My First York

e*Train Issue: Apr 2002 | Posted in: TCA Adventures

by Paul J. Licata I finally made it to York. I was not disappointed!

I started my visit by leaning against my favorite engine (GG1) in the PA RR Museum. Then off to the Toy Train Museum to hear the latest news from the Lionel, MTH, Weaver, and K-Line.

DCS is very impressive and will find a comfortable home on many layouts. Lionel has another “special” thousand dollar plus engine plus a very smart marketing campaign with Wendys coming up. K-Line continues to WOW with their great deals on nicely detailed items (KCC Switcher for one) and Weaver has a solid offering in their niche.

I met up late with the OGRR Forum people thursday night at Fridays. A nice bunch of folks.

Friday morning I got to the fairgrounds early and hooked up for the breakfast meeting with Clem. Another nice fellowship.

The fun begins at 9:00 a.m. when the doors open to all the halls. I never thought I would be overwhelmed by sheer volumes of toy trains. But nothing will prepare you for the amount of product available to meet any taste/budget. I stopped at every table enjoying seeing products that are advertised each issue in OGRR or CTT. I picked up four bearing rollers from JAK Tools to run my engines in place. The new version even has wheel cleaners built into the product. Neat.

The AOL group met at noon and again that evening at the Viking Club. What a great bunch of guys – this was fun. Putting the names and faces together far away from the monitor on my computer.

I picked up a couple of other small items and had the required hot pretzel and lemonade during a break from the action.

If you have been considering the jaunt to York. I have one word: GO

This newbie will be back in October.

Shop Amazon and Help TCA

TCA members who shop at Amazon.com can have each of their normal purchases generate a modest payment to TCA! And it won’t cost you anything!

The Train Collectors Association is now a participant with AmazonSmile, which is a special website operated by Amazon that lets customers enjoy the same wide selection of products, low prices and convenient shopping features as on Amazon.com.

The difference is that when customers shop at AmazonSmile (smile.amazon.com), the AmazonSmile Foundation donates 0.5% of the price of eligible purchases to the charitable organizations selected by customers.

The process is simple. Just search for and select Train Collectors Association when you sign up and shop at smile.amazon.com.

You use your regular Amazon.com username and password, but when you log in to smile.amazon.com, you’ll see that you are supporting TCA with your purchases:

Note that if you just log in to the regular amazon.com, this benefit does not operate.

There are no costs to either you or TCA, but TCA benefits!

This is a great way for TCA to earn extra cash to offset costs, so sign up today to help support TCA.

* Note: TCA is not a party to any of your Amazon transactions, and does not endorse any products or vendors.

Helping TCA with your ebay purchases when you use PayPal

If you’re an ebay user and have a PayPal account you use to make payments, you can designate a donation for TCA when you’re checking out — any amount, small or large.
If you’re a regular seller on ebay, you can pre-designate a percentage of your sales to be donated automatically in your name to TCA as long as the purchaser pays with their PayPal account.

In both cases, you will receive a donation receipt from the PayPal Giving Fund, and enjoy applicable tax advantages.

How to do it:

Click on the image above, or use this link. This will take you to ebay, where you will see the following page (log in to ebay if you are not already):

This offers TCA as an option. Click on the “Add to My Charities” button where indicated with the red arrow. Thereafter, when you make a purchase, at checkout you will be offered the option to make a donation to TCA in any amount of your choosing. Small amounts add up, larger ones are great! It’s always up to you!

The option will appear at the lower part of your checkout page, something like this:

If you’re a regular seller on ebay, you can allocate a portion of your sales proceeds to be donated to TCA. Look at the green arrow marked “Optional” above to see how to do it. Details on how ebay calculates the donation may be read here. This is a wonderful way to share the financial benefits of your hobby with the organization that promotes it!

An added benefit to TCA is that these donations are not subject to normal processing fees, so that makes your donation work harder!

* Note. TCA is not a party to any of your eBay transactions, and does not endorse any products or vendors. PayPal issues the receipts to you for your donation, not TCA.

My First York

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