The train show started an hour later on Sunday, day two, so we got an extra hour of sleep before heading to the fairgrounds. 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 at the show. Actually, we were only at the show for about four hours on the first day and left early due to spinal pain. Since my 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. So, all of these photos were shot with my compact Fuji X30 camera. This little camera produces some really nice images!
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. 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 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...
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. Actually, I stumbled upon this product by accident after hours of searching for it! It is a pretty cool idea. 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'm not too fond of the "chain of islands" appearance...
Sheila noticed some sunbathing on a rooftop...
This N scale amusement park scene, below, was completely motorized and animated...
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...
This, below, was something new. 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. 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. 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 plus there are many other trips to take. This show is too crowded and, honestly, too big for my spinal injuries so it is very painful for me. I'm not fond of pushy salesmen either and this year's show was filled with pushy salesmen. It seems like a good time to take another pandemic-like break. We'll see what happens next year...
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