I had a couple of chats with Fred Hill over the years about this sort of thing. In one, he definitely said he had problems over his credit balance with Walthers, which was why items he’d ordered for me weren’t coming through. I got that message pretty clearly and decided to use my credit card, not his, and go to Walthers directly, not through him. More recently, he attributed the difficulties he was having in Pasadena to items out of his control, including apparently unsympathetic distributors. This was recent enough that I assume he was under pressure over the Allied situation.
Whether different business strategies could have resulted in a different outcome, I simply don’t know. Whether other partners disagreed with his strategy is also unclear, except that Brian did leave in 2009.
Having two stores in the LA area must have been costly for the overhead is expensive in LA. The OWS that Fred runs is a nice store and the old Allied seemed like a good idea when Allen decided to end his business several years ago, but it probably was too expensive for Fred and company to own both stores in todays market.
It was indeed a very good era back in the eighties.
As a long time and frequent customer up until the day they closed I call tell you I saw new stock all the time and they always had what I needed be it decoders, locos in all scales as well as track parts and other supplies, I will say it was hard at time to pay their full retail prices when I could get the same thing online at a huge discount but what I spent was well worth the return. Being able to ask questions get help, hold the item before I bought it and get all my track supplies only 10 miles away was priceles.
What really killed this store is the lack of new model railroaders and a lack of living space in Southern California, houses here seldom have basements or attics and with 3br houses costing $500,000.00+ starting in the crap areas to live in, nobody is using an extra room for layout.
I felt the end coming for that store, over the last years there were few people younger then me (53) ever in there, and I dont recall ever more then one other customer in the store at a time.
This is a little suspicious… the open sign was on the door but the lights were off when I drove by yesterday, prior to that the closed sign was up, actually went around the block thinking the might had reopened, I could see there appeared to still be products in the store.
Sounds like the plan changed from just moving the stock over to the Whistle Stop.
Since my young formative years were during the 1970s in NY, it’s hard to think other than “Bronx is Buring” style insurance fraud for the interesting timing, although in contemporary times it’s probably some worker left the gas on/overloaded outlets etc. by mistake - e.g. an accident. Just looks a bit off…
Sorry to hear about the store closing. I used to shop there a long time ago. You could find any item you were looking for in the Walthers catalog. They did charge top $ for all items. Train stores come and go in southern California. Allied lasted a long time.
I just heard about the closing a couple of days ago. When I worked in West L.A., I went to the old location quite frequently before they moved across the street. After a while, the trip from West L.A. to Culver City got too long (45 minutes), so I started going to The Roundhouse in North Hollywood.
Nowadays, with all the traveling I do, it’s easier to order online but I still like going to a brick and mortar location for those personal interactions.