Several N Scale manufacturers including Micro-Trains, Intermountain, Eastern Seaboard Models and ScaleTrains had slots in the Virtual Train Show that replaced the in-person show at Springfield, Massachusetts. I assume more folks will be on the air tomorrow. Wondering whether anyone watched and has any news, besides the item ScaleTrains posted here on this board. Other than live-streaming which appears to have been free today, the rest is being hosted by Virtual Railfan, which is a mostly paid subscription site. I cannot sign up for their "free" membership because I'm not on their YouTube channel and I'm not going to pay only to find out there are no replays... and besides, I don't think I should have to pay to get manufacturer news anyway...
I have a little bit of an update... Eastern Seaboard Models posted their recording for the Amherst Virtual Train Show on their Facebook* Page. Bryan does nice work! He covered some history of the company including how they started with Special Runs on other manufacturers' body styles... including my personal favorite, the Flexi-Flo covered hopper which ESM did in all prototypical road names and paint schemes, unlike AHM which originally released it! And believe it or not, those ESM Flexi-Flo cars were run in 1991-- thirty years ago! There should be another Made in America kit coming this year, likely a PRR gondola. ESM is also moving their XIH "State of Maine" insulated boxcar, done in a number of releases and road numbers, up to HO Scale; it's never been done right in 1:87 either before this. https://www.facebook.com/EasternSeaboardModels Not sure if you have to be signed into FB to view. *Not trying to turn this into a FB commentary thread...
Watched a good bit of it yesterday. Supposedly, It will be broken into segments so they can be watched again later. They did not mention anything about them being behind the pay wall section of VR. M/T had a small presentation from Eric and it was a little underwhelming. It could have been much better. There was a power point with no audio that I could hear that was run through too quick to really see what all it showed and then it landed on a shot of the new TBOX and Eric talked about the upcoming TBOX releases, the Sugar tank car series that is coming and talked about a new two bay hopper that is coming. He also talked about the challenges of Covid, the fire and thanked all those that helped out. He did share that sever of the M?T team that lost their homes have already found new permanent residences so that was good news. I think N scale wise, the biggest announcement I saw all day (as far as my interest anyway) was the new auto racks from Scale Trains. The highlights I think for today will be another Scale Trains segment, Broadway Limited, and Jacksonville Terminal Company
ESM's X65 Boxcars aren't new, but I wanted to say how pleased I am with mine as shown here. They're excellent in every way and what I like about them too is that the detail is durable. I don't have to worry with breaking something off as I cycle them on and off the layout. Thanks for the Facebook link. I had no idea that they had so many other models to offer.
My understanding is that was a recorded presentation. I wonder if there were technical issues with respect to the audio. The new hopper is probably the PS-2 two bay covered hopper that was announced last year for production this year.
I will second that the ESM X65's are really nice cars. Yes, that's it, the PS-2 Hopper. My guess was technical issues as well. I am very much a fan of M/T so I thought the presentation seemed a bit off for their normal quality. It's just cool that they were part of the day.
