Well,

I am back from the Chicago area after attending the March Meet O Scale show.  Tons of items for sale and a large crowd.   There were a couple of people I wanted to meet but every time I stopped by their table they were well engaged in conversations with potential buyers and well time was limited.  So I will be purchasing products from them online.

I did get to meet old friends and some new friends that I hope to see again next year.  For the 2nd year in a row I was able to participate in an operating session at the Fox Valley O Scalers layout.  Was able to operate the meat train from Calmar all the way to Dubuque so that was fun.  If you are interested in learning more about the Fox Valley O Scalers check out their website. http://railsunlimited.ribbonrail.com/FoxValley/index.html.

I attended two meeting on Friday night and the growth of the hobby was the primary discussion in one and was part of the 2nd meeting.  The O Scale Kings meeting had the growth as the main point of discussion.  People have been saying for 30-40 years that O Scale is dying and yet here we still are..  I will agree that the majority of the people attending the March Meet are in their 60's, 70's, and 80's.  Some of the younger people in their 40's and 50's such as myself have moved into O Scale as our eyes are not as good as they were 20 years ago and we do not have the manual dexterity to put N scale and HO scale cars together.  A big point that was brought up was that most of the product produced is for steam era and many of the younger people have no inkling of what the steam era was like.  There are modern engines and cars being produced but that most of the manufacturers and parts suppliers focus on steam era.

We need more modern equipment but it also has to become more affordable... with that said there was a gentleman who is planning on producing resin kits of four different types of the FMC 50'6" boxcar.  Thing is he needs to know that he can sell a specific number of cars before he can go through with production. If you are interested check out his website....still new...just a couple of weeks old so he has not finished updating it as he was trying to get his sample cars done for the show.  go to ModernEraOScale.com.  I put my name down for four so we will see what happens.

The other meeting was the Proto:48 meeting and it got a bit contentious.   There is an attitude in the industry where people feel that someone should produce a certain model for example and get a bit bent out of shape when told no.   Argument was that is fine if someone does not want to put the effort in to something that may not sell.....tell us that....don't say there is no market for said items....especially when you are sold out of modern era items...  With that said, the growth of the P48 group is also dependent upon new people getting in to modeling or convincing those individuals that are detail oriented in HO to move up....

So, I only bought one item and it was an American Standard gondola kit for RailGon.  Add that to my three American Standard air hopper kits I do have some modeling work to do.  It really helps to finally nail down what I want to model so that I am much pickier on what I am buying at a show like the March Meet.  There were quite a few things I saw that I thought, oh cool!, that would be fun to have but then it does not fit for what I am modeling.   I really need to find a OTTX 60' flat car or something that is very close that can be made into an OTTX version.  That and four bay cylindrical covered hoppers in the CP pacman scheme.