Anything That You Passed Up at the York Meet, and Now Regret

Oh Brian, you bring up a sore subject that defines my entire York Meet trip.

Usually I buy trains with impunity, like a drunken sailor. And I had lustful eyes on a few items. Some I held in my hands and daydreamed of them pounding the rails of my Railroad. I was offered a good deal on a Vision Line UP Challenger #3985, the one I’ve been wanting. Then there were the two MTH Southern Pacific Dash 9’s I imagined pulling a long freight to a far away destination. And the MTH NASA S-2 diesel switcher ready for work hauling my K-Line NASA cars out of a siding. And finally, the K-Line AA set of Burlington E8 diesels pulling my K-Line California Zephyr out of San Diego terminal.

But no!! I was accosted by some “friends” performing an intervention. They grilled me on my choice to buy trains and just storing them rather than setting up a temporary layout to run the trains I have. My wife offered me the entire living room for this purpose (14’X12’) until the Train Palace can be built. The money I spend on the trains, they pointedly reasoned, should go towards construction of the building.

Like a petulant child I fought them and told them those were the trains I wanted and didn’t want to wait. Then they played dirty. They tried to convince me to instead invest in Mianne Benchwork to use in the living room. Then when the Train Palace is built, Tim Foley can integrate the living room Benchwork into the new larger layout.

@&$€#%¥ , I said! I want to get those trains now! As I proceeded to shop their words began to take hold of my reasonable side. I knew they were right, but I didn’t care. But I did care. It made all the sense in the world. But so what, I’ll buy the trains now and save for the building later. Then I realized, I’d been doing that the last five York Meets!!

I woke up Saturday morning grumpy. I didn’t even rush to the Fairgrounds or eat any breakfast. I didn’t want to talk to anyone else. I wanted to buy trains! And then it hit me. Like when the Grinch’s heart grew five sizes, I relished the thought of running trains again! For the first time in 2 1/2 years I’d be running trains again!! And the Toy Train Devil whispered in my ear, “Get the Benchwork and order the trains you want online later.” I was dripping with excitement and went to the Mianne booth to work with Tim to configure my temporary layout.

It wasn’t all so bad. I could now run trains and come home from York without packages, boxes or bags!! It was still a great York Meet and one I’ll remember that set me on the right path.

Ok, maybe it wasn’t quite that dramatic, but I did do a lot of thinking. Now I just have to confirm the measurements and I’ll be starting a cool temporary layout in a few weeks!!

There was a couple of PRR passenger cars and a couple of engines I would had liked to gotten, but I got a lot of stuff. I'll post everything when I get back to Michigan. We're leaving York shortly.

They only thing I glanced twice at was some one in the silver hall selling weathered engines. A 3rdrail L2 Mohawk 400 or so bucks. I thought to myself I’d need to put another. 300 bucks into it to bring it up to my standards. I have enough projects now, so I left it as is.

Maybe, I should have purchased another dozen of these to make a really neat unit train.......

Peter