Indianapolis/NW Indiana train stores

Train Express on the NW side of Indianapolis is my regular LHS

 

Steve

I agree, Larry Pfost @ TrainExpress up on Zionsville Rd. (just inside the I-465 outer belt) is your best bet for O-guage in Indy. This is on the NW side of Indy.

In NW Indiana, try New York Central Toys and Trains, 2000 Lincolnway East, Mishawaka, IN and Rupel Toy Trains, 23631 US Hwy 33, Elkhart, IN.  Both fine store that handle Lionel, MTH, Williams, Atlas, etc. Dick

There are also lists of train stores in the back of most train magazines.

Mishawaka and Elkhart are not in NW, Indiana. None the less if your over that way New York Central Trains is a nice store to visit with very friendly owners. In NW Indiana your pretty much limited to Valparaiso Pet and Hobby Store, and Park Lane Hobbies on US 30 in Dyer. I would skip the Valparaiso store, high $$$ and a lot of "New" old stock. Mostly Lionel with a little MTH, and not what I would call customer friendly! Park Lane is also an MSRP store and has limited "O" scale inventory. Tons of HO though.

 

Samuelson's closed a few years back due to retirement and no interest in his offspring to run a train store.

 

Rumor has it that York Trains in Highland has also apparently closed and moved all his substantial stock into storage and is primarily doing internet sales.

 

Lastly there is Grandpa's Trains in Kouts, but based on my visit there a couple months ago not worth going out of your way. It appears to be more an RC hobby store than trains and also suffers from the aformentioned high $$'s and precious little inventory!

 

Regards,

 

Tom 

I'm not sure how far "northwest" your going to be in Indiana, but if your close to Illinois, Berwyns trains is worth the 45 min drive from NW Indiana. Its arguably the nicest O-guage trains store in either state.

http://www.berwynstoytrains.com/index.html

Last I was up there Skinny Jon was gone and the place was history.....

No big loss there, a bunch of used stuff at retail or better stacked to the ceiling with no ryhme reason or order. No lights ever on in the place either, he could have had a better store had he made any kind of effort for it to be customer friendly,dark and dirty to say the least. Hard to run a buisness when you can't even comply with the ordinances.

Not true, after he moved from Munster to Highland he had 2 rooms in the back that were chock full of NIB K-Line, Atlas, and Weaver. He also had a huge inventory of NIB Williams Locomotives and MTH rolling stock. He had a ton of used stuff too. I always thought that if he would just get out of the way that it could've been one of the most awesome train stores in the country. A friend of mine once offered to (for free) help him get cleaned up and organized and was told that if he didn't like the state of the store he could go elsewhere. I always marveled at the stacks of paperwork everywhere. He once relocated the cash register because the stack of paperwork in front of it got so high he couldn't get to it. No deals however in spite of his advertising discount prices. 

I usually try to stay positive....but since we are talking about York Trains.....I agree, no big loss.  This guy had a personality of a rock ( good if you like pet rocks!).  Always seemed to be out of what he was advertising at a particular price.  More than once he told me that he had something but would have to look for it and then get back to me....guess what....good thing I didn't hold my breath!  I gave up on him years ago.....

 

Alan

Thanks for the responses everyone. I'll plan on making a stop at Train Express on Sat. morning since we'll be entering Indy from the NW anyway. I don't expect my travels to take me as far East as South Bend/Mishawauka. I may likely end up in the Chicagoland area/Western Suburbs. I did pay a visit to Berwyn's Hobby shop over the holidays. However this time around I'd like to make a stop at Chicagoland Hobbies. From what I've seen online, they appear to have quite a decent selection of o-scale stuff. Kinda disappointed, and somewhat surprised, there aren't more places in the immediate NW Indiana area.

Agreed, no great loss losing Skinny Jon, the store on the other hand could have been the best within a 200 mile radius if the right person were running it. I quite frankly don't think Jon knew what he had in inventory because he had no effective way of tracking it. It was all literally stacked floor to ceiling anyplace he could find to put it. I have on several occasions spent 2+ hours scouring the stacks and was simply amazed at how vast his inventory was.

 

For the past few months at least, Skinny Jon has been one of the regular parking lot dealers at DuPage.  Funny, as he told me several years ago that he didn't think the DuPage show was worth his time.  He's usually selling out of the back of a mini-van across the way from building 4.

 

 

 

There's a guy in the south Chicago suburbs who has a shop at 111th and Southwest HWY. he sounds like this guy Skinny Jon, although I don't know him. Lots of trains piled up and hidden everywhere, but a rude shop owner who seems to have trouble replacing burned out light bulbs in the shop and keeping the shop clean. Does anyone know this guy? I can't remember the exact name of the shop, but I think it's called Hobby Warehouse?

I used to regularly stop at a shop off 80/94 in far NW Indiana, that I think was York

Trains, gone some time ago, when I regularly attended Wheaton before escalated

fuel costs spoiled that routine.   If it has surfaced somewhere else, I'd like particulars, as I now only get back to Chicago rarely, but hit the shops I have known of for years, when I do. (I never had any success buying anything there, so York

Trains was just a sightseeing trip).  I thought, some years ago, though, that he had

been set up in the second building, where the lunch counter is, at Wheaton, and that is how I heard of the NW Indiana location, although he ran mag ads, too.

Didn't know that Train Express was still active. If so, their business has certainly undergone a major contraction from the days when they ran big, full-page ads in OGR & CTT, & were regular, major league vendors at each York meet. 

Train Express bailed on York right after K Line quit. Just like Chicagoland Hobbies. Still doing a strong mail order business with mostly Lionel. 

I used to do all of my mail order with them and always looked forward to their York offerings.  The times I have looked at their website over the last couple of years, though, it seemed out of date and poorly maintained.  Hard to believe that they have much of a business thru that.  Just saying'.

My trip back "home" here in NWI is coming to a close tomorrow.
I was able to visit Train Express in Indianapolis. The store definitely had the looks of a place that primarily thrives on mail-orders these days. Warehouse type look inside, with about 6-8 long aisles with relatively high shelves. Just about everything was still in it's shipping box. It wasn't very conducive to just looking around and browsing. Didn't wind up picking up anything from there as a result.
Additionally, I was able to make it up to Chicagoland Toys and Hobbies. This place had been on my list to visit for sometime. A very nice store. Plenty to look a, but prices were pretty much MSRP. 

I had gone up there looking for a large collection Chicagoland-centric merchandise and it didn't disappoint: I was able to find a complete 4-car set of the MTH blue Metra bi-levels, albeit slightly used. I had been on the lookout for these for sometime now so I had to jump at the opportunity. A fitting place to purchase them, no doubt. They'll be getting shipped out to me in Seattle on Monday!
Had prices been more reasonable, I would've considered picking up a piece of C&NW motive power, but those are relatively easy to come by. Maybe next time.

Candidly - at Chicagoland Hobbies you just need to ask for a better price.... when I lived in Peoria we bought quite a bit from there and always was able to negotiate a better price..... As a general rule, most of these guys are business people that want to move trains.... on a vary rare occassion have I not been able to do better than the posted price by just asking..... Probably the stickist place has been that hobby shop in downtown York.... I can almost never get them to come down ten percent.....

Used to be a place in Arcadia, just north of Indy on US 31, that had a ton of trains. I do not know if he is still in business.  LOCOMOTION

i was at york tains today and this is the worse place i have ever seen in my life.  he worked on an mth loco for me last week, he supposidly replaced the smoke unit on the loco and charged me 48.00.  i tried to run it Sunday and it blew the breaker everdy time until i shut the smoke switch off and then it ran okay but no smoke.  today he told me of told me there is no warrenty and charged me another 48.00.  he told me off so bad that i had tears in my eyes, i just want to pay and leave.  I am disabled and he made me stand with my cane for over an hour while disassemble old trains to get a smoke unit and a board that worked in my train, he then told me "go ahead and call other dealers and see they dont give warrenties either.  this place is a fire trap and a disgrace to train enthusiansts everywhere.  in the last two weeks I spent over 1500.00 in trains and setup stuff for my grandkids and was going to spend more but never ever at York Trains.  what a night mare what an rude person and tomorrow I will be callin the Highland indiana sity hall to report the conditions that this place is in.  I am really sad that he acts like this and treats train people badly, i want to enjoy my new hobby and today was a day from ****

Rogers,i am sorry of your experience at YORK Trains. His store is the pits.I wouldn't even drive my car by his  store it so bad.