Tolga's Takeaways, Plant City Train Show

Action on the Main Street. Todd T. Photo. 

 October 8 was the NMRA Sunshine Region Train Show, part of their Fall Convention meetup. The Sunshine Region comprises of four divisions of Model Train enthusiasts in the state of Florida, the North, East, West, and South, and the East Coast HO Exhibitors Society, which I am a part of, is a part of the Southern Division. Also part of the Southern Division is the South Florida Railway Museum, whose members had a large presence at this meet. 

However, my main participation at the Plant City Show was with the Greater Florida LEGO Users Group. GFLUG member Todd T. and I covered this event. We had a 32'x5' space allowed for the brief set-up, which was approximately 7 hours setup to teardown. Keep in mind, with that small of a window, there is no need to have a massive setup nor go insanely all out with high levels of line-side detail and props. 

I had thought it was 16'x5' in total, but that turned out to be the space I was actually given (the event organizers were actually generous). LOL! I only had roughly enough to fill half of that for this event, bringing four low density retail buildings, a few road plates, a grade crossing, and lots of vehicles including some recently unearthed boats and the STUNTZ sets which we are promoting for the LEGO Group. Still, we managed to pad it with some light space to give the two operating loops of trains some nice straightaway space. 29 feet of straight track is pretty cool for a fast flying passenger train. 

One of my closest friends, Rudy, joined me for the full day out which was an intense program of doing the train show, buying model trains from the various vendors, and railfanning the Central Florida area.

Takeaway 1: It was all about Stuntz

LEGO City's Stuntz Line is a new product line of wind up motorbikes, and also some performance vehicles such as monster trucks. Some ridiculous dioramas like a ring of fire with little spaceships make for entertaining scenes. It is like their response to Monster Jam and Motocross all in one. TLG kindly provided GFLUG with copies of the sets provided we display them to promote the brand. I was unable to have the assortment for TBCC due to personal reasons, but made up for it with the assortment at Plant City which had a fairly decent attendance. The sets were accompanied by semi-relevant product since this scene is like an attraction, which included food vans and of course, a porta potty. 

The STUNTZ scene was my focal point.

 Todd also displayed his bikes on the city street he had.

Some of these sets are silly and humorous, including the bathtub bike and the bike with the selfie stick. Thought the latter was Minnesota Vikings themed from the color, and it did say King on the back.

Stuntz. Todd T. photo

Takeaway 2. The Blending Hobbies


Richard Rafalski is a local railfan from South Florida who is studying at Embry-Riddle. We share the railfanning, planespotting, and HO Scale model train hobbies primarily, but he also does like LEGO. He was invited to the SSR convention to share a talk on railfanning during the evening dinner. As a bonus, he comes to the train show and sees our layout for what I presume was his first time. 

As always, it just so happens something in 1:1 scale draws me away for a bit of mid show railfanning. In 2021, it was Amtrak Pepsi Can P42DC #160 on P091, but in 2022 with Hurricane Ian's devastating impacts, it was a CSX ferry move (P936) of Sunrail equipment from Poinciana round-robin to Sanford. The line is washed out just north of Poinciana, therefore an array of equipment is isolated from the Sunrail shops unless it uses the S Line. Thankfully the show had winded down by that point (afternoon) to justify the break, which was accompanied by lunch ordered drive-thru at the nearby Culver's (which is a staple for railfanning). Richard, Jake, Jimmy, Rudy, and I went after this odd move. Then, we hung around the GFLUG tables during tear-down for chat and obligatory chilling in the A/C.

Being a Sunshine Region event, Rudy, Todd, and I had a chat with our friends from the South Florida Railway Museum. (That affiliation is where the acronym South Florida Railfan Mafia came from) 
Part of the chat was pitching a GFLUG layout at a future SFRM Swap Meet, which could happen next year (November timeframe). 

As usual, Rudy and I walked away with trains purchased from the show.

Tom Kvichak from Tom's Trains and Things (HO Scale) also stopped by and filmed the operating layouts. 

There were three trains bagged total in Central Florida (Jimmy +3 with chasing before and after). CSX M452 and B311 were seen in the afternoon.

Going Forward

The mini takeaway is my LEGO collection will need some reorganization and maintenance. Todd did an excellent job upgrading his city to the MILS standard. To do the same on my end will require a bit of work but fortunately will benefit all of my assets with updates and complete overhauls where needed. With a busy program personally this will be tough to achieve, but hopefully the motivation keeps on coming to get it done.

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