This past weekend was one of the larger shows for the area. It was ok, a fair amount of vendors, some layouts on display, and areas for kids to ride or play on trains. I was a little disappointed that there wasn't any railroad memorabilia vendors this time; I enjoy looking for authentic railroad items that would look good on display or around the train room. There also wasn't much that jumped out at me in my first circle of the floor. All I ended up with initially was this set of Rock Island express cars and some wheelsets (can never have enough of those around). I don't model any Rock Island, but I do have a couple passenger trains from that era and a Burlington mail train, either of which could certainly have had a RI express car added to it.
Then on my second circle, I revisited a vendor who had still been unpacking his wares the first time I passed by. Not much interesting...then a locomotive caught my eye. A U50 has never really been on my radar, but I had brought money that was burning a hole in my pocket by this point. Haggled a bit, walked out with the beast. This one is DC, I'll have to convert it to DCC, haven't decided whether to do sound or not. I probably will, though as a double FDL-16 diesel engine probably sounds kind of interesting.
Oh, I also picked up an SP calendar for next year and some new pins to use as tie tacs when I'm working.