I come down to York from Connecticut. Google maps says with no traffic it is about a 5 1/2 hour drive one way. So far, having gone 4 times in the last 3 years, there has always been traffic on the PA highways (lots of it), so add at least another hour. Because of the distance I stay overnight. When you add in the cost of gas, tolls, eating on the road, a hotel for the night, and York admission ticket, for the amount of things I've purchased (average $400+/- each trip), York isn't a deal. I could buy the same things for less by scouring the internet for dealer inventory, eBay items and even forum deals, and skip the expense of going to York. But York is fun!
York is fun, the Big E show is fun, local swap meets are fun, going into one of the super stores like Charles Ro is fun, visiting the NJ Hi-Railers club is fun, playing with my trains is fun, hell, just staring at my wall of rolling stock is fun. For me, that's the point of going to York - fun. I'm newer to the hobby (last 5 years), so I don't have any comparisons to make to the good old days when it was more fun - i.e. I've never seen Neil Young or Frank Sinatra at York - but if I had any more fun, I might go into cardiac arrest.
York is fun because you can see pretty much anything related to the hobby on one table or another. York is fun because there are people there with experience who you can talk to about the hobby. York is fun because while in the area you can visit places like the Choochoo Barn (so cool!), the Toy Train Museum (fascinating) and the Railroad Museum of Pennsylvania (educational). I even stayed in Ronk and slept (plus other stuff) in a caboose for a night one year. Did I mention you can have fun at York?
Is it all fun? Nah. Some of the people selling are crotchety miserable people who don't post prices, tag everything with unrealistic prices, or act like you are doing them a favor when you buy something. Out in the aisles there are the aggressive buyers who act like the other attendees (all 10,000 of us) aren't even there. Then there is the occasional old fart who, well, smells like an old fart, or worse. God bless him for still coming out. The miserable seller I skip. The aggressive buyer I mistakenly hip check into a table when I get the chance, and the old fart...I guess we'll all get there someday. Oh, no, ain't nobody going to ruin my fun! Keep it going York - I love it.
Speaking of pricing, my wife picked up a used piece of modern rolling stock that was marked $25. Not much on dickering, she got up the nerve to ask if the seller would take $20? Before she even finished saying the word "twenty" the seller said yes. Should have said $15 - darn. Later in the day, an engine marked at a price of $200 was sold to me for $175 just because I didn't say anything. I just kept looking at it and the guy dropped the price. Probably could have gotten that for $150. We are horrible at negotiating. Oh, well, we had fun.
