I am one of the newcomers to York and just my opinion but the fact that it could be held and that there was so much to see is a win in itself. Given where we are with Covid, where people still have concerns, I thought it was a pretty healthy turnout. My impression is what others have said on this thread, that most of what I saw for sale was post war/pre war through MPC era, there wasn't as much of 'modern' equipment. Prices for the most part to my (inexperienced) eyes looked decent, I did see some stuff that made me shake my head, like one guy with a sign on a ZW "hot bargain, 160, regularly 200" (ZW's could be had for 100 bucks), and others who were I suspect despite being TCA members were dealers who bought out someone's estate and were trying to get 1990's prices (this was in Purple Hall I think.). For me the way York is laid out kind of worked out nicely, it was nice weather and it forced me to walk, so that was good, too
. Honestly given what I saw there I think York will be in good shape once things really get back to normal.
I also was kind of blown away by the modular standard gauge layout, I had never really noticed standard gauge before and was kind of blown away by it, the trains really are pieces of art (to me). I ended up buying a 1925 engine no 8, not to run it, but because for some reason it touched me that this was something a kid had played with nearly 100 years ago. I am not a collector per se, but for whatever reasons wanted it to display...so I guess you can say it changed me.
I do want to give a shoutout to the people running this, they did a great job, and having done volunteer work like this it can be one of the most thankless things you can do, I made it a point to try and thank the EDTCA people I ran into (sometimes literally).
About the only thing I would say to the folks running York and even other train shows is finding a way to make it easier for dealers and people with tables to accept credit cards and the like. Given how expensive this stuff is, it is kind of clunky to have to carry around a lot of cash and the ATM machines have limits on how much you can take out (I know, this is nothing new). You don't even have to use credit cards, it is possible to use payment vendors like Venmo to send money via email for example. I think people would make a lot more sales if that was made easier,especially if they want to attract younger people, where cash transactions are not all that common.
Overall I enjoyed it and hopefully I can make the April show.
