# Vendors at SWGRS Show



## Gary Woolard (Jan 2, 2008)

Hey, kids! Let's go look at the vendors' tables at SWGRS!

Everything's lime green, so we must be at the *GREX* booth. Don Gage is showing Laura Bliese (with her back to us) the finer points of airbrush control after she sprayed her name. Don gave a weathering clinic right there at the booth which filled up all the chairs available. I didn't notice anything new at the booth, however.










The *USA TRAINS* table.










Here's a neat new gimmick from USA -- a caboose with an operating smoke jack! (Soon to be available in several road names, natch!)










Once again I found myself drawn like a moth to all the neat stuff at Bruce Hebron's *METAL SHEDDE* table. Besides the AW-NUTS cars and others, Bruce also makes military models of exotic prototypes.










A master of forced perspective, he also makes these hanging dioramas that seem to come right out from the wall.










Jonathan Bliese's *ELECTRIC MODEL WORKS* tables. Jonathan's show prices gave me very itchy fingers near a couple of those items.










Here's something I could easily afford, and actually needed! I bought a set of BridgeWerks Engine Jacks at the *ST. AUBIN'S* Table.










These things take the place of conventional test rollers, like the unit in the foreground below. The low-profile adjustable jacks are almost invisible beneath the drive wheels of the U.P. diesel below.










John Schneider of *JUST PLAIN FOLK* has been getting into buildings with his PlainVille line. The stone-walled freight station is named after one in Pomona. There was also a terrific garage with an outside light and two large 'salt-box' buildings on the left.










One of the neat things about these buildings is that they have a self-contained lighting unit built into the roofs! Here you can see the battery compartment, switch and bulb.











Father and son look over the offerings at *RAINBOW RIDGE*, as I chat with proprietor Ross Piper in the background.










Besides their buildings, RAINBOW RIDGE is offering this line of culvert bridges, each with different stone patterns. Ross mills the stone patterns into sheets of precision board for their customers. He says that a CNC machine was the best investment he's made!










Here's one of those garage industry items that make you think "Duh! Why didn't I think of that?" Based, I guess, on those closet shoe hangers, but re-dimensioned of stronger material and with a velcro-fastened hinge halfway down the bag, the *CLOSET RAILROAD* "hanging storage solution" was leaving the show under a lot of arms. (Yes, that's a unit being folded into a shoulder carrier without removing any cars. I bought two! )










These tank platforms are some of Randy Bryie's newer offerings at the *PACIFIC GARDEN RAILWAY SUPPLY* table. Note the differences between the diesel fuel, water, and oil tank platforms. They're available in both 1/24 and 1/20.3 scales, and are suitable for outdoor use.










The *EAGLEWINGS IRONCRAFT* table. That bright yellow container crane in the foreground just got a 'heads up' in G.R. (See p.10 of the December issue.)










Another angle featuring their new church and a period gas station.










And here's the engine house Dan has been teasing us with here on MLS. I didn't see any mention of automatically opening doors though. Will that be an option, Dan?










A couple of new buidings from *COLORADO MODEL STRUCTURES* -- "Whitlow's Barn" and the "Bronner Mining Co.", which doesn't even show up on their web site yet.










A few paragraphs back I mentioned a "Duh! Why didn't I think of that?" item; here's another one, from *SPLIT JAW*. It's a fairly typical ramp for loading & unloading your rolling stock & engines from your track, like their standard "E-Z Loader." The difference is that the bottom of this ramp has contacts built in which take the power from the track below, and feed up to rails built into the top surface. Bingo, instantly powered engine loading! The pix below should be fairly explanatory.










They were also demonstrating an automatic reversing unit with a show price of $150.00

I stopped to talk with Bill Barbe of the *CAROLWOOD PACIFIC HISTORICAL SOCIETY*, the club for afficianados of all of Walt Disney's railroading adventures. It's a very informal and fun bunch of people. They've rebuilt Walts' barn from his ride-on railroad, and if you're ever in the Griffith Park area on the third Sunday of the month, somebody there will be happy to show you through it.

Now the Carolwood folks have a new and ambitious project -- to restore and display the 'combine' car from the original consist, called "Retlaw 1", that ran around Disneyland in the "50's and "60's. For various levels of donation, you can get pins, t-shirts, limited edition art, or even a G-Scale model of the car! For details, visit http://www.Carolwood.org/Support/combine/

(Four of the remaining 'Retlaw' cars now reside on a private railroad in Santa Margarita, CA. If you'd like to know more of the back story, or are interested in a nostalgic ride, you could start with this article I wrote for a local club newsletter. - http://1stclass.mylargescale.com/garywoolard/SantaMargarita Article.pdf)










Michael Niebaum of MICHAEL'S CUSTOM WOODWORKING showed up at the Chicago NGRC a few years ago with a great line of custom-milled siding and a few buildings. Michael works in Louisburg, KS, and hasn't come out to the West Coast shows very often. It was great to see his ever-growing assortment of buildings, trestles, and siding. He was also selling a trestle jig which was very popular.










Here's Fred Devine at the Accucraft booth, with both of the new Forneys on the table.










There were several new offerings, including an 0-6-0 switcher with tender in live steam (1/32, I think) and this little dockside cutie, soon to be available by reservation only in electric or steam --










Okay, here's the shot that makes my heart ache. Y'all just talk amongst yourselves while I go hide in a corner and gnash my teeth and weep quietly for a moment. Maybe if I sell my car?

Presenting the Accucraft Mason Bogie:










Now here's an odd one! As you can see, the booth is called "Shourt Line Products", and when I googled them I found the following - "Shourt Line by Soft Works Ltd. offers new and used model railroad products as well as repair, conversions and installation services."










But what I was really interested in was that circus tent, and I hadn't even noticed the booth until I saw SWMTP's picture. So I continued my search until I found an entire page devoted to that circus tent.

It's a beautiful tent. UV resistant fabric, machined connectors, metal and fiberglas poles, and the whole tent can be folded onto a flat car load. And it can beYours, for only the price of two Accucraft Mason Bogies!

Moving on... here's the Bachmann table. There wasn't anything new since Denver that I could see, but you gotta' love that big toy Thomas the Tank they plunked down in the middle of the table!










There were other vendors not covered here; Econobridge, Kern Valley, Empire Builder, etc., but this thread is already too long! A few 'listed' vendors were no-shows, and a few manufacturers like Aristocraft and Hartland just didn't bother. (I did buy a neat building from UPLAND TRAINS, but you can see it on p.111 of this month's GR)

I think we have the beginnings of an interesting show here. SWMTP says the light in the exhibit hall was the best of any show venue yet. I hope to see more next year!


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## gscaleisfun (Jan 14, 2008)

Thanks Gary for all the great pictures and descriptions. I guess I'm so busy working the show that I don't have time to look real close. 
Next years show should be bigger and better. I'm just working out all of the details right now. 
I got a lot of compliments from the vendors and the people attending. 
Thanks again 

David Roberts


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## Les (Feb 11, 2008)

Gary,


Thank you for the great pictures! Your text was outstanding, it was almost like being there. 

Les


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## Jerry Barnes (Jan 2, 2008)

GREAT coverage! You should writeup all the shows! Thanks.


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## Steve Stockham (Jan 2, 2008)

Yes Gary, thanks for the write-up and with all the pics! It really gives those of us that weren't able to attend a feel for the show!


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## altterrain (Jan 2, 2008)

I always thought those things were for your shoes! 










http://www.stacksandstacks.com/hang...arge-pairs 

-Brian


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## Greg Elmassian (Jan 3, 2008)

The 0-6-0 and the 0-4-0 docksider are AML, and are 1:29... the 0-6-0 has been available in sparkie for a while, now available in live steam, the 0-4-0 is on preorder and will be available in both live steam and sparkie... 

I the picture of Jonathan's booth is before I grabbed the Casey Jones railtruck, just to the right of the goose.... 

Nice pictures... 

Greg


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## David Fletcher (Jan 2, 2008)

Hey Gary, 
Thanks for the photo tour of the show, something you always do well and is most appreciated over here, where we just cant get to those shows. That Mason sure is fine, but at least it is now something that can be purchased (as opposed to scratch built!), and in live steam as well...in all these years do you know its still not possible to buy Root Beer around here??! What, its been over 6 years since you gave me that fab six back, which were gone in 2 days, and we still cant buy root beer here, and I cant scratch build root beer either...neither money nor skill can solve that one!! The Mason? Its only money.... (I wont swap mine, even for another 6 pack!). 

Thanks Gary, top photos mate, 
David.


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## Gary Woolard (Jan 2, 2008)

Thanks guys, for all the compliments!

*Brian*: It's a fair comparison at first look, I thought so too. But if you compare the dimensions of your shoe hangers vs. the train rig, you'll see that the trin compartments are substantially longer. (And taller too? I forget!) Besides, this rig has velcro in places that allow you to fold and strap a bag for carrying the cars around. All this for $3.00 more than your shoe hangers!


Turns out her web site doesn't work. But I got her phone number if anybody wants it. 


*David*: Lissen' up.. I gotta' plan! First you hock everything you've got to license a good root beer formula like *I.B.C. * Then with the rest of all your money (details, details!) you lease an old defunct bottling plant. And you start making root beer..

Now here's the trick. Since nobody there knows what root beer tastes like anyway, you could market the stuff as _*DREAMTIME TONIC*_, tell everybody it comes from roots that the Abo's dig up around Uluru (Ayres Rock). Then you gotta put on the label that it _BOOSTS IMMUNITY!_ If anybody asks "immunity to what?" you can just get kinda' vague and talk about 'immunity from thirst." Heck, Kelloggs is getting away with that on their Cocoa Krispies here in the States, so you might as well try it down there!

After a few years , you're rich! Sell the company and buy a plastics molding plant in China! Eureka! *"FLETCHER MODELLING COMPANY"!*


see?


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