No need to speak of the Golden Spike Train Shop in the past tense. The store is still alive and kicking. The owner passed away a few years back, but a husband and wife team are still running the shop in his absence.
Rich
I meant the orginal Arlington Hobby Crafters on Glebe Road and Randolph that was torn down to build a new and bigger shoping center (Ballston Common Mall) in the late 1980’s.
Steve
That was Rich Pohlmann, circa 1972.
They had a small shop.
Moved to the larger store later.
He passed during the 1980’s.
Nice to hear it is still operating.
Models Hobby Center on Woodward in Ferndale, MI – I believe it was near 9 mile. It had a giant cross buck on the roof. The hobby center is long gone, but the cross buck is still there. My brother took me there when I was five or so – the place was packed with all kinds of stuff and was like Santa’s Workshop. It was a great store and I was sorry to see it go.
Chuck
Ah hobby shop memories…
The first train shop I knew and loved had been a Great Train Store outlet in DC’s Union Station. I recall getting many train books, such as some Bill Pete books and Thomas the Tank Engine titles that I dearly loved, some HO models, my grandparents always bought my train models there, and a cassette of train songs. And oh, ringing the bill on the steam engine display they built into a wall. I’d look up at that engine with bright eyes, a real smile and ring that bell! Maybe one or two many times, but whatever, I loved it. I’d been kind of sad to see those shops go even if as I’d become a more serious hobbyist, and a local, to me shop, had better fit my hobby needs, stores like that had helped so many to discover our hobby and develop a love of trains. No matter how long it has been since I last visited Great Train Shop in Union Station, circa '99, the station still doesn’t feel the same since that store closed down.
I’ve been to shops that better fitted my needs as a more serious hobbyist, like when I wanted freight cars and scratch-building materials, but memories of trips to the Great Train Store will remain with me for a long time.
-Alvie
I also have fond memories of Gager’s, only it was their Rosedale store, I didn’t know they had one downtown. We lived 70 miles north of Mpls (near Mora, MN) I could only go where my folks took me. I recall drooling over the line up of beautiful diesels in the glass case and rifling thru the TYCO cars that were in the clear, hard plastic cases. In 1971 my dad bought me my first HO set from there, an all-Athearn freight train (someone at the store assembled all the cars, thank goodness!), TYCO track and an MRC Throttle. Then in 1972 I saved enough money to buy another Athearn GP40 at the exorbitant cost of $14.95 plus tax…ooof that hurt!..now it seems funny to me, but back then $15 was a lot of money to a kid of 14. I also now live in FL near Clearwater, sure do miss my basement!! My wife is about to kill me now that I’m into O scale 2-rail, our house just ain’t big enough!
My city had a fabulous hobby shop. Originally in the late 50’s it was called Bob’s Hobby shop, but when it moved in the late 90’s it was renamed the Hobby Center. Neither place was large by any standard, but every bit of usable volume was filled to capacity with most anything you might need. It specialized in model trains and planes almost equally and the same knowledgable folks worked at Bob’s from the 60’s until the Hobby Center closed in the early 2000’s…They just got older and older until, as luck would dictate, they just got too old at about the same time, the LHS of old became redundant. They shut up shop and retired.
As a young man I would wander around inside, mouth agape at the many amazing hobby items offered, from the big Enya .60 airplane engines mounted in 60 inch wingspan model RC planes hanging in the ceilings to their complete line of the highly detailed, tiny Weston HO figures. They seemed to have it all right down to a complete line of “Perfect” chemicals and lab glass ware.
Yes, those were the days…
My favorite LHS was Paul’s Model Railroad shop in New Oxford, PA. Although I was living in the Metro DC area I was willing to drive 2 hours because this store had by far the best selection of items that I was interested in, mainly craftsman kits and super detail parts. I would visit the place aleast 6 - 10 times a year; blew up to $200 per visit and spend several hours deciding what I wanted to purchase on my next visit. I was devestated when they decided to shut down.
Mention of the Red Caboose’s move to a new basement location at 23 West 45th St. in mid-Manhattan brings back great memories of the store it replaced–Model Railroad Equipment Corp. Owned and run by an out-spoken red haired lady named Carmen Webster (with her dacshund Puddles), it was perhaps the greatest model railroad store in the 1950s and 1960s. In its cluttered underground rooms you could find examples of anything made and sold for trains back then. The amount of brass on offer was staggering; the number of kits and ready to run rolling stock seemingly infinite; and no matter how esoteric a part or casting, that store seemed to have it on hand. There were always interesting fellow customers around, too, with whom to strike up conversation, including the likes of Bing Crosby and Walt Disney who would stop in when in New York (though I never ran into them). It made many a day for me just dropping by to see what was new in the hobby. After she sold it and one of her employees took it over in the 1970s, however, it rapidly declined: he was an odd, rude person who turned off customers and didn’t keep the store well stocked. By the 1980s when the Red Caboose took over the location, that once great store was a sad relic indeed. But what a magic place it was in its glory.
Frank
I don’t recall going to a particular hobby shop growing up. When I was younger, I just stuck wiht the TYCO / MRC 4x8 that my dad had gotten me.
Towards the end of my college years, I had discovered a MR magazine – that’s when I discovered that model railroading could be much more than the TYCO set that I had. My fondest memories of a hobby shop was during that time when I re-discoverd the hobby. It was at Roy’s Train World in the Phoenix, AZ area. They had everything I needed at that time.
Mike
When I was a teenager in the 1960’s we lived in Massachusetts and far and away my favorite hobby shop was Fischer’s Cycle & Hobby in No. Quincy, Mass. A husband & wife operation. The place was half cycling stuff, run by Roy Fogelman & the other half run by his wife Jean was all hobbies. The hobby shop was legendary in the area. Jean maintained the most well stocked hobby shop I ever saw!
At the time I was into both model railroading and 1/72 scale military model building. Jean not only stocked all the domestic brands of model kits, she also did her own importing, something that was almost unheard of at the time. She had huge inventories of imported kits by Airfix, Frog, Heller, Artiplast, L.S. Labs, Tamiya etc. She also carried Humbrol paints, His-Air-Dec military decals, Roco Mini-Tanks and all manner of hobby stuff that at the time you just could not get anywhere else in the area. Her model railroading department carried just about everything imaginable, Athearn Blue Box kits, Atlas, Fleischman, you name it. Full line of parts & accesories too.
The shop was a meeting place, especially on Saturday mornings & she always seemed to be doing a land office business. The aisles were just jam-packed with stock & you could spend hours in there browsing. It was by far the best LHS I ever patronized. The amount of money I spent in there through the 1960’s-70’s must be staggering. Loved the place. Long gone now.
Carl
My favorite was Hobbyland in Hackensack, NJ during the 40’s (yeah, I’m that old!) Every Saturday morning myself and my 25 cent allowance plus a few bucks from a paper route would pedal my JC Higgins across the Hackensack River and join the swarms of other pre-teens and whatevers spending what they had on balsa plane models, and yes…the new HO kits then new on the market.
Then during the 60’s, the army would send me TDY to Ft, Mead, MD. Always I’d find a way to get to Gettysburg to vist and gawk at the 50’ long wall of brass models at Gilberts. Gilbert is still in business, but in a different loccation, but brass has taken a somewhat lesser billing. It is still a fine shop and Tommy is the very best.
HZ
This is a memory of a one time visit I made at a shop in Seymour Indiana that I’m still fond of 38 years later…
I was warmly greeted and was ask what I was looking for and I told the fella what I was looking for and he said I have those in stock help yourself.I found 6 Bev/Bel/Athearn cars I been looking for and added 3 packs of KD couplers and returned to the counter to check out.
While talking I casually mention I was station at FT.Knox and was just passing through when I saw their sign…The guy said,just a minute and gave me a free pack of KD couplers as a thank you for protecting the country.
I remember that just like it was yesterday.
I wish I had some hobby shop memories but all the trains I had as a kid were used and I never saw the inside of a hobby shop until I returned to the hobby as an adult. Not much in the way of nostalgia there.
PS. If hobby shops are dying, the ones I frequent must not have gotten the memo. They seem to be doing quite well.
My first encounter with a Hobby Shop was back in the 1950’s when my dad took me there to look at some HO trains. It was a very small shop in Yonkers, NY called ‘Handy Dan the Hobby Man’ and the owner (Dan) was very knowledgeable of model trains. He had a small HO layout (4x8 I think?) and there was a John English pacific on the layout that I fell in love with. I wound up buying it for $8.00 ( a lot of $$ back then for me). I just sold that model last year as it never did run very well. Today I live in Knoxville, TN and there are only 2 LHS’s here, Dan’s Trains and HobbyTown USA and neither one is anything like that one. Dan’s Trains is also a small shop that barely has room to stand in and the walls are packed with trains up to the ceiling and the counters are covered with more trains, but you can’t ‘look’ at stuff and there aren’t any prices on them. It is a very strange shop and I haven’t been back in a couple of years. I have to buy most of my mrr supplies on line or at Hobbytown if they have it. Memories of the LHS are warm and fond, but gone forever, sadly.
-Bob
I guess I’m one of the few lucky ones. Caboose Hobbies in Denver was my first hobby shop experience. I remember my mom got me a Tyco train set for Christmas. I wanted to get more track and trains to expand it. We had a blizzard on Christmas, so we had to wait a few days before we could get out of the house. I was begging my mom to take me down to Caboose, the roads were still bad, but my mom finally took me down there. When I walked in it was amazing. The place looked like a supermarket for trains!
Then when I returned to the hobby about 5 years ago, I went to Caboose and it was still there! I go there at least once a week now.
My dad had a store in downtown Mpls and, as an 11 yr old kid, before I was old enough to work, I sometimes accompanied him on Saturday mornings just to hang around. As I was interested in model trains, I had just received an Athearn Ho train set for Christmas and, wanting to add to my rolling stock, I made a 10 block walk in subzero weather to Gager’s, an LHS of the old school (trains, plastic models and model airplanes) to buy my first HO Athearn BB kit- a Southern Pacific flat car with stakes. I remember being so pleased with myself, having made the purchase, that I didn’t even feel the extreme cold on the long walk back. That was 1965…just yesterday in my mind!
Cedarwoodron
For me there would have to be 2 of them: One would have to have been Central Hobbies in Billings. In the glory days (mid-80s to early 90s) you could walk in and see just about any Athearn BB car or engine you could want sitting on the shelf where you could look at them. My first MDC/Roundhouse 34’ Overton passenger cars came from that shop. I liked the looks of them and finally saved enough money to start getting my now fleet of them.
The other would have been the one here in my home town. The name slips my mind but from that shop is where I got my first of what would be my caboose fleet. (The Tyco cupola ones.) I saw one sitting on the shelf and got a deal on it from the owner who I was in a railroad club with.
Like many people have said, now with the demise of the LHS, I do most of my railroad purchases via the Internet through eBay. The one I do a lot of repeat business with a family run store out of Washington State.
[Edit] I relized that I forgot one that I had a very good experience with. Whistle Stop Hobbies in Portland, OR. My brother was living in Portland at the time and we were visiting and I had taken one of my Overton cars with me in an attempt to find a new set of trucks for it. While they didn’t have those trucks onhand, one of the workers was nice enough to open one of the new (at that time) Athearn/MDC ones that used the general model and found me a stock number I was able to use to order two pair of those trucks.
Growing up on Long Island, NY in the 50’s and 60’s I remember Mulrany’s Trainland as the place where I took my Lionel and traded it for HO when I was about 15. It was a haul for me so I had to get my father to drive me there. My first LHS about that time was close by in Levittown. It was called Franklin Hobbies. I would save my allowance and buy various parts and supplies for my new HO layout. The owner even displayed some of my models in the store window. They closed down probably in the early 60’s. Every time I am in that strip mall I look at the Italian Resturant that took it’s place and smile. However, a place that I later frequented in nearby East Meadow was Lee’s Hobby Shop. It was a much bigger store and that became my stamping grounds well into adulthood when it too closed it’s doors. I recall that Lee’s had a thriving mail order business with a large catalog. I think that they got burned by the slot car craze of the 60’s and basically through in the towel. I believe it re-opened with another name and survived probably well into the 70’s. The building is a surgical supply store now. Willis Hobbies in Mineola has been my LHS for about 30 years now. They are in their third store since I started going there. In fact, I was in there yesterday buying some supplies and gabbing with the owner Steve. Great place for advice.
Cedarwoo/GN400,
Gagers ‘home’ store was in downtown Mpls, and they had an excellent store also in the lower level of Southdale Mall out in Edina(First enclosed mall in the US), and in Bookdale Center. They had everything a guy could look for in trains back in the late 60’s. The Gager family sold out and it was gone quite fast.
Woodcraft Hobbies(home store on Lake St) also as big in the MSP area, they had a store in downtown St Paul, Har Mar Mall and later in Signal Hill Center(the old Lightfoots Hobby).
There were at least 10-12 LHS, back in the late 60’s and they even had a Saturday morning hobby show on local TV. Later on Woodcraft alone sponsored the show. Later there was Division Point Hobbies, Hobbytown(not the big current chain), Team Track Hobbies, Railroad Scale Models, Scale Model Supplies(still there) and at least one other one(Scale Hobbies,LLC?). Woodcraft sponsored a show in Har Mar Mall, and Hobbytown sponsored a show in Northtown Center.
When I moved to Rochester, MN in 1984, we had Moon’s Hobby(really quite good for being out in a corn field). They eventually became Hendys until Rick Henderson died and the store was closed. The closest LHS for me now is about 45 miles to Ace Hardware in Winona - they have about 3 isles of model train stuff. I can drive about 75 mile to the MSP area and Scale Model Supplies is still open, and a little further, Beckers Hobby.
Most of my purchases are now over the Internet(Model Train Stuff/Toy Train Heaven/eBay), or through dealers at Train Shows(Caboose Stop Hobbies or Perry’s Hobbies). I miss the Saturday morning run with the guys to various LHS’s, and ‘lunch’ at the local ‘Mr Steak’. But times change and we have to ‘go with the flow’…
Jim