Sears Toy Train Department and more!

I watched the YT videos, that is how it was in the Golden Age for 3 Rail Trains.

Sears & J C Penny • Both had a Christmas Catalogs, with a section for trains

I did purchase one JC Engine, no longer have it.

Below is a JC Penney Locomotive, by Lionel

  Click to enlarge

Both of my first train sets were by Lionel and purchased from Sears.

My first electric train was a Bicentennial Tyco set I later found out came from JC Penny.

Used to look at those Christmas catalogs for hours. Mom would tell my sister and me that because of all the kids in the world nowadays Santa buys his toys from Sears and Penny's. Oh, and he only has $20 to spend on each kid!

There were a quite a few years I asked for nothing more than a $19.99 HO set. Finally the old boy came through. Must have felt guilty for not bringing me a train for so long he brought the top of the line set!

Too funny Andy!

One of my Aunts made the mistake of asking me to show her what I wanted for Christmas in a Sears catalog once when I was 6...I marked so many pages, she never asked me to do that again!

I have both Toy Train Department volumes in my home reference library.  Volume 1 covers Sears' toy train pages (as seen in the initial post) and Volume 2 covers Montgomery Ward's toy department pages.  Both books worth having, especially for those of us who remember--very fondly--the real deal arriving in our mailboxes.  Great memories of a great time to be a young boy!

My dad worked for Sears for 32 years. He retired in 1976. We got all of the Christmas catalogs. In the early 60's he bought home a Lionel D-403 layout that they were going to throw out after Christmas. I was, and still am the happiest kid on the block.

...keep the rails polished...

Two very costly books today!!!! I have 'Boys Toys' from Sears....almost as good.

Two Sears memories for me.......

Every Christmas Dad would take me downtown Los Angeles, huge building still there but not a Sears. They had a huge stock of O 3 rail trains.....even used stuff!!! For our Christmas layout I'd get to buy a few things. I really liked the Marx track with the black roadbed molded to it.

When the Sears Christmas catalog came each year me and my buddy (still friends) would open it on the floor and we would go through the boys section writing down each item we needed that year.....we then turn that list into our parents. Never got near the number of items requested....but oh what fun.

Yes, that's another one I have.  Neglected to mention it in my earlier post.  All three books bring back fond memories of what was, for me at least, a wonderful boyhood that was dominated by my fondness for Lionel Trains.

I loved going to Sears in the 50's. The San Francisco store was huge. Always had a Lionel Layout. My parents could leave me at the layout and do all their shopping, knowing I would be there when they returned. Don

I have this engine, like it a lot.

Brent

Here's a link for Sears and other Christmas catalogs online.

http://192.185.93.157/~wishbook/

franktrain

Another Christmas catalog relished then and collected now is the Western Auto

catalog, which had Lionel and a lot of Marx trains displayed.  I still lament the

passing of Western Auto.  Seems like the last I remember seeing was west of

York on U.S. 30, some years ago in New Oxford, Pa., where there once was also

a small train shop I used to visit.  The last Woolworth's I was in was at the

Phoenix TCA convention, in, possibly, Superior, Arizona.  I miss them, too.

I seem to recall being in Sears one year when I was 6 or 7, my parents were shopping for wallpaper, and left me in the Sears Train department somewhere in a Sears store on Long Island NY in 1968.

The train department was huge, and I recall seeing a ton of Lionel and non Lionel trains.

I must have drooled over the Sante Fe Alco passenger set...because a week later a UPS truck arrived at our house, a box wrapped in brown paper was brought in and my mother declared "oh that's my wall paper" and asked me to open it.

As soon as I saw the Lionel logo on the side my heart raced.

And...I will never forget the moment I first saw those Alcos and passenger coaches the rest of my life.

I still have this set in its original box!

I have the Sears book....and it's great to be sure!

Peter

It in the sears catalog 1975 or 77.There was a bachmann ho trainset called the texan.It was a sf 2-10-4 steam locomotive that had 10 to 15 boxcars.I think it had 5 or 6 switchs.I think it had as far track goes.A 3 loops of tracks it had to be the biggest train set ever.Sears and jcpenny used to go all out during christmas time.I would just look at the pictures and day dream.Good times back then.

I have those toy and train books and they are fantastic (as has been said here). Long out of print, unfortunately, but worth looking for, IMO. What a trip back in time, very much like reading old Lionel and Flyer catalogs.

I don't have the book, but now I've recalled some nice memories.  Thanks Chipset, good job.

This does bring back memories. Christmas season was official when I received the Sears Wishbook and the FAO Schwartz Catalog. I lived in the Bronx then and every Christmas season my father and I would take the subway into Manhattan for a day and visit the Lionel layout, the Gilbert Hall of Science, and Pokes Hobby shop. That's when I would get my copy of the latest Lionel Catalog. Sometimes the whole family would go into Manhattan and my parents would go shopping at Macy's and Gimbals. I have fond memories of waiting in the train department and watching the trains run while they shopped.

Another catalog sought by train collectors, certainly of Marx, is the Spiegel catalog...

which 1941 Christmas version had the first display of the new 3/16th series.  Reading

this thread, I wondered what had happened to Spiegel's, and found they were active, producing catalogs, but under my radar, until recently, while they were going through

a lot of acquisitions and reorganizsations, but actually still exist.

I, out of curiosity sparked by the above, looked up the history of "Monkey Wards", from which our childhood bicycles came.  I found this company, like Spiegel, has been through many organizations, and then a dissolution, but the name lives on in a reincarnation.

Again, like Spiegel, I had not idea it still existed.  In the large city we shopped in,

Sears had a large two story store, off from the main shopping street, and several

blocks from it, so was a walk we did not often take, while Montgormery Wards was on

the shopping street, in a store about the size of the Woolworth's down a block or

two, with Kresge's and Grant's, all in a line.  Wards, as I remember it, was kind of

dark and poorly lighted, vs. the "dime" stores around it. It was not one that us kids

ran into to look at toys.  I don't remember any trains displayed there, which showed

up in the dime stores before the holidays.