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I worked as a salesman in the Lionel and LGB section of Allied Model Trains from late November 1990 to mid March 1995. It saddens me to see Allied close, because it was the most beautiful train store I've ever seen.<img src="http://www.tuxjunction.net/images/mod-amt-bldg.jpg" alt="Allied Model Trains in Culver City, Calif. (1989-2007)" border="0" width="400" height="198" />You can criticize its owner Allen Drucker all you want for refusing to sell toy trains for less than the Manufacturers Suggested Retail Price (MSRP). Keep in mind that Allied was one of the largest toy trains stores in the world, and it was expensive to operate on that scale.  We sold all scales and manufacturers. Customers came from everywhere, not only Southern California. Allied was only three miles from LAX, so many people dropped in on their way to or from the airport.I began working at Allied on the Friday after Thanksgiving in 1990. We began work at 9:30 a.m., cleaning glass counters and re-stocking merchandise. The door opened at 10 a.m. On my first day, I sold $1,100 of LGB trains to my first customer within the first 15 minutes. I don't recall how many LGB Christmas train sets I sold that year (at $399 each), but I probably averaged six or seven a day until Christmas. Of course, I sold a lot of Lionel and other LGB merchandise, too. Celebrity customers stopped by to see me all the time, but what I enjoyed most of all was waiting on ordinary people who, like myself, were fascinated by toy trains.One of my favorite sales was to a woman in her 40s who had always wanted her own Lionel train. Her parents never bought her one when she was little because she was a girl. I sold her a vintage Lionel locomotive and a few cars from the late 1940s and early 1950s, including an operating milk car, enough track to go around her Christmas tree and even have a passing siding, and a vintage Lionel transformer. After her first visit, she stopped by several times that Christmas season with different friends, each time buying another vintage freight car.On Christmas Eve during another holiday season, I was looking forward to closing at 6:00 p.m. instead of 9:00 p.m., which we did every night since Thanksgiving. Twelve-hour days, day after day, can get tiring. About 5:45, a middle-aged father and his young daughter came to the store. They walked back to my area of the store."My daughter wants the LGB Christmas train," he said. I could see how happy the girl was. She was about eight or nine years old. We had sold our remaining LGB Christmas trains earlier that day--except for one. That was on the top shelf in the 12-foot-high recessed arch in the rear wall of the LGB section. There were about eight or nine shelves affixed to wall brackets above a glass display case in that arch. Allen Drucker did not want his salesmen climbing up that high, so I called him to ask him to get the train.<img src="http://www.tuxjunction.net/amt/mod-archway.jpg" border="0" width="400" height="300" />Allen came downstairs from his office, grabbed the tall metal ladder, and retrieved the loco and two passenger cars, handing each one to me very carefully. Allen climbed down the ladder, walked to our main LGB counter area, and gently dusted off the train. He tested the engine for the father and his daughter. It worked beautifully. The father and his daughter were so happy. "We're Jewish, you know, but we always celebrate Christmas," he said to Allen and me. "I'm not a rich man, but I know how much my daughter wants this train."It was about 6:15 when they left the store. I carried the train in its beautiful box to their car for them. It felt great to know they were so happy. We wished each other "Merry Christmas."Memories of my own childhood in Chicago back in the 1940s came back to me, memories of my own father carrying home a bag of something or other on Christmas Eve, promptly hiding it, and then surprising me on Christmas morning with Lionel trains running under our tree. In time, we made our own layout in a spare bedroom, as this photo from 1953 shows:<div style="text-align: center"><img src="http://clubalibi.com/george50s/big-lionel1953.jpg" alt="George's and his Dad's1953 Lionel Layout." title="George's and his Dad's1953 Lionel Layout." border="0" width="562" height="450" /></div> Those were good days, and I knew that this was a good day for this father and his daughter. It was a good day for me, too.Now, it is a sad day because Allied Model Trains is no longer in its beautiful store....
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