In addition to visiting the Santa Fe Depot on my recent trip to San Diego, I also took in a quick visit to the infamous "Frank the Trainman" / JA Cooley Museum.
Before I arrived in San Diego (home is Maryland for me) I did a little bit of research to see what activities I could do if I had time. My original plan was to jump onto the "trolley" (lite rail) but that never materialized. It turned out I had a few hours on Wednesday afternoon so I headed up to "Frank the Trainman" to see if the local hobby shop (LHS) was any good. I enjoy visiting these shops when I travel but many trips I just do not get the time to get out and wander around. Lucky enough for me that this past Wednesday I was able to get out, and when I arrived I was expecting to walk into your everyday LHS, boy was I wrong. I had no idea what I was really in for, what a great surprise!
First impression was that they had a nice little layout in the window and I was surprised by the auto museum which took up the entire left hand side of the building. I said hello to the museum guy (turned out to be Jim Cooley, the owner) and I began looking around at the trains they had for sale.
The inventory was a nice mix of both used and new Lionel stock. It was really nice to see some real life tinplate on a shelf for purchase, I don't see that too often!
After poking through all the inventory, I decided to take a walk through the car museum. Well, this is where I was taken by surprise, it turns out that this IS NOT JUST A CAR MUSEUM, they have a ton of old Lionel trains on display in the back of the car museum!
I ended up spending about an hour looking through everything they had on display, what a very special place indeed!
It turns out they also had some new Lionel/MTH engines on display, these were quite hard to look at as the display rack was squeezed in between a wall and an 1938 Franklin (you can't make this stuff up), but here is a picture of a few of the newer engines on display.
Well, I was pretty much dumbfounded, walking around like zombie. I kept laughing to myself and I couldn't believe I was so close to just skipping a visit, what a mistake that would have been.
What an overall incredible experience, I had so much fun that I decided to take a "selfie" with Jim, his wife, and I. Note that they were sitting on chairs right by the front window, so the picture looks very strange, but kinda fun.
I hope you enjoy the pictures and if you ever find yourself going to San Diego, please stop by this place, you will enjoy it immensely.
Additional pictures (including pictures of the cars) can be found at the following link:
https://www.flickr.com/photos/...s/72157648092461962/
Best...Rich Murnane
