already know they are too small to be even a mini diorama!
In my mind, I see larger sections that mate together more seamlessly yet they still will separate in larger sections to be displayed as a tiny diorama or even to store fairly easily. This is actually a great idea but, in my opinion, poorly implemented so I wanted more information to see if it could be adapted without starting from scratch. (Hint... I found that they are not adaptable so you would need to start from scratch which means it is a product that probably will not sell well.)
While I was busy looking more closely at the street scenes, Sheila noticed some sunbathing on a rooftop so I captured a quick photo of this scene...
This N scale amusement park scene, below, was completely motorized and animated. I captured a video clip of this amusement park but, unfortunately, the audio did not record. It is a shame that I didn't capture any audio of this because there were all sorts of amusement park sounds emanating from this scene. I think this loss of sound was partly user error (ie, me) and possibly a quirk or fault of this compact Fuji camera. In hindsight, I should have brought a small mic to mount on this compact camera.
Below is a shot of the first building we entered on the first day of the show. We reversed our path on the second day so we finished at this building on the second day. This building is always my favorite building of the show. The aisles are wider and I like most of the layouts displayed here. Because of the wider aisles, this building doesn't get as uncomfortably crowded (shoulder-to-shoulder) as the other buildings with narrower aisles.
This, shown below, was something new that we hadn't seen in previous shows. One of the O scale three rail layouts had a car that had a simulated brake fire. You could hear the engineer talking on the radio about this emergency as the brakes glowed brighter and brighter and smoke started pouring out of the wheelset as the train continued on its journey. Nice effect!
A wedding scene...
A funeral scene... something I am far too familiar with...
Maggie the clown (on stilts) was entertaining the line of children waiting for balloons and face-painting...
We always have a good time at this show and it was nice to get back here after taking a number of years off due to the pandemic. Even putting aside this enormous train show, it was definitely nice to socialize again!
That being said, I don't think we'll be attending this show next year. There is another show in the April/May timeframe every year that we'd like to attend (a large scale-only show) plus there are many other trips to take and my health can only tolerate so much traveling. As much as I like this huge train show, it is too crowded and, honestly, too big for my spinal injuries so it is very painful for me. The irony here is that this train show has so much and is so large that it makes all other train shows seem puny and almost pointless so it is a shame to skip this show!
I always forget just how painful it is walking around this immense train show until I am there again. In fact, it is this show that always gets me looking into wheelchairs which is a sign of how painful it is for me to be walking around this huge show. Unfortunately, trying to get around this show in a wheelchair would be an exercise in frustration because it is so crowded. Also, many of the layouts would be hard to view from a wheelchair because the layout heights are meant to be viewed while standing. The pain I experience at this show, however, always gets me thinking about wheelchairs though.
I'm not fond of pushy salesmen and their lame, boring schpiels either and this year's show was filled with pushy salesmen actively pushing customers to make a sale. I refuse to buy anything from a salesman who is pushy. To me, a pushy salesman is disrespectful and not worthy of getting the sale. It is a "show"... show your products, provide good solid information about your products, and direct people to your online storefront. Be helpful and memorable in a positive way and the business will come to you. Be an annoying used car salesman and potential customers will avoid you like the plague.
Consequently, it seems like a good time to take another pandemic-like break from this show. We'll see what happens next year though... I may change my mind at the last minute.
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