The brick-and-mortar store of Tony's mower shop and trains officially closed yesterday at 5 PM. He's been selling trains for at least 20 years now. Tony does plan on maintaining the name of the business and selling his trains online. However the only place in the country where you could have your lawn mower or snow thrower repaired while you shop for trains is closed. It will be greatly missed.
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National Railroad Worx www.nationalrailroadworx.com in Mahwah, NJ is also a very large Toro Lawn equipment dealership in addition to having a full building of o-gauge trains for sale. So I guess there is still one more lawn-train shop around...right off NJ 17 North.
They are also an OGR Forum sponsor/advertiser...just check out the above listings.
Walter M. Matuch
Look around at all the vacant mini and large malls and you see empty stores. One mall in my town has only one store in it. Its a tough time for retail as most of the manufacturing jobs are now in Communist China. When average people have no job they cannot purchase anything and the first thing that disappears is disposable income used for hobbies. If the USA starts building things again then the situation will reverse itself. Until such time, this is it!
It seems a bit ironic that you would state we need to make more things in the USA so that we can have disposable income to purchase stuff and have hobbies like model trains when the whole model train hobby is supplied with items made in China and has been for a long time. Traditional stores and malls are losing out across the country mainly because of online competition. The store he sites is not closing but becoming an online store.
That's a shame. Grew up in the subdivision across the street. Hope it's not health related. ..
The store is closing. The owner will no longer repair lawn-mowers - that is hard to do on line.
And stores closing and mfg reducing model train products made are a result of reduced disposable income. If you have less money, regardless of the cause, you buy food and pay the mortgage first. Model trains are pretty far down the list, if you have any sense.
Tony has been in the lawn mower repair business since the early eighties. He was tired of the inconsistent business sales due to the changes in the climate. People have stopped buying mowers that are worth anything a few years later. Often the repairs to the cheap depot style stores cost much more than what the machine was worth. Much of the equipment made today isn't worth repairing. Thus his repairs were down for many years combined with dry / warm winters didn't help his snow thrower sales or repairs. Also some parts were an issue for the depot mowers as they are not available.
He is in fine health and shape and hopes to dabble with the online sales. The best sales of trains he's ever had were the last 4 weeks after he put up the going out of business sign. People were flocking in to buy stuff up. Too bad they weren't there all along to help keep the shop open.
wcdaylight posted:It seems a bit ironic that you would state we need to make more things in the USA so that we can have disposable income to purchase stuff and have hobbies like model trains when the whole model train hobby is supplied with items made in China and has been for a long time. Traditional stores and malls are losing out across the country mainly because of online competition. The store he sites is not closing but becoming an online store.
You are missing my point. My point is that if all products were made here, people would have jobs. With a job you have money, without a job you have no money. Online competition has no bearing on the fact that people without jobs and money cannot buy trains, no matter what they cost. This is why all retail is shrinking, even those online are going out!
Dennis LaGrua posted:wcdaylight posted:It seems a bit ironic that you would state we need to make more things in the USA so that we can have disposable income to purchase stuff and have hobbies like model trains when the whole model train hobby is supplied with items made in China and has been for a long time. Traditional stores and malls are losing out across the country mainly because of online competition. The store he sites is not closing but becoming an online store.
You are missing my point. My point is that if all products were made here, people would have jobs. With a job you have money, without a job you have no money. Online competition has no bearing on the fact that people without jobs and money cannot buy trains, no matter what they cost. This is why all retail is shrinking, even those online are going out!
Have to disagree with you Dennis. Probably 90% of my disposable income is spent online between Amazon and QVC. Why should I go to a brick & mortar store when I can buy from the comfort of my home and have it on my front porch in 2-3 days for the most part. Additionally what I purchase on line is less expensive and if something isn't to my liking I can return it for free w/o paying postage and it's picked up from my house - no questions asked. There's absolutely no way retail stores can compete with this. People being out of work can't be blamed totally on foreign manufacturing; the work force has merely shifted. Face it, we live in a high tech society now and those that are too slow to adapt are left in the dust.
On line is the electronic version of something I did a long time ago. Mail Order. got stuff, Lionel and otherwise that way. With the Net, none can order something at the speed to light, not the speed of the USPS. But it got the product to your front door.
Considering Houston's heat and humidity, traffic, and the lack of civility in public, I do order most stuff over the net. I have few train needs now, but in that case I use transit to get to the two shops here in the area.
To me, retail is in the 1980's mode: The customer is a turnip one tries to get as much blood out of. Today's customer wants speed, and if you have not morphed into a bird, you are an extinct dino.
wcdaylight posted:It seems a bit ironic that you would state we need to make more things in the USA so that we can have disposable income to purchase stuff and have hobbies like model trains when the whole model train hobby is supplied with items made in China and has been for a long time. Traditional stores and malls are losing out across the country mainly because of online competition. The store he sites is not closing but becoming an online store.
Actually, last Christmas season online sales were up slightly. But, people were not purchasing big ticket items. The real issue is people are not spending money...
Regardless, Even including the internet and brick and mortar store together. Things are horrid. Actually, there was never really a recovery in the economy.
It seems the only stores that are busy are the grocery stores. **** people buy tons of food. Also, Costco is always packed with people. Carts are stack high with stuff!
cswalter posted:It seems the only stores that are busy are the grocery stores. **** people buy tons of food. Also, Costco is always packed with people. Carts are stack high with stuff!
Yep! Cheap stuff .... the aging baby boomer crowd is about to cause
the next depression. There will simple be a glut of housing available in the near future.
As some of us see the big headlight in the sky! Forced retirement and economic changes.
cswalter posted:It seems the only stores that are busy are the grocery stores. **** people buy tons of food. Also, Costco is always packed with people. Carts are stack high with stuff!
In our community things seem to be booming. New luxury condos are being built and sold even before they're finished, restaurants doing great, always folks in the wine and liquor shops, pubs are full, UPS & Fed Ex making daily deliveries, always a line at the grocery store,,,,,,,well you get the idea. If the economy is so bad you can't prove it by me.
Sorry to hear about Tony's.
We have a brand new hobby shop in Waterford, Michigan • about ten miles north of Tony's. This shop moved to a new location, February, 2017. After they were forced to move to a new location. The new shop is about three times larger.
Meet Dane the owner and see why my grand children, like going to this train shop. Check out this video, from my YT Channel. https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-hQlMTmr0BQ
Best wished to Carlton Hobbies - Yes they have Lionel.
Gary
I don't often chime in on topics that are so polarizing, but I wanted to share some insight regarding manufacturing in America. These links will disprove the myths that manufacturing in America is dead. Quite the opposite. It is booming.
http://www.marketwatch.com/sto...e-decades-2016-03-28
https://fredblog.stlouisfed.or...tm_campaign=fredblog
I did visit Tony's a couple years back. It's a nice store and losing any hobby outlet is sad. The fact remains that more people are moving online for purchases. If the world's largest retailers (think Sears and Macy's) can't make a go, how do we expect a mom & pop to survive? Retail is on record pace for store closings
The jobs will come back to the USA as soon as we are willing to work for the same pay at the same conditions. My company pays over $600 per month per employee in health care costs. The amount the employee pays is staggering as well. So our labor costs are a minimum of $600 per employee per month cheaper overseas, EVEN IF we paid the foreign workers a USA hourly wage. Couple that with the costs of OSHA, environmental terrorism, local issues. . . who in their right mind would build here unless it was robotic based mfg.
Capitalism is much quicker to grasp the realities of life, than the public or the government.
The shops that survive will be the ones that can adapt to selling online. The days of the traditional hobby shop from 1979 are long gone remeber the mail order catologs. Some of these shops still exist but I can imagine that they will have a tough time adapting and keeping the lights on.
tabkld93 posted:I don't often chime in on topics that are so polarizing, but I wanted to share some insight regarding manufacturing in America. These links will disprove the myths that manufacturing in America is dead. Quite the opposite. It is booming.
http://www.marketwatch.com/sto...e-decades-2016-03-28
https://fredblog.stlouisfed.or...tm_campaign=fredblog
I did visit Tony's a couple years back. It's a nice store and losing any hobby outlet is sad. The fact remains that more people are moving online for purchases. If the world's largest retailers (think Sears and Macy's) can't make a go, how do we expect a mom & pop to survive? Retail is on record pace for store closings
Manufacturing is indeed a large part of America. Unfortunately that includes the loss of many, many jobs. According to the article, it is a 29.8% reduction in jobs.
"The number of jobs in the manufacturing sector has declined by about 5 million since 2000, falling from 17.3 million at the turn of the century to 12.3 million in 2015."
"The decline in manufacturing jobs certainly makes it seem as if America has been deindustrialized, but it’s not so. America still makes lots of stuff, but the number of jobs has shrunk because it doesn’t take nearly as many workers as it used to."
"Technology and new ways of organizing work have revolutionized the American factory since the Golden Age of the 1980s. Today, U.S. factories produce twice as much stuff as they did in 1984, but with one-third fewer workers. "
"And, of course, other industries have nearly disappeared. The output of the apparel industries is down more than 80% since the heydays in the 1980s, while the output of textile mills is down about 50% since 2000. Those are the factories and jobs that are really gone for good."
"Conclusion
American manufacturing isn’t dead by any means. But the loss of good-paying manufacturing jobs has devastated the working class, and made reaching the American dream more difficult. Technological advancements and the rise of low-skilled manufacturing in China and other developing nations mean that fewer Americans work in factories, just as technological advancements 100 years ago meant that fewer Americans worked on farms.
Most Americans now work in service-producing industries, where inequalities in opportunities, skills and incomes are more apparent. Recreating an economy that provides equitable growth won’t be easy, especially if we pine for the good old days when a third of us worked at the factory.
Those days are gone for good, even if U.S. factories still churn out lots of items that are Made in the USA."
To me, the amount of disposable income is the key. You usually have to have a job to have disposable income. Then we can worry about getting them into the hobby and into the local hobby store after they have bought food, rent, utilities, clothes, gas, etc.
tabkld93 posted:I don't often chime in on topics that are so polarizing, but I wanted to share some insight regarding manufacturing in America. These links will disprove the myths that manufacturing in America is dead. Quite the opposite. It is booming.
http://www.marketwatch.com/sto...e-decades-2016-03-28
https://fredblog.stlouisfed.or...tm_campaign=fredblog
I did visit Tony's a couple years back. It's a nice store and losing any hobby outlet is sad. The fact remains that more people are moving online for purchases. If the world's largest retailers (think Sears and Macy's) can't make a go, how do we expect a mom & pop to survive? Retail is on record pace for store closings
WalMart is starting to sell a lot of stuff online. Even some stuff for the radio hobbies. Free shipping to store. They are morphing so they do not become food to the Amazonian T-Rex.
But some of this is also the companies which build stuff. After a while you have to rebuild your plants. Sorry, but the smart thing to do is not eat your seed corn, and hold on to some of your profits and reinvest. Or at least keep your self in state of good repair. Many industries in this country did not do that. They saw this too late. Extinct dino.
shawn posted:.... the aging baby boomer crowd is about to cause the next depression. There will simple be a glut of housing available in the near future.
Try a housing shortage. Millennials outnumbered baby boomers, 82.1 million to 75.4 million in 2015 according to US Census Bureau. The only thing baby boomers are going to cause is a massive inter-generational transfer of wealth (roughly $30 trillion dollars in assets). A Google search on any phrase in the preceding two sentences will confirm the facts.
What, me worry?
National Railroad Worx www.nationalrailroadworx.com is not far from my home. Great place to visit especially at Christmas Time. The do a great job and have nice layout. They just expanded and are moving the trains to a new room. Bob, Stacey and team are super helpful.
Kevin
Brick and mortar = RE taxes, rent, insurance an a whole host of other costs that mean local stores need to charge close to MSRP for an item. I can buy a brand new MTH / Lionel Car on eBay or Amazon for almost cost.
Even better than that, Lionel and Trainz have hooked up so that certainly will kill hobby shop owners - they can't compete so they die a slow death
He will probably be better off as an On-Line merchant and I hope most of his customers support him.
Even if we "made more stuff" in the USA, the lion's share of the jobs would be very low on the skill and wage scales due to automation. People with lesser skills and lower intellectual capacity will always be with us; we need to find a way for them to be employed at livable wages.
And every time we choose to save a few bucks by buying a product that is manufactured in a country that has little regard for human rights, low environmental and safety standards, and less of a social safety net, we contribute to the transfer of wealth out of the country. When we buy online rather than locally, we may save a little money, but the money we spend bypasses our friends and neighbors. In essence, we neglect our neighbors' livelihoods in order to save a few bucks. But hey, I earned my money - don't tell me how to spend it. Anyway, my little order is just a drop in the ocean, right?
That said, I order a lot online too. On many occasions, I've thought of buying an item locally, only to find that I'll have to go online to get accessories or parts. If a local store doesn't stock those items, why should I bother paying a higher price to buy there? And from the retailer's viewpoint, why should they stock items that many people will buy online? It's a vicious cycle.
When stuff becomes more important than people, this is what happens.
I find it odd, that Lionel up to the end, sold trains to discount houses ,, and there where thousands of hobby shops,
My train set came from a discount store, called unimart, 736 berk and freight cars, back in the early 60s, the box still has the price tag on it,
It's, income, cost of living has killed the market, cities ,,states, and fed. has over taxed us, the cost of fuel ,,and trump has done nothing about that, get gasoline back to 25 cents a gallon, and , property tax and car reg, abolished, the yearly fees, and people will have some play money,,
As a 2 railer, the closest store I have is 225 miles from me. I live in northwest Iowa. I like to shop in a store where I can touch, feel, smell, listen to pros and cons, etc. I will go to the Chicago March show or the O Scale Nat'l in Indianapolis to look and buy. I will on occasion buy from on on line company but not that often.
Dick
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