My observations at the Seattle Show

Espeenut

New Member
Now that I've had a couple of days to mentally digest all the things I saw at the Seattle National Train Show I thought I'd share a few of my observations with you guys.
Being with a display layout that was setting up two days before the show actually started, this gave me a bit of a jump on regular attendees, so I made the rounds to check out what was going to be on display by the various vendors and manufacturers.
The dealers were from as close as several miles away to all the way from England, and prices were equally as spread apart, with some very definite bargains to asking full retail plus Washington state sales tax. I managed to score some good deals on a couple of Athearn SD50's and a Kato SD70MAC.
The manufacturers were represented by almost all of the big names in the business, the only ones that I noticed not being there were some of the smaller makers like American Model Builders, Detail Associates, and other similar businesses.
For me the star of the show was undoubtedly the new SD45T-2 announced by Athearn on opening day, I had heard the previous day that Athearn had brought a surprise, when I walked up to the booth that morning John Engstrom spotted me looking around and asked, "...looking for this?..." as he pointed out the new tunnel motor. I spent probably an hour in total admiring this beautiful model locomotive, I'll be buying at least four of them when they arrive. Then came the FP7 from Marty and the gang at Intermountain. Rob and the boys from Atlas had the new Train Masters on display and also running around on a small layout to demonstrate their sound system, they also showed the test shot model of the upcoming Dash 8-40C widenose cab version, along with the new SD-26, re-vamped GP38, and the new corn syrup cars. OMI had a case full of exclusive goodies for all to ponder. Kato had nothing new to introduce, but said the SD38-2 would be worth waiting for. BLI had all their current line on display, including a 'beta' version of the upcoming switcher. Lifelike/P2K had the new GP38-2's there alongside the SD50, 45, and heritage steamers.
One of the highlights for me as well was being able to get up close and personal with some of the incredible models on display at the Cannon and Co. booth, these were built by names you all know: Brian Rutherford, Dave Hussey, and Jim Fix. The other equally incredible models on display were at the Details West booth, where I met Paul Federico, very nice guy, He had constructed many of the models, but I believe there were some made by other builders as well. Nice Stuff!!
I don't know if any of you were there as well, if you were, let me know what you thought of the show and our display. Overall I thought it was a good show and had quite a good time, the new tunnel motor made it all worth the trip for me.

Lorne Miller :thumb: :D :)
 
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