Originally posted by cincitrains:
I dont know about the rest of you guys but he sounds like a nut! Taking a train and destroying it, throwing people out of the store about questioning the price. I understand that is what legends are made of but I am glad that, that type of retailer is gone by the wayside. Or at least I hope so.
LOL! If you think this is bad, Don't go to the red caboose in Manhattan, NYC!
I tnink Lionle did not make the O72 straight after WWII. Yes, K Line did.
RG
I never had any dealing with Glenn. But I did have some with Robert and he was a bit unusual I thought.
Click on the link, that's Glen pictured. I had forgotten about all the train patches he wore.
little has been said about glenn's son-robert. he was a cpa ,one of the reasons the store was sucessful after glenn passed away. the store became a mth"mega shop" in the early 2000's with tons of trains stacked everywhere.one time i was there the truck had just unloaded 2 pallets of trains. he had them stacked in the rows,when i tried to get around some of them ,they started tipping over,i was just about buried by boxes of train product. we both laughed for abit ,then picked up everything. robert also kept a huge pile of cardboard boxes for mail orders. when the building was inspected by the fire dept,they threaten to shut the store down until he removed them. -jim
I lived in the Akron area from the late 60's and was a regular customer for years at this establishment until my move to Arizona back in 2004. Glen's Train Shop was my one and only source for Lionel Trains. There was a certain mystic about visiting his shop as you never really knew how you would be treated. I always loved that aroma of the cinder block building, the two heavy steel doors and that loud buzzer when you first walked in. Boxes stack all over the place with lots of used postwar pieces kind of made it a treasure hunt for me. As long I didn't bother him with too many questions and knew what I wanted he was o.k.
However I do recall an incident with a #634 Lionel Santa Fe switcher that my father took to have repaired. Somehow my dad got on Glen's nerves because when he repaired the engine, he placed a larger single set of wheels one of the trucks, so when my dad came home with it, it would not sit directly on the track. My father took back the engine to the store where Glen did fix it properly the second time.
Robert was great, a nice guy. At the time he took over the shop I asked him if I could go through the large dumpster outside the store, he was fine with it and even came outside to talk to me as well. Robert had the dubious honor of driving Glen back to the store the night of the fire, which was believed to be caused by an unattended space heater. I ended up finding a few nice Model Railroader magazines, an article about Glen that was removed from the Wall Street Journal, but I guess other discarded treasures were already picked through.
BTW, Glen would turn over in his grave if he found out that Lionel was now produced in China!
I seem to have problems posting pictures from this computer, so I'lll provide links to pics I have on Flickr.
Here's a picture of the Glen Uhl Auto Loader. The story I heard was that he bought out the PW stock of red autos with gray bumpers (late production) from MPC, but I've recently seen pics of the car with the early (red, white, yellow, and mint green) auto's.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/92095601@N08/9011513416/
Here's a shot of the two Lionel Timken boxcars. The lettering on these is black, but I have one PW 6464-500 where the lettering is a blue-ish black.
http://www.flickr.com/photos/92095601@N08/9011511952/
Sam
I only met the man once. Was in the mid 70s, think I was around 10. Dad and I made the drive from Pittsburgh to Akron. We had a huge list of Lionel items to pick up for friends. I was into HO at the time and Lionel was back into HO. I found a Southern Pacific GS4 and placed it on the pile. Looked around, didn’t touch anything and kept to myself. Time came to leave, Glen handed me the GS4 and said you can have this. “You a good kid”
Kurt
I've heard of the MPC orange and yellow cars only, but what about red? I thought K-Line did a red car? Did they use a Lionel car? I just stumbled up on this:
Which seems to elude to the Lionel Timken cars were repainted NBA and NHL cars. Didn't the real Uhl Timken cars came out around 1972 or so? My two cars came with early MPC Banner boxes. This would be well before the NBA and NHL cars came out.
The Ebay listing indicates that they were "custom painted". They were not made that way by Lionel.
Unfortunately, one has to be very careful when looking at Ebay ads.
The genuine Lionel Glen Uhl Timken boxcars were decorated by Lionel and are very well documented.
From all accounts, Glen was one of the true "characters" of this hobby, along with the likes of Dwight Ingles (Owen Upp). Those fellas didn't take crap from anyone, but once you were in their good graces, you were A-OK in their book.
Allan, Dwight didn't treat a lot of people well. I remember when I was a kid and I'd call his shop asking if he had a particular Lionel car, and he would tell me that he was too busy too look, and not call him. He always acted like people were wasting his time. Little did I know that one day I would attend Marquette University for grad school and live in Milwaukee. I remembered Owen Upp and I went and visited him. This was in the 2000 - 2003 time frame. (I left Milwaukee in 2005) When I visited he was behind his counter, on an oxygen tank. He was terse with people and I felt like he would bark or yell if I had a question. He was strict about not touching to the point where you felt guilty about picking up a freight car in its box. Going to Owen Upp was never a fun experience...even if he did have a good inventory.
I actually spent most of my time in Milwaukee going to Sommerfelds in Butler or Hiawatha Hobbies in Waukesha. Both of those places I liked. I could linger, talk trains, and search to my heart's content. Jack Sommerfeld is one of the best hobby shop owners I had the privilege of buying from. I look in my condo today and I have so many engines and freight cars that I picked up from Jack. People who live in SE Wisconsin really have it good with Sommerfelds. Actually, seeing Sommerfelds at York in the spring is one of the things I look forward to. It's nice to catch up and hear what is happening.
i never met dwight ingles,but it sounds like he should have picked a different occupation,or at least brush up on his customer skills-jim
This was the inside of the store!
Now here are some pics that are more recent as Aaron's City Trains. As I mentioned before we kept Glen's railroad coveralls with the patches and put them in the entrance of the shop.
Thanks, Aaron, for posting all those great photos of what is now a truly great store and a fun place to visit (and to make purchases). You and your crew have turned what once was a mess into a picture postcard of what a train store can and should be.
Folks living in or visiting the Akron area really must make plans to see the "new" store if you haven't done so already.
Wow! I think that is the nicest train shop I ever saw. Wish I was closer.
Rob
Hello AAaron........
I am impressed with your store photos and soon be ordering scale MTH premier and Weaver 1940's to late 1950's era freight cars from you as money permits (I am on fixed income). I live way out west coast.
the woman who loves the S.F.5011,623
Tiffany
i never met dwight ingles,but it sounds like he should have picked a different occupation,or at least brush up on his customer skills-jim
I hear you! Back in the 70's Glen would run one particular ad in the Akron Beacon Journal and it read something like this:
" Notice, H.O. means half of O.- H.O. trains are not meant for children under 12 years of age, most adults can't handle it either. Please do not buy my Lionel Trains, I want to sell them to good customers."
BTW, I've always loved that distinct aroma when I first walked in the door, I agree it's nostalgic. I will admit though, seeing those trains inside all of those cartons kind of made it an adventurous treasure hunt!
Thanks Alan and Rob.
Tiffany, we'll be here for you whenever you are ready. We ship any order over $150 for FREE, even all the way to California! Take care.
Lenny, I had heard about that Akron Beacon Journal ad. Totally amazing!
I don't see a Northern Pacific patch on Glenn's overalls!!!! BLASPHEMY! 
And the Milwaukee Road patch is not at an angle!! 
DOUBLE BLASPHEMY!!!!
Other than that I am moving to Akron from Washington, D.C.! 
Aaron - I'd be in for re-issues of the Timken cars if they were done in MTH, preferably Rail King. Would love to add some more Timken rolling stock to my freight roster.
I remember the first time I walked in after you re-opened, I wanted to run back outside and look at the address to make sure I was at the right place!
Great looking shop! Will have to plan a visit very soon. Joe
I remember visiting the shop back in the early 90s and thought what a dump the place was. You have transformed it in to what a train shop should look like. Great job!!!!
Neal Jeter
Aaron Very nice pictures of the store. I bought some CN Heavy weight passenger cars from you by email when you were just opening. Very good service. I was never in the shop but had seen some pictures and you have done a GREAT jobgetting it back to looking like a TRAIN SHOP.
thanks for posting the photos! i can assure anyone the "before" photos of inside the store were not staged[spell].it looked like that pretty much storewide.i was at the store after aaron first opened it, and it looks even better inside now.
i found the newspaper i kept with glenn ulh's obituary, would like to donate to the shop to display with the coveralls you have.[if you dont have it already],-jim
Tony,
I never gave it much thought before, but your version of the cars makes more sense. I had heard that Glen Uhl purchased left over Timken decals, then had the shells and doors made and stamped. getting decals made would've been the easy part, having 1000-plus shells, doors, frames with trucks, etc would've been the hard part. Same goes for the blue hopper.
i still wonder about the auto loader. Ive heard that Glen purchased left over blue autos and unnumbered red flats, then had the metal structure made with decals. I have this car with no number on the flat car body. On ebay from time to time I see auto loaders with gray bumper red autos, but the flat car often has the car number, and I've seen repo decals (stickers I think) offered. I'll have to check, but I think my car even has two fixed couplers, not the opening knuckle type.
Sam
The book that folks are referring to is the T-M Collectors Guide and History to Lionel Trains, 1970 to 1980.
This book has one of the best overviews of the period when the Lionel Corporation was weighing it's options concerning it's train business, and the eventual negotiations with General Mills to take over the train line.
Glen owned stock in Lionel and it was reported that he attended the shareholder meeting in NYC when the company was in chaos and let the Lionel senior team have it. After the MPC era started be bought stock in General Mills, and the aforementioned
book has a picture of him attending a General Mills shareholders meeting in his engineers cap and overalls.
He was one of a kind.
Just a quick note about the Glen Uhl boxcars, as rare as they are, there is an even rarer boxcar made from "trial shots". When the machine was being set up in Mt. Clemens to create the 9200 series boxcars, trial shots came out in orange from the last time it was used in Hillside. The trial shots that were in good enough condition were decorated with black markings and less than 50 of these orange and black 9202 Santa Fe Boxcars were distributed among the employees. Now, that's a really rare car.
The regular production run of the 9202 is red and white.
Ken
Here is a link that shows the ultra-rare 9202 in orange complete with a letter from the MPC team. The auction house lists the total made to be 64.
http://www.liveauctioneers.com/item/4397361
Ken
From all accounts, Glen was one of the true "characters" of this hobby, along with the likes of Dwight Ingles (Owen Upp), the Madison Hardware "boys," and a select few others. Those fellas didn't take crap from anyone, but once you were in their good graces, you were A-OK in their book.
I'm not trying to hijack this thread but some South Jersey folks would agree that someone from our area needs to be mentioned in this topic. The late Rich Bimmer from Antique Trains in Turnersville, New Jersey must have been Glen's clone. He certainly would have fit into this group very well. I used to think he was one of a kind but apparently not. The toy train industry and local hobby shops certainly have their share of unique characters.
Great thread, with interesting history many of us experienced. I'd love to see some quality pics of the Timken cars. (The ones from the TCA article don't really do the trick.). Thanks to all who contributed to the thread.
Here you are Chris.
Ah, Glen.....Now yunz can say whatever you like about the man, but here's my take. He had a unique collection of product to say the least, and I mean really unique. Glen had things I doubt you could have even found with the Shaw brothers at Madison Hardware. Yeah, he could be a monster to deal with, and AFAIK, there was no magic formula to figure out which Glen incarnation you'd get on any given day. OTOH, Glen told me that he could get me a brand new Lionel FM back in the summer of '74 at a good price. And after a couple visits, wherein he hadn't been able to get the piece, he told exactly where to go to get the thing. Needless to say, it became a most memorable experience, and I came away with a factory sealed 2322 at about two thirds of the going price ! Thanks, Glen !
I have these cars also, and like yours, one has postwar die cast trucks, and the other has the then-new MPC plastic trucks. I dont remember which has which though. I wonder if there was some side story about the trucks? Did Glen buy up say the last 500 die cast trucks Lionel had, the yellow cars were ready first, so they got the older trucks?
Sam
Robert, thanks for the photos.
Chris
Never knew Glen Uhl but did a lot of business with the Owen Upp Store [West Alis, Wis.]
During the early '90s Chuck Anderson of Inside Trains in Greensboro suggested calling Dwight when I wanted to order some Weaver units and rolling stock.
After that I got all of my Weaver stuff from Dwight. I only knew him via phone and he was always pleasant. On one of my last orders from him for Weaver's Southern ABA E-8s and aluminium passenger cars, he actually gave me a 10% discount.
quote:I'm sure a lot of you guys asked questions back in the day , you asked
the guy like Glen Uhl , the GODS of Lionel Trains , they knew it all and
they would share their info with you for free not 39.99 .
A lot of folks seem to think that the various guides that are available today have all the information that is worth knowing. The guides are good, I have many of them, and have learned quite a bit from them. But I have also learned quite a bit from talking to folks in the hobby that were my seniors.
I never met Glen Uhl, but I did make mail order purchases from him in the 1970's.
Tony R.
Tony,
I'd love to correspond with you regarding this red-oxide N&W "Glen Uhl" hopper and other oddball cars of the time.
You don't have an e-mail address in your profile, but if you're still out there, I'd appreciate it if you would drop me a note at papertrw@aol.com.
Thanks!
Todd
Fun thread here, I never knew of Glen but I did frequent Dwight quite a bit at Owen Upp. So funny because I would take my son then about 10 years old to some hobby shops and he would always ask if we are going to see the "Grumpy Guy" That's what he always called his place. In truth his store was very clean and organized, and if you asked nicely he would let you touch the boxes as long as you put them back exactly the way you found them! My son always wondered why he was so grumpy, he should be happy, he gets to play with trains all day. Glad to hear he is still doing well. As for Sommerfelds, that is now my new home base. The guys down there are fantastic whether it's service or selection, they know me by my first name and both Jack and Matt are always really helpful. If you're ever in Milwaukee, it's a must stop.
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