Visited a train shop yesterday at Strasburg PA. Was talking to the owner & he really disagreed with the premise that we are part of a dying hobby. He said that business has never been better & they are thinking of building a bigger store. They carry Z to G , plus Lionel, nothing else in the store.
He is located at the Strasburg RR & across the street from the Pa. train museum. Also our local Train shop (N & HO only) is doing well. He is attributing it to the fact that some other hobby shops have closed in the area. There will always be train shops if they are in the right location & they know how to serve the customer. jerry
I’m not so sure location really is that important. I’ve driven over two hours to hobby shops only because of their customer service. For me location isn’t really that important, its the customer service and the variety of items available that I find important and that will get me back as a repeat customer.
It is highly naive thinking by the owner that the success of a train shop situated across the street from a major RR tourist atraction in any way reflects on the current health of the hobby itself. Odds are that 90% of the customers are simply tourists and not hobbyists. Locating a kite shop across the street from a park frequented by many kite fliers insures the business’ success but can not be used to judge or rate the general interest in kite flying.
And while siting a RR hobby shop in the manner described may indeed be good for that particular store, at the same time it may very well be quite inconvenient for actual hobbyists. Most tourist railroads are situated in out of the way locations, remote from centers of population. Were most shops so situated, odds are that they would see very few hobbyists coming through their doors.
I live in northern NJ where there are, fortunately, 10 shops within 15 miles from my house. The one shop, MRPO, that I go to EVERY month is the farthest of them, and very hard to find if you don’t know the area!! (it’s in an older industrial park) The customer service is absolutely the best!! On my second visit, over ten years ago, I was greeted with “Hi Lou” by Ray, the owner, and this was over a month since my first visit!! I don’t even remember giving him my name!! (I paid only cash in those days) He and his employees are extremely knowledgeable and always do everything possible to make your visit enjoyable. In addition to this, almost everything is discounted from 10 to 20% off list and sometimes more!! The first time I special ordered anything, I was expecting to pay the catalog price, but got a 20% discount and no shipping charges!! He also honors Walthers sale prices!! Even without discounts, I would still go there as often!! (don’t tell him I said that last piece!)[tup][tup]
Location is only a part of the equation…You have to love the business and really care about the customer in front of you, not just fake it in front of them.
I have been in that shop many times while visiting Strasburg, and I don’t think I would go there on a weekend all year, or at all June to the end of August - PARKING!! The service there is good, which is probably why his sales are good, even though he’s pretty much list price. [:)]
I still think it has a lot to do with the location because there is another “trains only” shop less than a quarter mile away thas seems to be doing well also.
In another thread I was commenting on how the quality of hobby shops in the Atlanta area has greatly improved over the last 13 years even though the quantity has diminished significantly. Business also seems to be doing quite well; at the LHS I visit most often (which is exclusively model railroad), the store usually has lots of customers on weekdays and is packed on weekends. In fact, one day last month I had to leave and come back later in the day because I could not even work my way over to the N-scale section. I can remember the recession at the beginning of the 1990s where just the opposite was true, so it appears that the hobby shops are faring better during this particular economic downturn (or at least the few that I visit). Jamie
IMHO, the popularity of model railroading as a hobby seems to be in direct proportion to the presence and impact of full-scale railroading in the area.
The Northeast is now and has always been a center of rail activity, model railroading and rail retailers. OTOH, in places in the wide open spaces far removed from railroads there are few if any hobbyists and a total absence of retail sales outlets. In Japan, where virtually everyone is up close and personal with some of the world’s densest full-scale operation (passenger trains on one-hour headway on minor lines through the heart of nowhere, with freights between,) the per-capita percentage of model railroaders is considerably higher than it is on this side of the Pacific. The number of shops (retail store fronts) advertising in Tetsudo Mokei Shumi reflects that as well.
Just my [2c], based on personal observation.
Chuck (modeling traffic-rich Central Japan in September, 1964)
I agree with ta462. Customer service and a variety of items is my choice. My LHS has to order everything I need, so I prefer to travel well over a hour to get something today and not in 3 days to 2 weeks.
That would make sense to me. It might also explain why the demographics of model railroaders here in eastern Massachusetts has so many gray hairs. With the exception of commuter rail, for many of us, trains are part of history. Yes, the Acela runs south out of Boston, and Amtrak service goes up to Portland, Maine, but there is only limited freight service now. The old B&M Fitchburg line through Concord, MA, used to have quite a few freights, but I think they gave up everything but commuter rail 15 or so years ago. In my town of Bedford, even commuter rail went away, and most of the right-of-way has become bike trails, with the ties and rails completely gone.
So, we model the past around here. But our young people don’t even see trains, so what do they have to draw them into the hobby? Still, the population density is high enough to support quite a few shops, including quite a few good ones. In eastern Mass, if you can’t drive to a decent LHS in under an hour, well, you should think about getting a better car.
I know where MRPO is, please tell me where all these other shops are? I only know a couple left, and one, HI-Way Hobby, isn’t very good for trains anymore.