I saw an add in Craigslist today that Mizell Trains in Denver is closing after 35 years. During my occasional sojourns to Denver, I always stop at Caboose Hobbies and tried to hit Mizell’s as well. Always friendly help and a good selection. I hate to see them go. Their closing sale started 7/5.
Yep.
Same old thing. This is brought up often as they close .
Used to be any self-respecting department store had a train seciton in the toy department.
Used to be at least one train shop per city or area.
Used to be trains all over at Christmas time.
But now,whether the fact that online shopping has replaced brick adn mortor stores, or the fact that thiese generations coming up now are weened onto computers and computer-electronic games or whether they “want their own thing to do” from Daddy’s or Grandpa’s trains…who knows.
Whether the econmy has anything to do with it or not, can be another matter.
BUt as long as there ARE people who want trains in their lives, and online dealers {at least} to service those needs, trains will remain in the picture!
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You can’t sell trains or track if the companies don’t make the stuff - except by pre-order!
BOB H - Clarion, PA
It’s becoming a very sad state of affairs as far as hobby shops go. I’m in rural Maine. We had a very small hobby shop in our nearest town, about 15 miles from here. Small selection, but she was always happy to order anything you wanted & always got it in timely fashion. But, she closed up about 3 years ago. Next nearest one was 35 miles south of here, but it closed at about the same time. Another one about 55 miles south of here went belly up a couple years ago. We still have one about 90 miles south of here, but that’s a long drive at $3.50 per gallon & there’s no interstate highway running from here, 2 lane roads all the way. Only other one is Hartmann Model Railroad in Intervale, NH, about 65 miles southwest of here.
Hartmann’s is okay. It’s a big shop, but strange in some ways. They have a decent selection of rolling stock, both RTR and kits, decent selection on locos, scenery materials, detail accessories & parts. They are weak on paints. Testors rack is always full, but Polyscale & Floquil racks always seem half to two-thirds empty. They are VERY weak on structure & building kits. Tons of Faller, Kilbri, Pola & other kits mostly of European style architecture, but almost nothing from any other makers & no wood laser kits at all. So, if you’re modeling any American line theme, you’re totally out of luck at Hartmann’s when it comes to structures & buildings. Very Strange.
As of this Spring, I can’t even buy Model Railroader locally anymore! I always picked it up at the drugstore in town, but now they’ve quit carrying it. Guy there said I was about the only one buying it & with the economy the way it is they had to start cutting down on “slow sellers”. I find myself having to shop more & more online all the time, and it’s not particularly by choice. We are just running out of options up here.
I don’t even buy pants at the store any more. The store is where food comes from. Niche stores like hobby shops are the vanguard, but retail is already dead.
Since the 1980s the Tampa Bay area has lost 4 (or 5) brick & mortar model railroad stores, saddening to say.
We do have two Hobby Town stores that stock some model trains. A bit frustrating for me is that the HobbyTown closest to me has a manager that shows little to no enthusiasm about the hobby. Whenever I go to the cash register to have him ring up my items, I’ve tried to engage him in a friendly discussion about the hobby. But, he seems to be in a hurry to brush me off and say “have a good day”.
“I don’t even buy pants at the store any more. The store is where food comes from. Niche stores like hobby shops are the vanguard, but retail is already dead.”
Sad, but true. Just a few years ago ( and I mean only 8 or 9 years ago) the downtown district of our nearest town was a vibrant & active place. Both sides of the downtown street were lined with stores & not an empty store front in sight. we had 3 drugstores, 2 furniture stores & an appliance center, 3 hardware stores, a J.J.Newberry’s 5 & 10 (one of the last ones around), 2 electronics stores, several clothing stores, a good show store, the hobby shop, a bookstore, a yard goods store, 2 supermarkets & a smaller family owned grocery and several decent cafes & diners. Just about anything you wanted could be found there.
Now we have 1 drugstore, 1 supermarket, 1 furniture store, 1 hardware store, 1 clothing store & 1 electronics store. There is one cafe & the Dunkin Donuts still open. Everything else is gone and the street is one empty storefront after another. It’s becoming a ghost town. We’re losing more than just stores. The downtown district of small town America was an important part of the cement that held the American culture together.
Things can not be too bad. The WalMart here is going to expand. They are also hiring just about all of the time.
Yeah, but how many Nscale or HO scale or Lionel items will they carry?
And many do do their shopping online now, still. I understand Wally WOrld is building an online shopping experience too.
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That is really sad. When visiting Colorado I loved to visit Mizells. I actually prefer it to Caboose Hobbies.
Part of the problem may be the lack of prototype inspiration. There used to be branch lines all over the map with a wide variety of locomotives. Here in New Hampshire virtually all real trains are in tourist operations. With the exception of the Pan Am/ Amtrak line in the south everything else is rail trails. It’s not hard to loose interest. There used to be train stores in Boscowen, Concord, Manchester and Laconia. All are gone now.
Werner
I think a lot of the problem is two-fold. First, kids don’t have the kind of interest in modeling that previous generations had. The digital electronics age lured them away. Much easier to become transfixed playing video games than it is to get creative, think & build something. Secondly, it’s economics. Hobby shops catered to two types of customers: Serious modelers and kids. While the serious modelers spent the bigger bucks, it was the kids that came in & made the “bread & butter” purchases. The 10 or 12 year old could save up his change, go in, buy a kit or two at from 49 cents to a buck, get a couple bottles of paint for a quarter each & the latest issue of Scale Modeler magazine for 35 cents. Steady streams of kids spending a buck or two or three once wandered in & out of the LHS all week long. It added up. Bread & butter sales for the LHS owner.
Now a kid walks into the LHS (if he can find one) and wants to build a model of a B-17 & the kit costs $35. to $45.! Paint is $4, $5, or $6. a bottle and his favorite hobby magazine is $5.95. So, he’s looking at $60. or $70.!! I don’t know too many 10 or 12 year olds that can do that. The Hobby business has priced it’s bread & butter customers right out the door.
A highly controversial reply, but I agree with you.
As a kid living on the southwest side of Chicago, I rode my bike over to Trost Hobbies all of the time at 63rd and Kedzie. Bought and built all kinds of plastic model WWII airplanes, ships, and tanks. What kid today visits a LHS, assuming there is such a thing in his area?
Rich
1 Like
A highly controversial reply, but I agree with you.
As a kid living on the southwest side of Chicago, I rode my bike over to Trost Hobbies all of the time at 63rd and Kedzie. Bought and built all kinds of plastic model WWII airplanes, ships, and tanks. What kid today visits a LHS, assuming there is such a thing in his area?
Rich
Its not all doom and gloom as much as one may think…
Like my generation they are young boys interested in trains.In fact we have five of these young lads running trains this week during the county fair plus 2 of these lads and their father are active members.I suspect this is very common…
Oddly when I was young I notice most modelers was old men and now I’m old I notice a lot of younger faces at train shows and the clubs I have visited over the years.
I have notice the reasons why the various shops closed is seldom given in these types of topics-less dramatic I suppose.
richotrain:
Yup, I did the same thing. I was into both HO trains & 1/72 scale WWII stuff. Me & my best buddy used to mow lawns in the summer & shovel sidewalks in the winter to earn some cash. At the end of the day, we’d have $15. or $20., split between us. We’d put most of it away, but keep out a few bucks & then off to the LHS (or the local 5 & 10, which had a pretty good hobby section). You could buy Revell 1/72 scale airplane kits for 50 cents, Pactra had a great line of military paints for 25 cents a bottle & the LHS carried His-Air-Dec decals for 50 cents a sheet. Spend a couple bucks & we were golden! Or, you could buy an Athearn HO rolling stock kit for $1.00-$1.50 (that was a BIG purchase)! Kids can’t do that anymore. You can’t get a kid interested in a hobby if he can’t afford it.
Affordability is one thing, interest is another.
Kids today are not interested in “playing with trains” as a hobby.
Rich
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Pretty sweeping statement if you ask me.
There seems to be quite a few kids interested from what I’ve seen at various trainshows here. Not to mention we seem to have a few showing up on the forums around here…
You’re right, BC, it is a pretty sweeping statement, but I am convinced that it is true and accurate.
A lot of us have a hard time accepting the fact that the interest in toy trains and in model railroading is not what it once was. You are not the only one to observe youngsters at trade shows and on the forums.
But, it is similar to one saying that no one plays Pong on an Atari anymore and then someone shows up with an Atari game. Sure, some young kids are interested in the hobby, but far, far fewer than the War Baby or Baby Boomer generations.
We simply need empirical proof rather than anectodal evidence.
Rich
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I can offer this as a case in point, just for comparison’s sake. I’m an antique dealer by trade. Have been for 42 years. The “boom” years in the business were the 1970’s through early 1990’s. The business was built to it’s peak by two generations: Those that were born in the early part of the 20th century (my parents generation), and the baby boom generation of the post WWII years (my generation). Those two generations had an interest in history & culture. They bought & collected the things that they & their parents had in their homes when they were growing up. That interest fueled the antiques & collectibles business. I started noticing major changes in the business just about the same time that the digital age of the internet really started expanding, the mid to late 1990’s. Today, the antiques & collectibles business is quite rapidly dieing and I’m very glad that I’ll be retiring from it in the next couple years, because it’s future is rather bleak. Three factors are at play here:
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The generation born in the pre-depression era of the early 20th century, my parents generation, is already gone. Strike One.
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My generation, the post WWII baby boomers, are retiring now, going onto more fixed incomes & liquidating their collections. Strike Two.
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The younger 20-30 somethings have grown up in the digital, internet age & it has, in many ways, given them a lifestyle that is totally different from what we knew. They are not that interested in history, culture or preserving the old. They are not interested in filling their homes with shelves & cabinets full of old china, pottery, glass, lamps etc. “Space” and minimalist decor much more fit their lifestyles, so they are not interested in finely crafted Victorian furnishings or decor. They would much rather go to Ikea, get a couple chairs, a sofa, a big flat screen TV, a game console & a couple accent lamps & that’s all they want. They don’t live the same way we did
I can’t even imagine trying to open, much less run, a well stocked train hobby shop today. Back when I began, if the shop carried more or less the complete Atlas line of track (meaning Snap track, flex track, Custom Line turnouts, turnout kits, cork roadbed, fibre tie strip and rail) you satisfied the track demands of maybe 95% of your HO customers. Compare that to now. And track is just one aspect of what we expect to find in even a mediocre LHS.
Dave Nelson