On the hills or all the “Declining Interest in Hobby” threads I found it ironic and somewhat sad to receive e-mail from Dallas Collectible Trains and Toys that they are moving from their prime Dallas location and into the country. Store owners run the place for the past 29 years. Most likely they want to retire/take it easy. They either just wanted to live in a country and have store right next to their house, or they couldn’t find a buyer to take over.
Basically for most local shoppers this is equivalent of closing doors as location is really outside of regular drive. This is a O-scale primary shop, so it does not affect me much, but I saw a lot of moms and pops shopping there for their kids, especially around Christmas. Of course you also had the “old” crowd of dudes spending $1.5k on the latest Lionel engine. [:P] But overall it’s not a positive development for model railroading in Dallas. They will be missed.
Another irony, is that I entered this hobby because I saw their sign about a year ago. When I went there I was amazed that this was such a serious hobby and engines cold be so detailed. I used to love to play with electric Marklin trains as a kid but I thought that was a just a long forgotten type of toys. Man, was I wrong. [:D]