Count me in the I remember club. I remember getting an AHM HO engine when I was a kid that was either from possibly Woolworths or Kmart maybe. My brother got a Tyco set for his birthday (I think it was) that came from Sears but he never liked trains so it basically ended up mixed with mine relatively quickly after he got it.
I have always liked Tyco F9s with the MU-2 drive. They have such a neat gear sound at slower speeds. I think I have about 10 of them in SF freight , Pennsy freight, SF warbonnet, and I think there's at least one other roadname but I can't remember which and they are all packed away, right now. I may have to get my HO stuff out again. Doug
I am soon to be 65 and I remember riding my bicycle about four miles with my buddy on the west side of Cincinnati to a department store called Swallen's. I was about 12 so it would have been roughly 1970. They had a great train department.
My start in N Scale was in the basement of the W.T. Grant and Newberry's stores in Eugene OR, where I went with my Grandpa to survey the gargantuan wall Lone Star trains. I'm not sure they qualify as full fledged department stores, but they had lots of departments. Every week we acquired a new piece of rolling stock or a pack of track (69 cents each)I acquired a substantial box of them I only got to play with when my father was out of the house on Tuesday nights. (long story) That die cast track and the push trains sure made a little fella an N Scaler for life! I think having them relatively N Scale made is so much easier to get into N Scale later on, as I had avoided the O/HO bias that all my friends had.
Second for Longs in Moreno Valley (WAYYYY east of LA). Also Ace Hardware in Berkley CA. I can remember looking forward to going to Sears as a wee lad to look at the table that they would have that had Lionel trains and slot cars set up and running around Christmas. Just a large green table with trains and slot cars...it was the most beautiful thing in the world. Funny, but I had just about forgotten about it until this thread...
MK, Although my dad worked within walking distance of the Korvettes on 34th Street, his vendor of choice was the nearby Woolworths. So I can't confirm or deny that the 34th Street branch of Korvettes had trains in the early 1970s. The closest Korvettes branch to our house in New Jersey was in Woodbridge, and they definitely still had trains in the early 1970s. Among the brands I obtained there were Like-Like and Parkway, the latter being a rebrand of Bachmann items with the large clamshell containers (impossible to stack!). As for 45s (uh, what is "vinyl"?) they were kept behind the counter in a cubbyhole shelving system that looked a lot like the mail sorting bins in an RPO (how's that for required content!). The buyer would give the number of the record wanted using a list posted near the counter. Typos on this list were rampant, for example there was the Kenny Rogers / Kim Carnes duet mistitled "Don't Fall In Love With A Drawer" !
Possible that the 34th St. branch didn't have trains as most apartment dwellers in Manhattan don't have basements. And with premium rent for little space, most don't even have enough space to live let alone a train layout. Don't ask me how I know!
In California, New york city and Massachusetts, we lived close to hobby stores, so I did not pay too much attention to what, if anything, was in Rhodes, Macy's (California or New York), Gimbel's, Jodd'n Mahsh, Filene's, In Washington, Giant, the Numero Uno grocery store chain in the area, had one or two department stores. The hobby department in those stores had more N scale than any other. Washington had E.J. Korvette's and Fabulous Zayre!. I do remember that E.J. Korvette's had trains but do not remember the details. I do not remember that Fabulous Zayre! had trains. W.T. Grant did have trains for a while, but, as it was going bankrupt, it had fewer and fewer trains. At the time, I was in HO, anyhow.
We lived in Boston for a few years in the early '60s when I was a little kid. We weren't Bostonians and I remember my mother pronouncing Jordan Marsh just like that for the fun of it.
Oh man, now THAT brings back a lot of memories. Back then it was hard to know what was available in N. I received my first (Arnold Rapido) N set in 1968. The EJ&E ran behind our house and Arnold had offered numerous variations of an EJ&E box car from the beginning, yet I knew nothing about it.
A Place called Enid News and Stationery in Enid, Oklahoma Had Several Glass Cases of N Scale. Mostly Atlas and ConCor, If I remember correctly the cars were around .75 cents each....Boy those were the good old days!. My Dad and I went there alot and that is where I developed the love of TRAINS.
I am originally from Massachusetts. This is how you are supposed to pronounce it. My accent is actually woo woo woo Boston/New York because I have one parent from each place and lived in both places. Still, I pronounce the name of that depahtmint stow-ah "Jodd'n Mahsh" Gône but nôt fuh-guttin..
Remember, if the word has an "R" in it, DON'T pronounce it. If it doesn't have an "R" in it, stick one in there. And, be sure to swap the "oi" and "er" pronunciations. Doug
I second or third or forth, heck I lost count on the Sears train set. Brother bought one during Christmas one year and a piece of plywood and laid it on the floor in the Living Room, a room normally not touched by anyone in the family except guest, and the insurance guy that came around and collected like $2.00 or something for life insurance Man, bringing back memories for all of us! Great thread! But not until I bought my OWN N-Scale starter set did it begin for me. Took almost 40 years to even have what I have now. But once again, the recent DCC items is what really has me hooked now! Although more expensive, the quality in most cases is WAY better then when I running DC in the 1970's
My father had an "O" scale Lionel train set I inherited from when he was growing up (in the WWII 40's?) but, unfortunately, step-mummy got ahold of it and had two lamps made out of the loco and coal tender As a young pup in college he worked for a railroad line (in Ill, forget which one) before being hired by the airlines and, much later, grandma still had the "free pass" to ride. Mom was pregnant with me when he was hired in Aug '56 so one could say the whole family always traveled "free", in one form or another, long before even my day 1? I also became a "card carrying" member of the TWU (Transport Workers Union), airline division, which was an offshoot of the original NYC subway unions. Is it true we reach an age one would prefer to "die" than put up with all the nonsense that's going on these days? Grandma was 98 and still took her Chrysler Imperial / Ford Crown Victoria "buggy to town" all the time . .
