Just thought I would ask everyone, "What is your favorite train store, and what makes it your favorite? Just a bit curious what your trains store does to keep you coming back?"
I use the term "train store" because my favorite train store is not in a hobby shop. It is a nursery. As far as train supplies go, they carry "G" scale only, they have 24 foot of shelving for trains and buildings, 6 foot of shelving/pegs for tracks and people. What do they do to keep me coming back? Pricing for trains, track, and buildings pretty well matches or slightly beats prices found on the Internet. People; I'm sure you know how hard it is to find a package of people that is not broken, well, here they take 20% off if the package has one broken piece, 50% if there are two breaks. Hey! Half price, a bit of glue, a touch of paint and nobody will ever know. They have a tremendous selection of live trees (both 1:24 and 1:1), bountiful supplies of ground covers. Just a quick guess, but there is about 150 foot of aisle space of garden train size ground cover, and about 50 foot of 1:24~1:12 trees. Of course they have loads of the full size stuff like the scarce tomato plants the wife sent me there to get for the garden. OK, so I spent $6 on the vegetable garden and $180 on the garden railroad, it all went out to the "garden".
http://photobucket.com/Andersons_Trains
One other thing. They have a tremendous layout outdoors. At any given time there probably are more engines and cars sitting on the "ready" track of the yard on the layout than there is for sale inside the store. For those of you who remember (about a year, year and half ago?) there was a "Be On The Look Out" for stolen trains and bridging from Walter Anderson's Nursery. The plywood and 2x4 temporary bridging have all been replaced from the gaps left when the thieves jumped the fence. The new bridging looks as if it were designed in place while the layout was built. The layout looks as good as ever, the number of running trains is still below what it used to be, but at least they are still running. A slow stroll around their empire and you can find almost every climatic zone in the "lower 48". From the dense forests of New England to the deserts of the Southwest. Have a look at this short video. By far my simple video does not do full justice to the layout.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=fbUZLLdQ8Co
For a look at their track plan (pdf) go here
http://www.walterandersen.com/images/ConsoleDwg_c.pdf
Now that I've told you about my train store, what do you like best of your store?
Tom Trigg
My favourite train store was a place in North Charleston, SC named JUST TRAINS.
There was a few other hobbies there, like slot cars and a few assorted model kits, but that was all.
The owner and his family was very freindly, often times my wife and I would spend an entire Saturday there just talking trains and working on the store layout, a rather unique dog-bone HO scale layout that he would use to show off some of his newer locos, as well as his favourite oldies.
When I first went to his store, I cleaned out his stock of Chessie system cars in HO scale in preparation for a month long convelcent period following surgery on my right hand. Putting the kits together helped my dexterity return in my right hand, and proved to be a great moral boost as well. During most of the convelescent period, I was restricted to my barracks room, due to the side effects of the painkillers, so stocking up was key.
During this time the shopkeeper stocked up on more Chessie equipment and sent me a kit via mail to help keep me going.
After I got married and got the space to build a layout, we got almost all of our supplies from him, and he managed to get me converted to the Southern Railway. He had a massive love of the Southern and imparted that into me.
When I got my orders to Rotten Groton, CT, he was upset, as was I.
Not long after I left SC, he had to close up shop.
It was a great store, and I have a lot of fond memories of it.
So many scales, so many trains, so little time.....
St Aubin is the best
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