this is the time of year when photos posted on forum showing your train displays conjure up memories of days gone by.
I can remember the department stores of the 1950's with the Christmas windows filled with manikins wearing the current clothing but below were toys! and the trains were running too.
only a few stores in the big cities still do holiday display windows those of you whom are lucky enough to see them can you please post photos of them so we can see them.
do any of the larger department stores include trains in the holiday display windows?
Thank You
Check out the December issue of CTT. There is a article just for you.
When I was growing up in the North Jersey 'burbs there weren't any department store toy train displays as it just wasn't feasible the way the stores were built in the malls. This was back in the late 50's, early 60's.
However, it seems like ALL the local hardware stores had Lionel trains in the windows! I remember one in (I believe it was in Rochelle Park) that had a whole wall full of Lionel trains. As a six-year-old I was VERY impressed by the green passenger cars, they looked just like the ones on the local commuter trains. They looked very serious, very business-like.
The last Christmas train window display I saw anywhere (until recently) was in a hobby shop a friend opened in Hoboken NJ back in 1986. "Wow, look at that," I said to myself, "Big John remembers!" He did! This big, rough, tough, gruff-looking gun-nut former Lackawanna Railroad employee missed those toy train window displays as much as everyone else did and decided to "Do somethin' about it!"
Locally, "Tiny Tim's Toys" (see my post of 11/2/14) in Ashland Virginia has a nice window display.
While I am to young to remember window displays(born in 1973), I do remember going to a couple of hobby shops with my father and seeing the trains up on the wall, and one store did have a display layout inside the store that would be running. I had both Lionel and HO scale growing up. Dad's vintage 1655 starter set at my grandparents, and starting in '79 I got 2 Tyco HO scale sets for Christmas. After those proved a bad choice for an almost 5 yr old. So for my 5th birthday the following March, I got my own MPC era Lionel set. Once I turned 12, I got to add my fathers vintage set to my collection. I now do my own window displays with a small xmas tree and our bay window. I will post pics once I have it up and running this year. I just repainted the board its mounted to this morning. Going in circles will be dad's 1655 and hopefully a pair of 2333 Santa Fe's that I have in lay away at the LHS. I got away from Lionel for the past few years, messing with G scale outdoors and some HO scale indoors. But with my failing eyesite, the HO is becoming harder to see. So I am gradualy going to back to Lionel. I personaly would like to see some display windows of trains running. With many towns and cities revitilzing downtowns, an old fashioned Christmas display window would be a nice highlight. Mike
Silly NT's, I have Asperger's Syndrome
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