When I was a boy, I remember my Mother and Father taking me to Pittsburgh to see the different train layouts. Are there any department stores that still do this?
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I remember those too. Every place that sold Lionel and/or AF seemed to have one. The big dept stores in downtown PGH always had nice ones. It became an annual tradition for my mom to take me into Pittsburgh the day after thanksgiving (no school) to see all the stuff.
Later I got to visit the Buhl Planaterium layout which I found even more impressive because of the size and the much better scenery than anything I had seen before.
Are there any "department stores"?...that can compete in toy sales?...that would highlight/celebrate electric trains?...etc.?
It's a great question, Jim. As one who is 1 year and 2 months away from octogenarianship, I have only the best of memories of touring corner windows of the major department stores in my hometown, Washington, D.C., on cold December evenings to see the ultra-grand toy displays. Then riding the elevators/escalators to THE floor therein to see the wretched excess of what dreams were made of for us kids. We even had an FAO Schwartz in D.C...which clearly had to exceed the fire marshal's maximum occupancy requirement between Thanksgiving and Christmas Eve!
And I remember that Dad was as much a 'kid' as I in that glorious month!
Electric trains aren't the primo toys of yore for the majority of today's kids. The $$$ to celebrate that one branch of 'toydom' with an operating, accessory-festooned, multi-train layout...and maintain it as such throughout the month!!!...would probably be hard to justify...IMHO. Besides, many of those department displays were created and manufactured by Lionel...or Gilbert?...or Marx? in support of sales. Can you imagine the remaining manufacturers today creating and manufacturing such generic layouts for stores? I can't.
I'll certainly be following your post, though, to see if there are any positive responses in a department...or so-called 'big box'...store anywhere.
Ah, the memories. Always the memories.
KD
As a kid growing up in Weirton, WV, it was always a treat to go to Sears in Steubenville, OH. It had a toy train department that was just fabulous. I also recall that M&M Hardware and the Hub department store had train displays.
I had a blessed childhood - no doubt about that.
George
It wasn't a layout, per se, but the Neiman Marcus at Tysons Galleria in northern VA (outside of Washington DC) had a Lionel train set up around a Christmas tree in the kids department of the store this past year. I think I saw a train around a tree in Nordstrom too in one of the malls around here. I vividly remember even in the 80's and early 90's there being department stores in the metro DC area with train layouts set up. Woodward & Lothrup comes to mind, and I think even one of the Lord & Taylor's did.
@Former Member posted:Wanamaker's on Market Street in Philadelphia was the next best thing to going to the North Pole that this kid could imagine. With a huge pipe organ built into the walls of the building the multi store atrium/mezzanine sounded like a cathedral resounding with Christmas tunes. With the decorations inside the store and animated figures and dioramas in the display windows it was almost too good to be true.
Even MTH recognized the importance of the store as they issued a Wanamaker Tin plate standard gauge set that was striking.
And long before that (1982), Lionel issued a Wanamaker boxcar.
It's been a few years, maybe ten or so, but the Macys in Herald Square and the FAO Schwartz I believe on 5th Avenue, had very impressive displays. I think the FAO has since moved to 30 Rockefeller Plaza, right near the iconic skating ring. And Grand Central Station has an enomous layout they set up every year prepandemic, not sure about the last couple of years.
Union Station in Washington DC also had a couple of layouts in the early 2000's, and they had one of those pop up Lionel Holiday stores as well.
@Rich in NOVA posted:And Grand Central Station has an enomous layout they set up every year prepandemic, not sure about the last couple of years.
Not for two years, but this year it appears to be a go.
https://www.nytransitmuseum.org/
Nov 16
John
Guys....a copyrighted photo along with a reply using that photo were deleted here. DO NOT POST photos from the internet unless you are willing to follow our TOS policy concerning copyright. Don't put yourself in a defense position in court as we will cooperate with the plaintiff. How much more clear can I make this?
@Craftech posted:
Yes, that is in the Bronx. The New York Botanical Gardens also has a lovely train display weaving in and out of all the plants.
But there is also the large display at Grand Central Terminal in Manhatten. Checked the website, and it will be back this holiday season!
In Tacoma, the Bon Marche would have a display of Lionel trains on shelves behind the counter. Accross the street, Rhodes Department store had a train that you could actually ride! The link below is to the achives of the Tacoma Public Library. I remember riding the "Hiawatha" in the early 1960's. The Milwaukee Railroad was beloved in Tacoma. Our new Amtrak Train station has a mural of the Hiawatha.
Richards Studio A62411-2 - Image Archive - Northwest Room Collections (oclc.org
Jim, thanks for starting this thread!
MTH Christmas display, Union Station, Washington, DC, 2011
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About 10 years ago, I worked the men's department at the now defunct Bon-Ton department store. For "Community Day" I set up a couple of my trains atop the one counter, trying to push the fragrance sales for the Christmas season. The train carried several of our best sellers (I earned a commission). This set-up was not approved by corporate, but there was a loop-hole in the display rules due to the Community Day event, and Snoopy made an appearance on his handcar pulling the train at times. Anyway, I could have sold several train sets that weekend (if the Bon-Ton sold them), and customers were asking for the trains throughout the season. I let the children blow the whistle as time permitted.
People need to see the trains in action!!!! Surprisingly, women showed more interest than the men, although 90% of the shoppers were women.
Take care, Joe.
About 10 years ago the old FAO Schwartz on 5th Ave had a fantastic Lionel display. They had the 1930's style display shelves and 2 display layouts. There were a ton of trains for sale with a lot of high end equipment. It was great to see. Sadly FAO is gone, and department stores themselves are falling by the wayside. The Macys in White Plains always sold Lionel, it closed last year.
Wayyyyy, back in the late 60's our mom would take us downtown in Dayton Ohio. Hopefully it would snow on that day, but I digress. The two competitor stores, Rike's and Elder Beerman would set up their street side store windows like in the movie "The Christmas Story". Toys and trains galore. Always had Lionels and American Flyers in the window. Yes, they had the Daisy Red Rider BB gun as well.
Just outside the area to see Santa, there would be a German made HO display. This is the display that peeked my attention. Ahhhh, the good ole' days, Never to be seen again. Rike's and Elder Beerman were both blown up to make room for other buildings.
Another store my parents would take me to was Penn Treffic in Johnstown. They always had nice train layouts.
As everyone knows, department stores are becoming few and far between. Locally, all but JC Penney are gone. Macy's and Sears are gone. The local/regional stores like BonTon are gone. Lord and Taylor is gone. Will be interesting to see if any survive the modern era of heavily on-line shopping and boutique shops in the larger cities where they still exist. I believe in the NYC of my youth, stores like A&S, Gimbels, Korvettes, etc. that sometimes had significant toy departments at Christmas season are mostly gone. Sort of like what is happening to print media. Our local newspaper isn't very local anymore and is at most 20-30 pages, a fraction of what it used to be. Change is not kind to us geezers and our preferences.
Growing up in Scranton, PA in the late 50s, the two department stores, Globe and Scranton Dry both had layouts in their windows and in the toy department. Penn Furniture a block away had a big layout and train department. There were actually 4-5 more stores that sold Lionel trains (not just trainsets) in downtown Scranton at the time. Sadly all 8 stores are long gone! Of those 8 stores, at least 3 had Lionel Trains year around!
In Jacksonville, FLA, I didn't think there was any other store but a Sears and Roebuck, at least judging from the things my folks had in our house, it had to be the font of all things domestic to us. They had a great train layout in the basement of the store when I was a kid, and visiting that and the Sears Santa was a annual destination. My first Lionel set was when I was four, and somewhere along the line, my folks bought one of those folding metal Marx tunnels with the farm scene painted on the side. That was the limit of my scenery. We did have a 'Monkey Ward', which to most was Montgomery Wards, but I do not remember visiting it with my folks, and not really sure where it was in town, until they built our first mall where it was there and that became a store to visit to compare to Sears, as it was easier to get to than the Sears. Was your first town mall open air, no roof, all the stores faced one another on a massive people only concrete sidewalk? Took them a few years to realize they needed to put a roof over that so people did not stay away when it was raining. Sadly, where that first beautiful mall was built, turned into a spot you would not want to visit without an up-armored Humvee. Been gone from JAX over 31 years, so unknown the condition now.
Thank you, to everyone that responded to my post.
@Rich in NOVA posted:Yes, that is in the Bronx. The New York Botanical Gardens also has a lovely train display weaving in and out of all the plants.
But there is also the large display at Grand Central Terminal in Manhatten. Checked the website, and it will be back this holiday season!
A $5.00 ticket purchase, reserved in advance, is now required for the NYC Transit Store in Grand Central Terminal in order to see the model train setup.
As a kid in the mid 1950's there was a department store called Raus in Chicago Heights,Il. that had large display windows. My friends and I waited for Thanksgiving Day to come not for the turkey but after turkey day the city decorated the downtown retail area with Christmas scenes on the light poles and Raus put up a very large Lionel train display in a large display window. Most of us had either American Flyer, Marx or Lionel basic layout generally oval track with some Plasticville buildings that were purchased at Woolworth's. Being from blue collar roots our folks had little disposable income especially for trains and even if they did there was space limitations at home. I have good memories of my friends and I walking downtown to the Raus store on Saturday morning to watch the trains, this was 8 to 10 city blocks from our homes, we walked as a group, and remember this was the 1950's nobody ever bothered us kid's there was the side benefit of coal smell in the air most homes were still heated by a coal furnace.
In Maine, the L L Bean store in Freeport has a holiday train layout in the holiday season. The Maine 3Railers train club builds this layout. Attached is a picture of last year's layout, visible in the store and to the public outside.
My photo
Jan
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I remember very fondly the marvelous model train displays in NYC at Macy's and FAO Schwartz. My mother would take me to see them in the late 1950s and early 1960s, and she enjoyed them as much as I did. Arnold
@OGR CEO-PUBLISHER posted:Guys....a copyrighted photo along with a reply using that photo were deleted here. DO NOT POST photos from the internet unless you are willing to follow our TOS policy concerning copyright. Don't put yourself in a defense position in court as we will cooperate with the plaintiff. How much more clear can I make this?
For those who may have missed it because of legitimate copyright concerns for the posted photo, by searching for Wanamaker's Christmas, or Wanamaker's monorail you will be able to see wonderful displays which used to be the pinnacle of retail Christmas at least in Philadelphia during the 40s, 50s and 60s.
While in college in southern California I worked at the local hardware store and “HAD” to build the annual Xmas train layout. What a deal. Playing with trains and making $1.25 an hour.
@Terry Luft posted:While in college in southern California I worked at the local hardware store and “HAD” to build the annual Xmas train layout. What a deal. Playing with trains and making $1.25 an hour.
Wow, Terry, I'll pay you $1.25 an hour to work on *my* layout . . . maybe even $1.30 if you do a good job! 
Could you go $1.35. I need new wheels for my skateboard
We can't have a discussion about department stores, Christmas, and train layouts, without mentioning "The Night of the Meek", an episode of The Twilight Zone that aired in 1960 and starred Art Carney. If you can, you should watch the full episode, I think Prime has it, I did find a clip of the scene with the layout:
(13) Lionel Trains In The Twilight Zone Night Of The Meek - YouTube
The layout lived on in the Addams Famly TV show, where Gomez blew up trains more than a few times.
@Terry Luft posted:Could you go $1.35. I need new wheels for my skateboard
Sure, as long as you don't mind sweeping the floor when you're done building my new layout! 
Oh, and do you do windows?
So far no one has stated a store they know of currently has train layouts.
Charlie
Not a department store, but the B&O had a layout (circa 1940) that showed annually at Cincinnati Gas & Electric at holiday time, which is now run by volunteers at the Cincinnati Union Terminal. Personally, I was impressed by the loaded hopper train with different grades of coal in different cars. Period videos of this layout are on YouTube.
@Choo Choo Charlie posted:So far no one has stated a store they know of currently has train layouts.
Charlie
The best I can come up with is the Old Cannery Furniture Warehouse, in Sumner, WA. Sumner is located south east of Tacoma, the Sounder Train stops nearby (5 minute walk). The place is huge, and family friendly. They have a G-Scale suspended layout with about 1500 feet of track. They also have an HO scale layout where kids big and small can push buttons to operate. They also have displays of vintage Lionel stuff. The link has some pictures of the G-Scale equipment. They have steps that allows you to get closer to the suspended layout.
The Old Cannery Railroad & Trains (oldcanneryfurniture.com)
With the closure of Tacoma Trains a few years ago, I don't beleive that the Tacoma metro area with a population over 200,000, has any stores that sells Lionel trains directly in stores.
@Choo Choo Charlie posted:So far no one has stated a store they know of currently has train layouts.
Charlie
I believe that the Macys in Herald Square has a train display in Santaland, up on the 8th floor. At least they did about six years ago, last time I visited.
They carry a lot of Lionel on their website, so I assume they have it in the store as well. But now they are sub-leasing space to a new company born out of the ashes of Toys-R-Us, so who knows? 
Growing up in a small town, no departments stores for thirty miles, but I do remember the Lionel dealer display in our local Joe The Motorist's Friend store.
Several stores in New Orleans had window layouts and really nice Toy Departments during the Christmas Season. Sears, D.H.Holmes, Maison Blanche, and another were the major players on Canal Street with Sears one block off. I think there were some other layouts in suburban areas after a few years including hardware stores. We lived out from the city so usually no more than two trips each year in were all I remember. I also recall watching trains with my Dad in 1949 at one and hoping that Santa would bring the 2 rail train - which he did!
I'm pretty sure the Higbee's days are sadly gone Mr. Sutter. I witnessed Marshall Field's State Street store abandoning trains in the late 1960's/early 1970's. We really did live through the best of times. My Dad's first train was bought on Christmas Eve from the window of the Burlington Railroad office on Michigan Ave. in downtown Chicago in the mid to late 1930's. This is my vintage Christmas window shopping memory in my collection. I hope that at least a small fraction of children will eventually embrace Grandpa's Christmas trains. Maybe our imaginations were not as advanced as the kids today, but our memories seem to be much more endearing.
@ClarkA posted:I witnessed Marshall Field's State Street store abandoning trains in the late 1960's/early 1970's.
Temporarily abandoned! By the 1980s, LGB was making exclusive train sets for Marshall Field's. I have one of the coaches from 1984 in my collection. One of 250 made for separate sale.
NorthPark Mall in Dallas runs a large layout for charity. They have been doing it for 36 years. I took my kids to see the trains there when they were growing up, when it was new.
