Anaheim GATS

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The Great American Train Show (GATS) came to Anaheim, CA on January 31-February 1 with one of the largest shows in some time. Over 11,000 people visited the show during the two days. Actual attendance counting the free children and the people who came both Saturday and
Sunday may have pushed actual attendance near 15,000. Crowds were constant during the entire show filling the 80,000 sq. ft hall that contained almost 500 vendor tables and 14 layouts and even a riding train.

There did not seem to be any time when there were no visitors around the Southern California Traction Club layout. One vendor demonstrated a running test stand as shown below

This device made us consider its use for testing traction vehicles under a live overhead wire.

Meanwhile, there was action downtown on the Southern California  Traction Club layout as a Mount Lowe car left the main line heading for its destination:

Elsewhere downtown, C&LE 648 with its train passes PERy 1221 at the mid-town crossover.

Anaheim Convention Center is a fine with excellent parking facilities and there is plenty to do after the show with Disneyland being so close. The next GATS show in the Southern California will be in will be at the Pomona Fairplex and is advertised to have over 400 vendor tables and at least 12 operating model railroads, from N scale to large scale including the HO scale Southern California Traction Club. This should be another good one so if you missed Anaheim, don't miss Pomona.

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Ontario Brass Show

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For the ninth consecutive year, the Brass Railroaders Association held its gala brass show in Ontario on January 25^th.  MTS Imports, Inc, a leader in quality imported brass traction models, was represented at the show by Custom Traxx.

As usual, there was ample traction brass displayed for sale as shown below:

As a side note, it was clear from the attendance that many brass aficionados preferred to watch football or surf ebaY but all of these people missed a fine show. Hope to see you all next year!

Good Deal for Trolleyville Drivers

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Many model railroaders and model traction fans drive our vehicles a lot to get to model shows, general railfanning and general shopping for our hobby needs. Some of us even pull trailers full of model railroad artifacts, inventory, layouts or modules to get to train shows. Last month during a train show, we noticed that a lot of vendors and hobbyists in general have mini-vans to meet their personal and hobby needs. At least two of the members of the Southern California Traction Club drive Chrysler mini-vans. So it was a great surprise when came across a business whose service and prices are so extraordinary that we felt that we should tell you about it. This is the first non-hobby business that we have decided to report in this newspaper.

This business is Aram's AAMCO Transmissions at 19719 Ventura Boulevard, Woodland Hills, CA 91346.


 

We realize that the mere thought of transmission service is enough to cause cardiac arrest with some drivers but rest assured that when you need such service that the best service is available here.

We have known Aram Tashchyan for many years as a manager of a computer technical service operation, but since June 2002, this AAMCO facility has been under his direction. Aram and his brother-in-law, Vartan (Rich) Dzhgalyan decided to team up at that time to bring the best possible service to the customer by doing the right things (superb technical knowledge) in the right way (good management). Jim Woltman, Service Manager and Rich are familiar with all types of vehicles, but especially Chrysler cars and mini-vans since Jim worked for Chrysler for seven years and Rich was a transmission specialist for over ten years. Shown below (l to r) Aram and Jim:


 

Since there are plenty of Chrysler vehicles and mini-vans on the road, this combination of skills and knowledge in this facility was just perfect. These people have worked on this writer's car and we patronize this business even though it is over 25 miles from our business and residence locations and we have to use the busiest stretch of the busiest freeway in the United States to get there.

We would not recommend this business if we had not been there ourselves and had our cars serviced. So, if you need transmission service and many other automobile related services. Call 818-883-3250, ask for Aram and tell him that "Trolleyville sent you". Clip the coupon below for some savings. If you could use any repair work that they do and you don't go there, you lose!


 

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Second Annual Model Train Expo Show In Pomona

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Brian Curry of On Track Productions presented his second annual Model Train Expo at the Fairplex in Pomona, California on February 28 & 29. Check our next issue for a full report.

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Custom Traxx repairs a 1:1  decal

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About six months ago, John Smatlak of OERM asked George Huckaby of Custom Traxx about trying to repair a decal on a full size car. The car was LATL line car 9350 which had sustained damage to its LATL herald decals while sitting outside during the paving of the floor of car barn 1. George studied the situation and thought it might be interesting to try vertical decal applciation for a change so on February 15^th, George arrived at the museum with a van full of tools and solvents and within four hours the decals on both sides were repaired. Below are the before and after pictures.

Note the missing A in TRANSIT and the chipped L in LOS ANGELES in the above BEFORE picture.

There were about ten total problems to be repaired, most of which are not visible in the photos.