George’s Trains in Toronto is closing their Mt. Pleasant Ave. location and moving to their other store in Markham . they’ve been on Mt. Pleasant since 1962 when George bought the store from the previous owner and changed the name from Bob’s Toy Trains
some people might say that they’re not moving far , but it’s currently a 45 minute public transit ride to the store , and after they move it will be at least an hour and a half , possibly longer . i doubt i’ll visit often
the sale starts tomorrow , i guess i’ll go see what they haven’t moved yet
There is a very local hobby shop near me (maybe five miles). But they don’t carry much. Nice people.They can order me any Walthers item at 20% off the catalog list.
wholesaletrains.com has its store in Horseheads, NY which is a nice store, but 45 mins away on the highway at highway speeds from me. Makes for a nice leisurely trip.
The very local LHS can’t always compete with wholesaletrains.com, but wholesaletrains.com doesn’t carry everything on the shelves either. Whether I drive there to pick up or pay S & H I break even on that charge. They quite often have things on my doorstep easily within 5 days or less.
Good luck finding a new source, online or in person.
The sale started awhile ago. They announced they were moving their store on Mt Pleasant on their website awhile ago as well. I was up at George’s Markham store on Saturday, that’s an hour and 10 minute car ride for me from Port Hope were I live so don’t feel to bad. From the looks of the renovations in progress it will be close to twice the size. Besides its a great spot to watch the trains. I hated the store downtown, they had no parking and it was kind of cramped in side. The new store has lots of lighting, lots of parking and lots of inventory. All good things in my book. I’ll be there on Sunday as well, a club in the next building is having an open house. I hear the layout is about 2700 square feet so it should be something to see.
thanks , i guess i’ll have to at least try to visit the new store . i’ll take a thick paperback for the ride there and i’m sure i’ll have plenty of reading material for the trip back . (Georges is the only place i know that stocks Narrow Guage and Shortline Gazette so i always grab a couple of issues when i’m there)
The HS I go to also deals in a lot of R/C and static models. Trains (G,O,N and HO) take up 3 of 8 16 foot aisles. At the Hobby Lobby there’s half a 20 foot aisle, mostly O, N and HO. Sometimes I stumble across a deal on the forum that’s too good to pass up.
Ditto here in Wisconsin.I live in Fond Du Lac.I have 2 hobby shops here,Focus and Fondy Hobby.Of the 2,Focus has a lil of everything,yet there is alot of model railroad merchandise.The other…I dont waste my time…too expensive,and he does not offer any type of discount.There was one in Appleton;Toy Train Depot.I frequented that store ALOT,due to that it had many back issues of different magazines,and a whole selection of books and such.Now that one is gone,so now I have to head to GreenBay,(1 1/2 hour drive).I cant find what I need from Focus,and waiting for him to order stuff,I can find it faster at a different HS in Green Bay.Seems this hobby is dieing faster than anything,without the hobbyshop.
To bad you do not live closer to madison, there is a good shop there. I live in monroe WI , its on the southern border of the state. We have a local hobby shop that handles mostly trains. It has more trains than higher volume hobby shops.
The LTS is 40-45 minutes away. It might be less if I take a short cut and follow the tracks but there’s usually train’s running on them every day so it wouldn’t be very smart to walk on the tracks. Other wise it’s about a 5 minute drive.