Another one bites the dust

Anyone familar with the suburbs of Philadelphia, the town of Lansdale, Pa approx. 20 miles outside of Philly is Lin’s Junction, a great train store for the past 23 years, they specialize in DCC and will bend over backwards to make things right. Sadly they have announced they are closing on April 29th, they will be greatly missed. They just were not generating enough income at the store. Attached to this store is another called Hennings, they specialize in Lionel and American Flyer, also all vintage tin trains. There was no mention if they are also closing

My understanding is that Hennings is remaining open.

Ahhh, Philly!

Anyone remember Todd’s Model Shop near 69th St Terminal?

Jim

Is Nicholas Smith is still there, correct?

Nicholas Smith Trains is still in PA, in Broomall, if I remember. Is Lins going to have a store closing sale?

That is unfortunate.

[#offtopic] Point now - Anytime I see the thread title, or hear it, or the song, I go back to the last CPR course I took… The instructor mentioned that it is helpful to do CPR to a rhythm of a song, that has the right beat. (Proper Rhythm is needed!)

Her song choice?

The very inappropriate “Another one bites the dust”. [:S]

Its much worse if you break into singing it during CPR! [:|][:S]

Pretty wicked sense of humor that one had…

[(-D][(-D][(-D][(-D] Isn’t that what people in the trade call ‘gallows humour’. Whatever works!

Dave

Every time I’ve taken that course here in S.E. Pa. the recommended song was “Staying Alive”.

Sad to hear Lin’s is closing.

I was planning a visit in April - I hope there’s something left when I get there.

A great store with great service.

Eric

Hello all,

So sad to hear!

Hope this helps.

Did that Phili LHS have an online site as well? I don’t think most hobby shops can make it these days unless they sell online as well; there just isn’t enough local walk-in business to sustain them. Well, at least Caboose has opened in Colorado and should have a website going to provide goodies to those who can’t walk into a ship in Philli. I’ve been mostly relying on mailorder and online sites for most of my toys for the past 15-20 years now.

NO! You are supposed to use “Stayin’ Alive” from Saturday Night Fever for CPR…

Sorry to hear about Lin’s. I was a mail order customer.

John Mock

A little sidenote;

Out west, “Another one bites the dust” is another waaay overplayed track down here in Mission Viejo CA. It’s right up there with “Satisfaction”, “Brown Eyed Girl”, “American Pie”, “Margaritaville”, and countless others.

XM is absent in my car, Give me a reason to tune in, not tune out! Trim down those obnoxious long commercial breaks!

My dad was driving me back from one of my train club shows (I drove up there, with him sitting in the passenger seat) and he quickly noticed how terrible FM Radio is now. I took out my phone, put it on KLUV HD-2, and he switched off the car radio.

Actually I like SiriusXM 70s but with plenty of data these days I am ditching it.

Sorry to hear another LHS closing

You can listen to anything if you’ve paid for bandwidth or satellite service, but with a daugther in college, I’m cheap and don’t neither are an option.

It’s a good thing I have a wide variety of music I like. I only have one car new enough to have satellite radio in it, and while I usually listen to classic vinyl or classic reqind, the amount of repetition is amazing. Considering allt eh songs they COULD play - they DO do much better than the local classic rock stations, but still way too much repetition. But when I get tired of that I can switch to Bluesville, or Willie’s Roadhouse, or Bluegrass Junction. Or just play from my phone - I refuse to pay the ridiculous rates for a large data plan but I have enough music loaded on my phone I can drive for hours without a repeat. And I still have room for more.

Lin’s has a web site, but they only list DCC items, and some of it is not stocked merchandise, it even says when you select an item that they will order it for you and it will take about 2 weeks. It’s been a few years since I stopped in there (I used to live right around the corner - and would go there AND to Penn Valley which was just down the street). Seems like a lot of their business came from the GATSME Lines club which lost their lease and is now starting over, but perhaps no longer buy through Lin’s.

–Randy

On XM, Cousin Brucie and Dennis Falcone are winner DJ’s with excellent shows, Both of thier shows cover low charting songs as well as cover versions and flipsides. [:)]

Cousin Brucie Wed 2pm-6pm (60’s on 6), Sat and Sun 5pm-9pm (60’s on 6).

Dennis the Menace Fri 9pm-1am (70’s on 7), Sat 9pm-1am (70’s on 7), Dennis Falcone Sun 6pm-8pm (60’s on 6).

Cool Booby B’s DooWop Stop 9pm-12am (50’s on 5).

Music…with 1700 pieces of vinyl, and about 800 music CD’s, I’m not paying anybody for the privilage of picking out music for me to listen to. I can record and play nearly anything I really want to listen to in the car, including every song that has been mentioned in this thread without any commercials of any kind.

Both our current vehicles have satilite radio, did not miss it one bit when the free trial ran out.

As for hobby shops closing…we have been over this too many times.

Fact is, too many of us are no longer willing to pay the kind of markups necessary for retail shops to make money. You cannot have your cake and eat it too.

So for the 375th time, unless a shop is also seriously in the mail order/online business, doing enough volume to buy most products at the lowest wholesale price direct from the manufacturers, they cannot compete price wise in this business. And apparently price is more important than service to most everyone today.

Sorry to see Lin’s go, but it comes as no surprise. What is a surprise is that some shops like Lin’s have lasted as long as they have.

Sheldon

Sheldon–

In my opinion, Lins was really trying the whole internet thing. They sent me very polite, if not slightly annoying, updates regarding new manufacturer offerings in my email often. I think they were trying to find the balance in how often to “bother” customers. Whenever I talked to them on the phone, they were exceptionally nice and friendly to deal with. I have no complaints at all about their service or their prices.

They had items I wanted, which were sometimes hard to find elsewhere, and I bought them (Atlas Apache Railway C420’s, subsequently sold on fleabay). Imo their pricing structure was “fair”.

It was not for lack of trying on their part. I think they did all they reasonably could.

The challenge here is that there can only be so many “MB Klein” and “Mainline Hobbies” and “Original Whistle Stop” and “Train Station” stores.

Soon we will be down to just one major player in each state–if not less than that. It’s not what I want, but is the reality of what will happen. Even with all the tourist traffic to pay full bore retail prices, the train stores near Strasburg are partly gone. I was stunned this fall at how far things had progressed. You see, at Strasburg, well that was the one place they made money for years and years.

Train books are d-e-a-d. One publisher (TLC) is at retirement age and blowing out current inventory at fire sale prices. Doesn’t mean I’m not buying books, but only the ones I absolutely have to have, knowing that in the future, even the allegedly rare and valuable train books will be a very tough sell. I’m up to 5 train books, and 2 were gifts from HZ. I’m now focusing on hardcore books about certain prototype steamers like the SP Ten Coupled Locomotives and William Kratville’s books…knowing any resale value will be questionnable because mos

Well, now. Interesting that you would say that. I happened to be reading an editorial by Lee Rosenberg today in the March 2017 issue of Model Railroad News. He is one of the operators of Ron’s Books.

One of the points he made was that “when the recent book on Metro North arrived, a significant number of our sales were to new customers, which leads to the conclusion that there are people out there who are only interested in more modern aspects of railroading. They have not been buying books until recently because there were no books on the subjects in which they were interested.”

He also said that “I can tell you without a doubt that there are more books on railroads being released today than ever before. During the second half of 2016, we have received 20 or more titles a month, every single month. In th 1980’s, 20 titles might represent most or all of the railroad books put out in a year. If anything, there are now so many books coming out that customers simply can’t keep up with them”.

He also made some other interesting points that would make worthwhile reading.