The NASG Altoona convention was a lot of fun, especially for those who shared comaraderie and beer at Jamie and Andy's room until after midnight over several consecutive nights!
Outside of model news, the highlight for me was the tour of the Freight Car America plant in Johnstown where they showed us in great detail their current production of aluminum coal hoppers for American Electric Power (AEPX). Modern stuff is of no interest to me in terms of modeling, but as a professional in the business I found the tour greatly informative. The other tours I went on included East Broad Top RR and the Rockhill Trolley Museum; Altoona Railroaders Museum, Horseshoe Curve & Gallitzin; and also in Johnstown the Flood Museum and Incline. All these tours were great, but they also all ran late and three consecutive days of it was a bit much, especially after drinking too much beer the night before! By Saturday I was burned out of taking tours and skipped the NS Juniata Shops and Everett RR, the former of which at least I would have liked to see. Of note, on the way home Sunday I drove through Avis, Pennsylvania, where the NYC had a large car shop that was dedicated to open-top cars in the steam era. This made sense for hoppers because it was deep in NYC's PA coal territory, and the gons and flat cars made a good fit to fill out the shop's system responsibility. I'm not sure when Avis closed, but I don't think it survived into the PC merger. In the present day, there is hardly a clue to the casual observer that there was ever a railroad at all in Avis, let alone a large car shop. I did find the former passenger station tucked away on a back street. Oh, you want to know about models at the convention? Here's a list of noteworthy models in the contest: * Simon Parent's CN 2-6-0 with an obsessive amount of fine detail (winner of Best in Show and the popular vote) * Keith Thompson's scratch-built PRR electric (sorry I can't remember the specific class, I think it had a 4-6-4 wheel arrangement) * Ed Loizeaux displayed a scratch-built NYC P-2 electric which he paid a New Zealander to build for him. * Keith Thompson's PRR H21 hopper made from his own resin castings from his own master patterns. This is a model that should be issued as a kit. Everybody, even if you don't model the Pennsy, needs multiples of H21s. * There was at least one other scratchbuilt freight car that was very nice; I apologize for not being able to remember what it was or who built it. * Again, apologies for not remembering who the entrant was, but there was well-finished pair of NYC PAs. In the dealer room, there was the Canadian invasion as Andy Malette's MLW CN K-3 Pacific kit was available for sale (and there were actual takers!), and the Clubines, d/b/a Ridgehill Scale Models, shared Andy's table space to show their new Fowler box cars as well as the previously-issued CN cabooses. Unfortunately they couldn't sell anything because UPS couldn't get the shipment through customs quickly enough to deliver in time. Andy promises that 69" drivers will become available, at which time I will deliberate over whether it's worth C$1100 to model CN 5056, a J-3 Pacific which shows up in a color photo of Rutland train #64 at Rutland, Vermont. No doubt a sub for bad-ordered Rutland power in Montreal that morning, it was surely a rarity and a challenge to justify the cost and effort for a model. But it <did> operate on the territory my future layout would depict! I took a long time studying S Helper's B&O E-27 2-8-0 and concluded that it is a very doable conversion to a Rutland G-34 Consolidation. It certainly will take far less work than Andy went to in his CN conversion of the AM Pacific. Previously I had assumed the B&O engines were much larger than the Rutland's, so I was pleasantly surprised to see how close they actually were. On that basis, I will be buying at least a couple of the S Helper engines when they come out (Skip Mersereau is now examining his bank balance to see how many he can afford). Rutland 2-8-0s are a higher priority than a CN J-3 (sorry, Andy). Notable absences were Ron Sebastian of Des Plaines Hobbies and Bill Wade of BTS. I was particularly looking forward to discussing Ron's upcoming plastic X29, so it was a disappointment. Also, Earl Tuson of Standard Railway Castings Co. (SRCC) could not make it due to his current family situation. There was a lot of new and used brass on the floor, including the Pennsy S table where they had brass X29s to show and G26s to sell. Much used brass was available at decent prices, and Jettie Padgett was holding what was basically a going-out-of-business sale. I picked up some NYC milk cars for good prices. I waited until the end of the show, not only because it was a strategy to negotiate for a lower price, but because I thought I'd give others their chance after being stimulated by Ed L's clinic on modeling milk operations. Apparently the clinic did not generate any impulse buying and I bought all three of the unpainted NYC milk cars that were there. Some painted cars may have been sold, but I was not interested in those and did not notice if they went. I found the number of prototype modelers in attendance to be satisfactory to justify attendance at the convention on that basis. It may not be the best venue for sales potential for the budding mfrs like MLW, RSM and SRCC, but I think it's more satisfactory than the NMRA conventions which are just plain too big; we S-scalers get lost in that environment. OTOH, S-scale presence at the Prototype Modelers Seminar at Naperville, IL every October is also minimal, but at least the bulk of the non-S attendees are prototype modelers who are fertile ground for conversion. I'm really looking forward to going to the NASG 2006 convention in Pontiac, Michigan. The SMSG folks did a great job in Dearborn in 1996 and it should be comparably enjoyable. But for now, kudos to the Altoona crew for a job well done - Jeff English Troy, New York To REPLY to the list, use REPLY ALL; to reply to the sender, use REPLY. For those of you on DIGEST mode, all REPLY messages go to the list (remember to edit the SUBJECT of your message). 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