[Panther]

Garden Grove Blvd, just East of Dale st, Garden Grove, California.

Dan

 

[Lee Willis]

H&H Hobbies in Sharpstown Mall in Houston Texas. Not sure if the mall is still there, but fairly sure the shop isn't.

 

[Volphin]

Ulrich’s Camera and Gift Shop. Run by an nasty old couple. Some trains, a lot of Roco mini tanks.

Actually, for trains, it was the Woolworths around Christmas Time.

Both in Hamburg, NY

There were other shops later on, all but one, are gone now.

Tom

Tom, my dad grew up in Hamburg NY. Small world!

 

[Togatown]

Duane's Toyland on upper State St in my hometown of Schenectady, NY.

 

[Dave Connolly]

Not really a hobby shop. Only had a small layout growing up. My trains came from Jordan Marsh in Boston and Framingham MA. . They carried everything in the toy dept. and had large layout displays during the Christmas season.

 

[teledoc]

My first Hobby Shop was TrentonHobby Shop, in downtown Trenton, NJ. Little did I know as a youngster, that the owner was William Krames, one of the ounding Charter Member of the T.C.A., along with Edwin Alexander, who started the T.C.A., in Ed Alexander’s barn, in Yardley, Pa., back in. 1954. It was always a must stop, when going to downtown during the holidays, with a Sears Roebuck around the corner, with their layout front & center in the big window.

 

[65446]

........Those were the days my friend. We thought they'd never end.......

 

[SantaFeJim]

Windsor Hobby in Berwyn Illinois. It was located on the south side of the (at that time) the CB&Q tracks.

My friends and I spent most of our allowance there.

 

[Traindiesel]

Downtown Philadelphia in the mid 1960's was Nicholas Smith's and Schemp Brothers and a few others that escape me. I barely remember the shops but I remember being there during the Christmas season with my Grandfather and walking through the hordes of people Christmas shopping in town.

Early 70's it was Schaefer's Trains on Kensington Ave. with my Grandfather and my Dad. At that time they were buying early N scale, while I was gawking at all the Lionel boxes stacked to the ceiling.

Whenever my Grandfather wanted to buy a train, he'd ask me to go with him to Schaefers. He'd see something he liked and ask me, "Hey, Bri, do you like that engine?" Of course I said "Yes", and he would buy it. When we got home he would complain to my Grandmother and my parents that I made him buy the engine so he wouldn't get in trouble for it. I didn't mind being his scapegoat!

 

[Mark Noteboom]

Hey Chugman;

 

[VTtrainguy]

I was a kid in the early 50s near White River Junction, VT, and there were no hobby shops to be found. Firestone sold Lionel and Aubuchons sold American Flyer, but most railfolk operated in 1:1 scale. Then, on a business trip my dad discovered Eric Fuchs on Tremont St in Boston, and the wide world of HO opened up to my eager eyes. So I also ordered from a catalog, but instead of waiting for the mailman, I waited for my dad's next business trip. Loved that Varney stuff!
When I became a teenager, we lived in a town where the only hobby shop was model airplanes, ships, and cars, and I was seduced by aviation. Now that my flying career is over, I've come back to model railroading.

 

[WMnut]

I lived in a very rural farming region in Maryland, nothing but farms, folks went to town many miles away once a month to purchase what they could not raise or grow. The closest small town was Westminster Md, there was a hobby shop " Bobby`s Hobby Lobby " on main street. Wonderful people, man, wife and 3 youngins all working the shop, lived above the store, always had time to chat with kids, and help with any layout problems. I always had my Dad stop there before we started home.
I first started buying Revell model kits of covered wagons, ranch wagons, stage coach and so on, putting them together and painting them. That was in the early 1950s, i still have all of those. Then came the trains, and that has never stopped.

 

[Kelpieflyer]

Mine was a shop called Spencer Craft and Hobby on State Road 11 (used to be named 31-A) in Rockford, near Seymour, Indiana. Ironically it was very near the site of the first train robbery in the US.

 

[Maxum]

I remember going to different hobby stores with my dad as a kid growing up in San Diego in the early 1970's. But the train store that stands out in my mind the most was Frank the Trainman on Park Blvd. I believe the store was started in the 1950's and is still in business. The original location was very unique itself. It had a really neat neon sign that has been preserved. The store had an impressive collection of Lionel products back in the day as well as a layout. It's probably been 25 years since I was there. The store relocated down the street probably 30 years or so ago.

 

[WMnut]

I remember going to different hobby stores with my dad as a kid growing up in San Diego in the early 1970's. But the train store that stands out in my mind the most was Frank the Trainman on Park Blvd. I believe the store was started in the 1950's and is still in business. The original location was very unique itself. It had a really neat neon sign that has been preserved. The store had an impressive collection of Lionel products back in the day as well as a layout. It's probably been 25 years since I was there. The store relocated down the street probably 30 years or so ago.

Man, that`s so cool...

 

[KeithL]

There were two, about a block or two apart in the West Rogers Park neighborhood of Chicago:

Kenmac Records was on Devon Avenue, a little west of Western Avenue. Besides being a great place to pick up 45s and albums, they had a classic Lionel Trains alcove in the back of the store. There was an L-shaped counter, and, behind that, two walls with shelves filled with orange and blue boxes.

Hobbymodels, a full-service hobby shop, was at the corner of Devon and Western. They had Lionel, lots of HO, and pretty much all the miscellaneous things you might need for your hobbies.

 

[WakeForestRR]

The Train Station in Mountain Lakes, NJ. I loved going there as a kid. Stopped in a few years ago while on a business trip to that area. It was good see that it is still going strong.

George

 

[jay jay]

My first hobby shop was Trost Hobbies, located on W. 63rd Street near S. Kedzie Ave. in Chicago. My first Lionel set came from there, and many hours were spent there back in the 1950s before or after movies at the Marquette Theater, which was right around the corner. They closed around 2000, I believe. (Photo is from the internet.)

 

[Joe Connor]

The Train Station in Mountain Lakes, NJ. I loved going there as a kid. Stopped in a few years ago while on a business trip to that area. It was good see that it is still going strong.

George

The Train Station is the hobby shop we all wished we had had as kids. Just an amazing selection of post-war Lionel. It has everything we baby boomers had (or, more likely, wished we had) back in the day. Unfortunately, my youth was long before the Train Station existed.

I grew up in Morristown, about 10 miles from Mountain Lakes, in the late '50s and early '60s. Even though Morristown was only about a half-hour away from the Lionel factory in Hillside, we didn't have any hobby shops with a great selection of Lionel. The closest was Leitner's in Morristown, a general-purpose toy store that carried some Lionel, and Two Guys, an early big-box store that carried lots of Lionel at Christmastime. There was a place in Pine Brook called Rich's Hobbytown, but for a kid too young for a driver's license, that was like the other side of the world.

 

[BrokeCurmudgeon]

Sears and Roebuck's catalog