Good HO scale shops in Minneapolis/St Paul?

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

Greetings,

I will be visiting the Twin cities area in about 2 weeks. What good HO scale shops, for rolling stock, would you recommend?

Thanks in advance,

Mark

2

Becker’s mrr supply, on Silver Lake Road, New Brighton.

Scale Model Supplies, on Lexington and University, St Paul.

Terry in NW Wisconsin

3

Scale Model Supplies is probably the largest hobby shop in the Twin Cities, maybe in the whole state. It’s in the lower level of a strip mall, IIRC it was originally a bowling alley so it’s got a lot of room. One nice thing is once something goes on the shelf, it stays there until it sells. Just a couple months ago I bought a “new in the box” Life-Like Proto 2000 E-8 unit that still had it’s original price tag on it from when it arrived in the shop in 1995!! Depending where you’re coming from, it can be a little hard to get to now because of light rail construction on University Avenue, but it’s worth it.

http://www.scalemodelsupplies.com/html/trains-hoscale.html

If you have kids with you, Choo-Choo Bob’s train store is a great place to visit. It’s not far from Scale Model Supplies, maybe a mile. It’s address is 2050 Marshall Ave., on the corner of Marshall and Cleveland. It has some HO and a good variety of books, and a play area for the kids. You can pick some DVD’s of the ChooChoo Bob TV show too. If you go north on Cleveland, you go by the Minnesota Commercial railroad’s roundhouse, where you often can see vintage Alco engines. A little north of that is Amtrak’s Midway depot.

4

no one mentioned the two Hub Hobbies stores. University Avenue is under construction and the traffic was backed up on Lexington almost to the freeway by Scale Model Supplies the other day. Becker’s is open limited hours so check his website. Becker’s has recent issues on the shelves and he discounts.

5

Yeah scale model supplies on university is a great place, don’t forget to check out the clearance room for possible treasures at bargain basement prices (i think the term bargain basement was named after this place, its pretty much in a dungeon), don’t be scared off though .yes its sunken underground below a payday lending shop in a neighborhood that looks like a crime scene but the staff is very helpful, one guy helped me research an old railroad for about 20 minutes.

6

no one mentioned the two Hub Hobbies stores. University Avenue is under construction and the traffic was backed up on Lexington almost to the freeway by Scale Model Supplies the other day. Becker’s is open limited hours so check his website. Becker’s has recent issues on the shelves and he discounts.

7

The other Hub Hobby is on about 64th on Penn Avenue in Richfield.

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