(Trevor's) Final Countdown

The Springfield Show has come and gone.  This was the third year in a row for four members of our group, but for me it was the first.  We ended up travelling down in three "sections" making limited stops in Moncton, Calais, somewhere else in Maine and finally Springfield.  It was a good thing we aren't really in the passenger business as we only managed to pick up one passenger in Moncton.

The show was fantastic. When I first arrived I never thought I was going to be able to cover it all. There were four large buildings totaling a third of million square feet and change.  I didn't have that big of a list thankfully so I didn't end up blowing the budget.  In fact, I had everything I had come for in an hour and a half, with everything else being icing on the cake.  The thing I really liked about the show was the amount of ideas you could get from looking at the various kits available (not Walther's kits but real, wood kits) as well as the custom cars and locomotives. One thing I didn't like was the number of Blue Box kits selling for $15 to $20, when brand new Intermountain and Atlas cars were priced between $20 and $25.  It made the choice of what to buy quite easy.  Day one was strictly a shopping day, whereas day two was a day to look at the modules and pick up anything that interested me.  Here are some photos I took of the show.

For those interested, Jamie Richards took way more photos than I did.  I have included the link below:

https://www.flickr.com/photos/jamiestrains/sets/72157650474419011/

The weekend itself was nothing short of fantastic and something I won't forget anytime soon.  We've always had a really great group of guys in our operating group and everyone was able to attend other than two or three guys.  Everyone gets along very well and the whole weekend was one big laugh riot for the most part and I couldn't have asked for a better bunch of people to go down with.  It was also funny running into other members of the Maritime Federation of Model Railroaders down there as well. In total, I think I say close to ten other people from the MFMR over the course of the two days.

By the way, the title for this one extends from a member of our regular operating group.  He began to count down the days to Springfield back in October or so and had been known to call out the "number of sleeps" across the lunchroom to another member of our group who happens to work for the same employer.