Oh to be a 1950s kid again and trainlands...

Yes those were the days.

I grew up in the 70's and had to settle for Woolco and David's Department stores in Witchita.  Not nearly the same and with those stores I recall it was mostly ho stuff.  As I grew a little older and probably saw pictures of some of those stores and movie built toy departments, I dreamed of visiting such a place...  Almost the same effect .

In Boston we has Eric Fuchs on Tremont st,  Jordan Marsh (now Macy's) complete 5th floor annex,  and every hardware store and Woolworth's in the area.  Trains were very big in Boston.  Today we have Charlie Ro.  Trains are huge in Boston with many home and club layouts.  

Dotty and I have done the New York City walking tour and in my book, that is king.  This is a good post and hopefully others in the Country will share a bit.    My take is the good old days with the great trains available are now.  I can only imagine how a young kid looks at all the command equipment available today.  I get to see many in the train store and they seem to love the phone app.

Growing up in NYC, I got to visit all the big stores: Macy's, Gimbels, Altmans, FAO Schwartz, A&S, Polks and the Lionel showroom.  Lots of great memories and grateful my mom and aunt were happy to take me to these places (dad had to work).

for me it was the emporium department store 4th floor toy department in downtown stpaul,mn always had a large lionel operating layout. yes those were the days of simpler times well at last for us as kids our parents might have a different take on that!

a few blocks up and 1 block over was a lionel train and authorized repair store ohhhhhh my that sante-fe and all silver passenger set I wanted so badly but cost was more than my mother could afford at the time.

but I have a bunch of conventional engines still for when I want to hear the pullmor growl and the e-unit buzz and smell of good old fashioned technology and pellet smoke units.

also a time when trains were made in the USA!  hope all in this era still enjoy the trains that require a very imaginative mind that can only exist in a make believe world.

do you believe?

I was born in 1955 in Tacoma, WA.  While I  don't remember too much about the 1950s, I do remember seeing displays of trains in the local downtown department stores, that included Rhodes,  Peoples,  The Bon Marche, Sears, Woolworths and JC Penney. When the Tacoma Mall opened in 1965, retail in the downtown basically died.  Tacoma was too small of a town to support both a mall and downtown retail.  Plentiful parking, and enclosed shopping in rainy Tacoma is hard to beat during the winter.  Its taken decades, but downtown Tacoma has seen a resurgence, with the University of Washington campus re-purposing many of the old buildings into an urban setting.   

These pictures below are from the Tacoma Public Library; the bottom two are a kiddie ride that I do remember riding at Christmas time in one of the stores.

The Milwaukee Road was huge in Tacoma.   

I don't think the little girl in the picture below would  be driving the train.  

I've told this before.....but like to recall each year at this time. Dad would take me to the HUGE Sears store in downtown Los Angeles.  The Toy dept had the normal Lionel display layouts, which I'd watch for as long as I could.  Back in the day Sears sold used train items. One trip I talked Dad into buying me some cool O 3r track. It was what I now know MARX track with molded black roadbed. I thought it was so much cooler than regular Lionel track. At 25 cents a section I think Dad allowed $1.50 worth of track. The memories more important and lasting than the items.......Thanks

ParmaTown Mall 1972 Parma Ohio we had a Hobby shop there.It took us 1/2 hour to walk up there. They had a big Lionel layout in the window.I spent many hours there looking and  touching but mostly dreaming.Nick

Bambergers Department Store, Newark, NJ. Mom and I would take the bus to downtown and take the hard-earned cash I earned from my chores (to which Dad always added more!) to go holiday shopping. There was a great train display in Bambergers - they had a train that ran around the ceiling! I always made sure we had plenty of time to visit that store. I made an excuse to go and find a gift for Mom - she never ever let on that she was watching!  After buying "The Gift"  I would go to the toy section and dream about all those new Lionel trains. Those were the days!  

RRMAN,

We would make a trip to Pittsburgh, between Thanksgiving and Christmas most years. I remember the spectacular (seemed to me as a kid)  animated window displays and Toylands in Kaufmans, Gimbels, and Hornes. I could not wait to see the trains.

RRMAN,

I wonder, if you and I were ever there at the same time. I know you liked Flyer and so did I. My mother and my aunt would load my two cousins and myself into the back seat of the car and off to Pittsburgh we went. We shopped at the same department stores you did. My mother, knew how much I loved the trains and she always saw to it that I got plenty of time to watch them.   

Back in the mid-fifties when I began my “Lionel adventures,” the place to go for eastside Clevelanders was “Pappy Jayes” train store in East Cleveland. (Formerly known as Jaye and Jaye Hobby. )

How I anticipated my vist there! My dad took me in the evening and how could I forget the frosty weather with snow crunching underfoot? Or the neat operating layout in the back room and the wall of trains behind the counter?

My first train had been a Marx received in 1952. By 1955, I was primed to move up to a Lionel. I had been given a Lionel 1953 catalog by a family friend and (of course) memorized eavery page of it, choosing the set I asked my parents to get me for Christmas, 1955.

However,  since the cover was missing, I didn’t realize that the catalog I absorbed so completely was already two years old, so the set I received was put together by the hobby shop to come as close to what I had wanted as possible. Anyway, it was O-gauge and it was magnificent, led by a 665 steamer and four or five freight cars with a large oval of track and two manual switches. What a Christmas morning thrill it provided!

I do recall also visiting the department stores in Cleveland at Christmas (Sears, Higbees, Halles and May Co.), but my trains came from Pappy Jaye’s.

Cleveland also had several other fine train stores: The Trading Post on the westside, and The famous Hobby House downtown. Only The Trading Post still exists, and with much of the same feel today as all those years ago. It’s on Pearl Road, Cleveland. 

Merry Christmas.

We all have so many great memories pertaining to Christmas and electric trains. Days, times and memories we will never forget.