Off to another Train Show/Flea Market

[jrbernier]

  This is really the 'busy' season; The 3rd train sale in a row.  We were up at 5 AM, and will hit the road at 7 AM for the drive up to MPLS/St Paul.  I was doing a 'good' clean-out of my N scale stuff last night.  Lots of flex/turnouts, and a couple of boxes of 'junk'.  I have 7 boxes of stuff! 

  My plans were to go to N scale, and I started accumulating materials in 1991.   Never did get the HO railroad torn down, and decided to stay with HO in 2002(my 'over 50' eyes and being able to 'build' models made me re-think my plans).

  The past 2 years has been the 'sell off' of the N scale stuff and have hit about 10 shows every season.  Last night I did some more thinking(dangerous) and one of the best things about the train shows is meeting my friends.  I have noticed in the fast few years that I am more active in the hobby, and even the Regional/Divisional activities.  Somehow, 'face to face' activity in the hobby gets the creative juices flowing.  Though I am active on the forums, the primary goal is modeling; and the computer/forums are just another 'tool' to assist me with my modeling.  Being downstairs on a cold Minnesota night working on the layout is very enjoyable.

  Well, I have to get going; fill the truck with gas, and get some coffee for the hour+ trip to the train show in White Bear Lake.  I hope the rest of you have as an enjoyable day 'playing' with trains that I plan to have!

Jim Bernier

[ARTHILL]

Well, I will see you at the show, though we may not know it, seeing we do not know each other and could meet and not know it. I agree that meeting is fun, but difficult to get us out of the train room to be sociable.

[Anonymous]

   My plans were to go to N scale, and I started accumulating materials in 1991.   Never did get the HO railroad torn down, and decided to stay with HO in 2002(my 'over 50' eyes and being able to 'build' models made me re-think my plans).

I'm a newbie and I somehow couldn't decide on one scale either.  I tried both N and HO after digging out my fathers O-scale Lionel after many years.  I decided to keep the O-scale stuff for seasonal Christmas use and use one of the smaller scales for year round use.  My main layout is now HO, but I'm still picking up N-scale stuff at shows and kept a small oval setup.