Trains...Trains...Trains...Everywhere at F.W. Woolworth/Woolco

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
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I’ll take a few readers back with the following story.

For those that remember and those who do not, there was once a very large retail firm, a very large firm, by the name of F.W. Woolworth and Company here in the United States and I also believe in Canada also.

Come to think of it, the Woolworth Building, a very large skyscraper, is in New York City, which was the companies headquarters.

Woolsworth, was a retailer known as a 5 & 10, a term coined back in the day, when a retail mechandise store carried a vast number of items, priced for sale at 5 and 10 cents each.

Back then we had companies, 5 & 10’s operated by Woolsworth, S.K. Kressge, who also owned what is know today as the mass retailer K-Mart, W.T. Grant and Company, G.C. Murphy and Company, Ben Franklin an more, as well as a few regional mass retailers such as TG&Y and H.L. Greene Companies.

For many, many years, someone in a executive position with Woolsworth, must have been a model railroader.

In particular both their respective Woolworth dime stores and Woolco mass retail stores, carried model trains years round.

However as Christmas time neared, every year like clock work, the influx of additional model trains began. An I do mean increased dramaticly!

You could see the then popular scales for sale. HO, N, some O and Lionel.

The brands, AHM locomotives, rolling stock and building kits. Atlas track and building kits, Athearn locomotives and rolling stock. Train Miniaturer rolling stock. Revell Building kits. Mantua/Tyco locomotives and rollings stock and much, much more…

As a matter of fact, I still have and occasionally run a Mantua/Tyco powered EMD GP-20, which I purchased at our local downtown Woolsworth store, back in the early 1970’s and the day after Christmas train sale.

Think back for that matter, I saw my first ever, in person, a brass HO scale steam locomotive, marketed by AHM, reposing i

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Like a “Blast from the Past”, I remember it so well. My grandmother also worked for W.T. Grant, downtown Boston for many years. Jordan Marsh put on an unbelevable Christmas display for years also. dedicated an entire floor to Christmas Village, Store window displays, trains and animation. What a delight every year.

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Oh yeah the day after Christmas at Woolworth’s when AHM cab-forwards and Y6b 2-8-8-2s would be sold for well under $20, and the AHM passenger and freight cars were almost being given away. I think the BL2 diesels were $5 or $6.

And the distinctive aroma of a Woolworth’s – a pungent blend of pet bird department*, pet fish department, and lunch counter. If you bought a sweater there it would smell like all three.

Dave Nelson

  • there was almost always at least one escaped parakeet in every Woolworth store I went to.
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Ah yes, Woolworth. Ours always had a loose bird in it too. Always wanted a hamster, Mom would never get me one, but I had a dog who probably would have eaten the hamster.

The other big department store back inteh day, at least in this area - Two Guys. Many of my old Tyco adn AHM equipment had price stickers from Two Guys on it - including that AHM/Pocher Lincoln Funeral Car I sold on ebay for $78. Price sticker from Two Guys was still on it, $1.99. I also remember runnign to Two Guys one Sunday after church to pick up Asteroids for my Atari 2600

–Randy

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Marshal Field’s on State St. downtown Chicago had numerous window displays that all passer’s by, including Myself would gawk at in amazement of Lionel, American Flyer train layouts, all running constantly, no other scales back in the 40’s.

I also noticed when we went to Starved Rock area and went into the stores in town, like the 5 & 10, a lot of their toy vehicles were all oriented towards farm machinery, never saw any of that in the city. LOL.

Take Care! [:D]

Frank

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Bob,
Don’t forget our club had a huge portable layout built for Filene’s in Boston (Downtown Crossing) for Christmas back in the 1980’s. It was before our time in the club, but Barry, Dave, et al, know all about it.

Paul A. Cutler III

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I grew up in Texas in the 60’s; I can remember that Sears carried lots of Lionel trains at Christmas time; the Galveston store had a big Christmas layout. Later, the Sears catalog featured Mantua and Tyco products into the 70’s.

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I can’t say that I remember the Woolworths here carrying a lot of model trains, but I certainly remember seeing them at W.T. Grant, G.C. Murphy and a local chain called Clabers. I remember Clabers would have shelves of AHM and Tyco locomotives on display and mountains of AHM structure kits. I don’t remember what trains W.T. Grant had, but I remember getting structures from Faller and AHM there. In fact, I still have a few of the Faller buildings that came built-up. I also remember them selling little scenes by Noch in clear vacuum formed boxes.

And as the OP said, the day after Christmas was the big clearance day. The only problem is that, being a young guy, I could never seem to get a ride to the store before all the good stuff was taken. It didn’t really matter, though, because I didn’t have enough money to buy much more than a few structure kits.

I have often wondered, though…if any of the folks who did buy all of that neat old stuff ever built any layouts or were they just buying them to use under a tree the next year? And, of course, a lot of the old AHM and Tyco cars didn’t really operate all that great, so how much could you really do with them anyway?

Jim

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Back in the '70s, I too found a treasure trove of HO stuff at Woolworths - both in Illinois and in Texas. Of particular interest was getting those AHM locos (Rivorossi?) which were super buys back then. Athearn of course was the major supplier of diesels, but only had one steamer (to the best of my recall). But AHM more than filled the bill with steamers.

When I was able to upgrade in the early 2000s, I sold all my AHM locos (9) on Ebay. Interestingly, most went to Europe - UK, Italy, Germany, and one to Japan.

For what its worth, I felt as much or more fun playing with trains back then, as I do now with all the sound and DCC control and decent sized layout…

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Here in Southern California, we used to have Longs Drugs in Moreno Valley where the former manager kept nearly a third of the store stocked with model trains at very competitive prices. Once they tore down my old playground (Riverside International Raceway), I no longer had an excuse to get out that way very often. Just as well since the old manager was forced out and the train department eventually dwindled away to nothing.

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OMG!!! I just did a 40 year and 2400 mile trip east to the past! Yes…yes I remember all too well. Grants, Woolworth’s, Kressge, the 5 and Dime in Reading…and yes Two Guys in Shillington PA. Trains all over especially nearing the holidays. John Wanamaker in center city Philadelphia in the early 70’s had impressive trains set up’s for the holidays as well.

I’ve also been remembering lately about the Horn and Hardart automats in Philly.

I must be getting old.[:D] Yup.

Mark H

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It was K-mart in the Midwest where I ran into this annual RR blitz. Except I didn’t figure out it was seasonal at first. I went back in like March, thinking I coiuld get something I needed once I finally saved up my bucks and discovered the rather limited selection of stuff that I guess wasn’t worth boxing up to return.

Where has this all gone? The internet, I guess. But there you have to know what you want usually, limited chances for a chance encounter with trains that turns into a lifelong hobby. In fact, for all the handwringing over the loss of the LHS and what it means for the future of the hobby is probably somewhat misplaced. You went to the LHS when you knew what you wanted, more or less. The chance encounter with trains tended to happen more with seasonal dept store displays.

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Having been born after 1980, all I remember of Woolworth’s was the mysterious concept of a lunch counter, spending my birthday money on a GI Joe tank, the bird smell, and when the building later collapsed and crushed a car.

By my day, Ames and Hills had throttled the remaining life out of Woolworth’s, Zayre’s, and were finishing off Fisher’s Big Wheel (as any Western Pennsylvanian should remember, if they’re older than 30 and have a good memory).

And now Ames and Hills are gone too. Even ate each other in the process.

Also Gee Bee! How do I remember all these small and regional discount stores that went out of business decades ago?

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As a teenager every 26th day of December would find me at Woolco picking over the goodies~a IHB 0-8-0 for $5.99 or a Y6B for $7.99 and freight cars for 99 cents each with lots of track,switches,structure kits and HO railroad figures to choose from.

I spent some of my Christmas money there and the rest was spent at Hall’s hobby shop during the following week…

If I may…The lunch counter had the best coffee(I started drinking coffee at 14) and the best Pumpkin pie around…

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Brakie:

You really stimulated some memories for me with your mention of Hall’s Hobby shop. That is where I bought my first loco (a Varney Little Joe) with money from my paper route. I ran it with a Marx transformer coupled to a selenium plate rectifier. What fun. How things have changed since then.

Joe

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I worked for Woolworths just before their demise. They didn’t own their own real estate for the most part and worked on 30 year leases. Worked well untill the world changed in the late 70’s early 80’s. So as the leases expired they started closing stores till there were no more.

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I really miss that Longs Drug Store! I never actually went to the store, just ordered from him over the phone. Best prices in in SoCal. He would even call me on occaision when he would get new stock in. I still have a bunch of loco and rolling stock jewel cases with the Longs price tags on them!

Tim

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Since we are expanding the memories beyond Woolworth’s – at the Gimbels department store in Milwaukee (after it merged with the more local Schusters to become Gimbels-Schusters) in the late 1960s or early 1970s my mother brought home an OO/HO train set made in England, Hornby Dublo Set 2009, a plastic passenger 0-6-0T tank engine lettered for British Railways and two actual tinplate passenger cars, plus a circle of bullhead rail track, probably 15" radius or so. The sticker price was $2.99. The box has a magnificent color (sorry - “colour”) painting of British steam locomotives. She said they had a stack three feet high of them. If I had had any sense I would have gone and bought the entire stock and saved them as collector’s items. The box alone is worth the money for the cover art.

Dave Nelson

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My Wisconsin Ave. Woolworth memories c.1949-52 consist mainly of counter tops filled with cast metal soldiers in multiple uniforms and poses on trays separated by glass dividers. For trains, Gimbels had better toy department Christmas displays, compared to Boston Store or Schusters. One year -as I recall- Gimbels even had a monorail train hanging from track around the toy department ceiling, which small children could ride on their way to see Santa, but I was too big to ride. Both Gimbels and Boston Store would add train layouts to their toy departments for Christmas, but to my dismay the Lionel layouts were usually more impressive than the American Flyer ones.

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I have fond memories of Woolco’s except for their stupid “back to school” commercials. Growing up in Richmond Va. in the 1970s I would normally hate going shopping with my parents, with the exception of Azeala Mall, it had a Woolco’s with 2 aisles of AHMs. I remember going to Woolco’s and bought an N&W hopper car and the Revell Barn set for 5 bucks, major excitement for a 14 year old. I now go to hobby shops and spend over 200 bucks but it did not make as big of impression as spending 5 bucks back in the seventies.