Question, do any of you plan on opening a train shop in 2024.

When I moved to Honey Brook, PA in 2011 (it's relatively rural with Amish farms) I was lucky enough to find a newly opened train shop - Railyard hobbies within a ten-minute car ride. I visited it fairly heavily and purchased a good amount of train and hobby stuff the first two years I was here, and then they moved down the street into a huge commercial building.

Evidently, RC cars were integral to the store, and they constructed a huge indoor RC car track run, or whatever it is called, complete with dirt hills, etc. They also commissioned Trainworx to build an impressive O-scale layout; they had an HO scale layout, and then about a year later they closed - out of business.

I surmise the owner projected a multi-use hobby store where people could come together and play trains, RC cars, have parties, etc., in addition to buying stuff. I like that idea, notably having clinics whereby experienced/talented people can share their modeling and/or craft skills to the rest of us lowly peasants. But the amount of capital the owner must've invested is mind boggling...I mean that building was very large, had to be at least 10,000 sq. ft. I guess the bottom line is that all these hobbies are expensive...and they're niche hobbies at that.

While the internet presence has drastically changed the state of consumerism, I do wonder how the changing socialization, if that's the right word, has affected brick and mortar stores.

Nowadays, perhaps a brick and mortar "retail train store" can exist only as a hobby -- with the benefit of engagement in the world's greatest hobby but not as a viable business.  The payback of a hobby is personal satisfaction; however, not much (if any) profit is expected. Further, there are already enough online hobby stores.

Although not considered a "hobby store," model RR train clubs may be considered a nexus for the hobby as a non-profit organization.

Just saying ...

Mike Mottler   LCCA 12394

I was big into HO in the 70's and early 80's and had subscriptions to a couple mags including Model Railroader.  I watched the rise of the 800 number businesses, working out of their garage or a storage building, buying stuff in bulk and selling at prices hobby shops could not meet.   I didn't go dig out an old mag, but I think Mikes Train House started just like that back then.  Hobby shops were slowly closing, even back then, many being used by folks that came in to check out a loco or car, then go home and call an 800 number to buy it.  The industry realized the need for brick and mortar shops, and began to offer a discount to real shops, that the bulk 800 buyers could not get.  This allowed the real shop to compete.  I am guessing that program has just died off and real shop or a garage, wholesale prices are the same for everybody, but at the time it seemed like it might have helped prop up the brick and mortar stores.  My local shop that has been around for over 50 years now, has noted over the decades, that when the economy slows down, the sale of model kits goes up.  There assessment of that trend is that folks stay at home more, and do crafts, instead of Disney World.  In the 2008 era downturn, they sold out of just about every model kit in the store, and they have a couple rows of them, some along the window row that had been there so long, the sun had faded the boxes.  They made their first real replenishment order from their suppliers in several years back then, and ever since, model kit sales have been a fairly good continuous stream of sales.