2016-2017 Upstate New York Train Show Season

Okay, here is a list for the remainder of the season, barring anything that hasn't been announced yet.

December -

12/10-12/11 - Rochester - RIT Tiger Tracks Train Show, Gordon Field House
12/11 - Glens Falls - Upstate Model Railroaders Annual Hobby, Craft and Collectible Expo, Chase Sports Complex
12/17-12/18 - Buffalo - Broadway Market Train Show, Broadway Market

2017 Spring:

January -

1/8 - Buffalo (West Seneca) - TCA Show and Meet, Ismalia Shrine Center
1/15 - Utica - TTCS 35th annual Utica show, Union Station

(1/28-1/29 - Amherst/Springfield MA - Amherst Railway Society Hobby Show, Eastern States Exposition)

February -

2/5 - Depew NY - TTCS Buffalo Snowball Train Show, Polish Falcons
2/12 - Fishkill - Fishkill Model Train & Hobby Show, Fishkill Recreation Center
2/18-2/19 - Hamburg - WNYRHS Winter Train & Toy Show, Erie County Fairgrounds
2/25 - Rochester - TCA Upstate NY Chapter Meet, Edgerton Community Center
2/26 - Syracuse (Eastwood) - Syracuse Model Railroad Club annual show

I still don't have a confirm on Eastwood beyond a verbal one from a club member.


March -


3/? - Albany - Albany Train Show, Polish Community Center (likely the 12th or 26th)
3/5 - Scranton - Scranton Model Train Show, Lackawanna Station Hotel
3/11 - Binghamton - Binghamton Regional Train Show, American Legion
3/12 - Buffalo (West Seneca) - TCA Toy Train Show, Ismalia Shrine
3/19 - Rochester - TTCS Rochester Shamrock Train Show, Eagle Club
3/19 - Kingston - Kingston Model Train and Railroad Hobby Show, Murphy Midtown Center
3/26 - Batavia - GSME Great Batavia Train Show, Clarion Hotel

Still no details for a TCA Horseheads show in March but possibly the 4th.

April -

4/1-4/2 - Rochester - Greenberg Train Show, Dome Center
4/9 - N Tonowanda - TTCS Spring Into Summer show, Kights Of Columbus (Note date, website is incorrect)
4/9 - Amsterdam - Alco T&HS Rails Along The Mohawk show, Riverfront Center
4/8-4/9 - Webster - W.A.S.P.S./FCTT Model Train Show & Sale
4/22-4/23 - Illion - Valley Rail Sights sponsored by FUNTRAK, Masonic Temple, 118 Morgan St.
4/29-4/30 - Lockport - TTCS/NOME Lockport Train & Toy Show, Keenan Arena

4/? Greene - Greene Model Railroad Club Train Show - likely either the 9th or 16th.

May -

5/12-5/13-5/14 - Scranton, PA - Key, Lock & Lantern 45th Annual Convention and 2017 Transportation History Expo, Lackawanna Station Hotel

It's likely there will be something in Jamestown related to National Train Day, also.

Forgot that April 16th is Easter, so that Greene show will have to be either the 9th or the 23rd.

RIT Tiger Tracks announced I think a new record attendance, over 4400 people through the door.

I think only about 10% of them were buying, though. No one I talked to was doing as well as they should for having so many people come in, I'm not sure what was going on there. I did more than twice as much, myself, the week before at the GTE show in Albany - in one day and with 1000 less people through. Heck I've done twice as much in sales at a Batavia show, too.

Well, they all have their years where they run hot and cold - this isn't the first RIT I've done where the sales were a stinkeroo and you didn't break even on the expenses even on the first day, I'd have to look in my book but I'm fairly certain I did worse about four or five years ago.

Just too many guys in there dumping stuff to compete with on top of the usual other vendors, it didn't even matter that I walked around and looked and purposely priced some of my stuff below everyone else, none of those things sold.

LVRR325 - I realize there are a lot of variables from one show to another - ease of parking, proximity to interstates, proximity to large metropolitan areas, proximity to train-watching spots and a ton of other things.

But as a veteran of many years of this stuff, how do you see the shows which come late in the calendar year compared to springtime shows? It would seem that right now people are looking at added food and entertainment costs coming up for the holidays, possible family travel, non-railroads gifts for others to be bought, and so on. There might be a lot of competition for a limited number of dollars in a guy's pocket. Thus more lookers than normal the closer to Christmas you get. Or is that not the case?

lvrr325 wrote:RIT Tiger Tracks announced I think a new record attendance, over 4400 people through the door.

I think only about 10% of them were buying, though. No one I talked to was doing as well as they should for having so many people come in, I'm not sure what was going on there. I did more than twice as much, myself, the week before at the GTE show in Albany - in one day and with 1000 less people through. Heck I've done twice as much in sales at a Batavia show, too.

Well, they all have their years where they run hot and cold - this isn't the first RIT I've done where the sales were a stinkeroo and you didn't break even on the expenses even on the first day, I'd have to look in my book but I'm fairly certain I did worse about four or five years ago.

Just too many guys in there dumping stuff to compete with on top of the usual other vendors, it didn't even matter that I walked around and looked and purposely priced some of my stuff below everyone else, none of those things sold.

I forget to look for you... Where was your table?

BR&P wrote:But as a veteran of many years of this stuff, how do you see the shows which come late in the calendar year compared to springtime shows? It would seem that right now people are looking at added food and entertainment costs coming up for the holidays, possible family travel, non-railroads gifts for others to be bought, and so on. There might be a lot of competition for a limited number of dollars in a guy's pocket. Thus more lookers than normal the closer to Christmas you get. Or is that not the case?

Excellent points. I've tried to make this case in the past but it has fallen on deaf ears. The RIT show was held in November once upon a time, and that worked alot better IMO. As good as the RIT show is, it also competes against other regional shows during the fall that are better timed. Adding in not one but three excursions on the same weekend as the RIT show will compete for the attention of railfans. December really isn't a good month for a train show.

Matt Langworthy wrote:

BR&P wrote:But as a veteran of many years of this stuff, how do you see the shows which come late in the calendar year compared to springtime shows? It would seem that right now people are looking at added food and entertainment costs coming up for the holidays, possible family travel, non-railroads gifts for others to be bought, and so on. There might be a lot of competition for a limited number of dollars in a guy's pocket. Thus more lookers than normal the closer to Christmas you get. Or is that not the case?

Excellent points. I've tried to make this case in the past but it has fallen on deaf ears. The RIT show was held in November once upon a time, and that worked alot better IMO. As good as the RIT show is, it also competes against other regional shows during the fall that are better timed. Adding in not one but three excursions on the same weekend as the RIT show will compete for the attention of railfans. December really isn't a good month for a train show.

BR&P and Matt-

I think it is due to limit availability at the Field house.

What changed to limit its availability in November?

Matt Langworthy wrote:What changed to limit its availability in November?

That was what I understood from few years ago when the same question was asked.

As president of RITMRC during the first show in 2006, I think I can shed some light on this. The RIT Tiger Tracks show has never been held in November. Here are the previous dates:

Dec. 9-10, 2006
Dec. 8-9, 2007
Dec. 6-7, 2008
Dec. 5-6, 2009
Dec. 4-5, 2010
Dec. 10-11, 2011
Dec. 8-9, 2012
Dec. 14-15, 2013
Dec. 13-14, 2014
Dec. 12-13, 2015
Dec. 10-11, 2016

RIT switched from a quarter system to a semester system in 2013. I believe this caused the shift to a slightly later show date in 2013.

The field house is a difficult space to secure, especially for an entire weekend. It is constantly scheduled with athletic events, concerts, open houses, and other events. RITMRC is very fortunate to have use of the space.

Prior to Tiger Tracks, RITMRC held two smaller one-day train shows per year, one in March and one in October. These were located in the student union cafeteria.

I graduated in 2007, so I'm pretty far removed at this point. That's about all the insight I can offer.

I can look through my book and there's really no rhyme or reason that I can see to why a show is up or down in a given year or given season. The only one that is reliably consistent is Syracuse. The rest of them can be way up one show and then the next one you sell half that. The same holds true for the car show swaps I do over the warmer months. Attendance doesn't even always correlate, because what I sold last weekend with 4400, I sold twice as much at Eastwood last February with just over 400 through the door, and just about the exact same sales at Batavia in the fall with somewhere around 1000 attending (don't hold me to that).

Every event is a gamble that someone out there needs the things you happen to have that particular week. There's a set group who comes to most of the shows and buys, a second group who occasionally buys, and the rest are just tire kickers who often have no clue what they're even looking at, but sometimes you get impulse buys from them. Some guys want new stuff, they want to see it before they buy, some want older stuff and don't want to spend a fortune, and some figure they have enough and only buy little details or odds and ends.

It is, however, rather unusual for everyone to not be selling very much, unless there's no one there to buy things.

Most of them die off in the afternoon, just about every one could quit an hour earlier for the few people who come in. GTE used to buck that trend, I remember one year I never once got a chance to get away from my table even to go to the john much less look around. But the last few years it's been the same as the others. Even that Scranton show, when I've done it, ends at 2 and the last hour is just about deserted.

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We went through this move RIT argument last year, too. Move it to when in November? Opposite Syracuse? Batavia? Hamburg? Have it Thanksgiving weekend when nobody's at school? You'd have to take it either all the way out to October, or push it into the next January. Compared to those events, the two-day Tiger Tracks is the new kid on the block, so it has to take what's open. Those guys who come to buy things, a percentage come from those other markets, too, so if someone else's event is closer to them they may not come to yours too.

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I finally happened to talk to someone who'd heard about that TTOS show in Syracuse (Cicero) back on the 4th. It was described as a "farce" with maybe a dozen dealers.

One year there was an extra weekend in December and one of these groups had a show at a place in Solvay. that was a nice event. It wasn't opposite anybody and they sold out of tables. You'd think between the two they'd figure out that they need to not be opposite at least GTE.

jnugent56 wrote:As president of RITMRC during the first show in 2006, I think I can shed some light on this. The RIT Tiger Tracks show has never been held in November. Here are the previous dates:

Prior to becoming a two day show, they had one day shows - were there two, one fall, one spring, like Batavia and others do? I did one of them, I believe a spring one. All I remember about it is the beater I had that day a transmission line let go as I was getting close and I had to patch it up on the side of the road and limp to a gas station for some ATF, so I was like an hour or more late. Then I get in there and find out someone had sold a brass LV 4-8-4 for stupid cheap.

IIRC they were in a dining hall over down in closer to the building the layout is in.

Anyway, it's possible back then that there was a fall show in November.

jnugent56 wrote:Prior to Tiger Tracks, RITMRC held two smaller one-day train shows per year, one in March and one in October. These were located in the student union cafeteria.

The smaller shows are what I recall. Thank you for the information.

lvrr325 wrote:Prior to becoming a two day show, they had one day shows - were there two, one fall, one spring, like Batavia and others do? I did one of them, I believe a spring one. All I remember about it is the beater I had that day a transmission line let go as I was getting close and I had to patch it up on the side of the road and limp to a gas station for some ATF, so I was like an hour or more late. Then I get in there and find out someone had sold a brass LV 4-8-4 for stupid cheap.

IIRC they were in a dining hall over down in closer to the building the layout is in.

Anyway, it's possible back then that there was a fall show in November.

Yup, I covered that in the second half of my previous post.

jnugent56 wrote:Prior to Tiger Tracks, RITMRC held two smaller one-day train shows per year, one in March and one in October. These were located in the student union cafeteria.

2005 is about right for when I had that rusty old Suburban. People still remember that thing.