Most Northern California model railroad fans know or have heard of the International Railfair held at the Placer County Fairgrounds in Roseville each Veteran's Day Weekend. This year was no exception as the show was held on November 9 - 10, 2013 in great weather. Temperatures were in the upper 70s, somewhat unusual at this time of year. This year the show was in the same halls as previously with most of the same vendors and layouts. The main hall used is Jones Hall which is shown below just before the show opened on Saturday.

This show is unusual in that it is presented by Three model railroad clubs who manage to get along with each other long enough to successfully plan and present this show. they have done so for over 35 years. That might even be a record. The major change this year was that the live steam train was moved for the area used for the past decades to another area, however, this information just did not get to the appropriate people and caused some irritation on Saturday morning. Meanwhile, the "Rainbow Girls" of the Roseville DeReimer were on hand to provide "home cooking type" dinners for vendors on Friday and Saturday evening and breakfast and lunch on Saturday and Sunday. These are the type of smiling faces that greet the vendors before serving them their "all-you-can-eat" pancake breakfast.

The Placer County Fairgrounds, like many in California, has lost most of their funding so they are trying to stay alive with little or no outside support. Unfortunately, the fairgrounds management tends to make decisions and is some cases do not promulgate these decisions until too late. At this show, the Fairgrounds decided to move the traditional area for the live-steam train to another area as they made the original live-steam area into an RV park. Unfortunately, the area given to the live steamers had some bad topography which caused them to eliminate one of the four cars in their normal train. This made the lines to ride longer.

There are very few reasons not to buy what you see and want. The show promoters provides a mobile ATM vehicle that inside contains two ATM units. So that excuse is gone.

As is still the case, items not seen for a long time may be found at this show. One vendor had some brass traction, shown below, some of which not seen for years.

Some museum-quality painted brass was also available from Holland Traction Supply:

One feature of this show is the Bargain $mart tent. This local business sets up in a huge tent outside Jones Hall every show and sells some of the most unusual tools that most modelers need. We can not go through this tent, shown in the next photograph, without finding something that we can not pass by.

The Trolleyville Times staff is now highly recommending that model railroaders begin treating model train shows as "endangered" species. There is a combination of factors contributing to this. Of course, there is (1) the graying of the majority of model railroaders. Then there is the (2) post 9-11 security concerns at the halls which is costing show promoters more money. The shift in model railroading manufacturing to China (3) has drastically reduced the ranks of the "garage operators" which used to be the staples of most shows and finally (4) the number of model railroad clubs with worthwhile display type layouts is decreasing. Most visitors come to train shows to see the model trains. At this show there were many layouts but not as many as in the past. The bottom line is when you hear of a model train show in your neighborhood, plan to go over and look. Your entrance fee helps delay the inevitable. If you are reading this and do not care to go to a model train show, the inevitable has already reached you.