Visiting Sarasota, Florida for the week any good train venues or shops in the area? Thank-you!
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Try the Henry Morrison Flagler museum. I'm not familiar with the address, but the
tour was a real eye-opener when I was there. Flagler was the founder and builder
of the Florida East Coast railroad that opened up Florida for travel, a heck of an
interesting story by itself and available in print.
Hoppy
Hoppy, you have the wrong side of Florida. Henry Morrison Flagler Museum is a great place to visit, but it is on the east coast in Palm Beach, Florida. I know this because I use to live right down the road in Delray Beach and visited the museum more than a couple of times.
Oops, point taken. Yes, that could be a three hour trip from Sarasota, as the
museum is in Palm Beach.
Hoppy
It's a 1.5 hour drive to Tarpon Springs, but Fowler's Dream
Everything is on metal structures that fold and turn into movable units. The complete layout requires about 5,600 sq. ft. to be fully assembled.
Call before going if you decide to make the trip.
Too bad it's not closer.
Up until about 1990, Sarasota hosted one of the most amazing collections of classic Lionel Standard Gauge, prewar O gauge and postwar O gauge.
The Lionel Train Museum was owned by man named by man named Joe Lionel Rudley.
I believe he originally was from New Jersey. He was such a Lionel enthusiast that he had his legal middle name changed to Lionel.
It was a fabulous museum. I visited once, in October 1984. My wife and I were driving from Orlando to Sanibel Island (we were on our honeymoon, and we happen to stop for lunch across the street from it. My wife always jokes that she should've left me then and there.).
As he got on in years, Mr. Rudley sold the contents of the museum to Richard Kughn. They ended up in Carail.
Peter
When I worked down there a couple of years ago (Coin show business) there was a store on Clark Road.
It's a 1.5 hour drive to Tarpon Springs, but Fowler's Dream
If you go to Tarpon Springs from Sarasota, stop by H&R Trains in Pinellas Park (north side of St Pete).