Woolworths Electric Trains

BobbyD posted:

O-gauger posted:

BobbyD posted:

 

Another view of that Woolworth store, I wonder if that Cadillac in your image still exists. Mom worked at Ben Franklin distribution site for a long time. Seem to recall Walgreens having soda fountains though I don't remember trains at any of them by the time I came along. Looking forward to seeing your model Don.

Nice photo. Those folks all appear to be in a queue for something. Makes me curious. 

 

I believe it is a protest march. A note somewhere says the slide read:

"San Francisco protesters march for peace (1966) The notes on this 35mm Kodachrome slide."

Black sign to the right in the line...."Make war on poverty not people". And the marquee; Weird, Wicked, World is 1966.  Notes seem on cue to me.

scale rail posted:

 

I'm such a sucker for that Marx litho stuff. LOVE the F's, and those little FM's, and the 3/16" litho rolling stock and...

This could be because my first "big" (3-rail) train I received as a lad was a hand-me-down Marx NYC 3/16" litho set. Never could play it to death. I ended up handing it off to a younger cousin once I had "graduated" to HO scale. Pshaw... I no longer needed a "toy" train... I had become a sure 'nuf MODEL RAILROADER!

It would be SO easy for me to want to collect that stuff!

Andre

AMCDave posted:

My train memory is WOOLCO, the discount arm of Woolworth's.  Twice a year they would have a big model train sale. Most of it was HO and N scale but I did pick up a O scale Casey Jones 4-6-0 static kit.  I still have a number of items I bought at these Woolco sales.....Rivisrossi Cab Forwards and UP Big Boys were $20!!! I bought all I could back then on my limited funds, I was a teen working fast food. Only to go back and load up! 

Woolco in Niles OH carried all the HO AHM / Rivoroussi passenger cars.  I was just 10 years old or so and couldnt buy them, but took the AHM catalog home and dreamed of getting all of the passenger trains.  The Great Northern blue and BN green sets were high on my list.  

As far as Woolworth, I do not recall trains there but did get tin airplane toys there etc.  I recall taking the Warren city bus downtown with my Mother and having lunch at Woolworths and some shopping.  When the mall opened the Woolworths had the coolest blue sign and blue windows up in the high walls of the mall.  But by that time sister store Woolco was just nearby and thats where the scale size HO trains were.

A postcard of the Niles OH Eastwood Mall, Woolworths was a favorite of mine. The mall today has been stripped of any architectural interest, fountains long removed, those blue windows above Woolworths long gone, ceilings changed from architectural artworks to plain ceilings.  

 As a native San Franciscan I remember the specific Woolworth's on Market Street that Don is talking about and the Emporium across the street that someone else mentioned.  I don't remember trains at Woolworth's but I do remember the lunch counter.  I wouldn't be able to answer why but I was fascinated by the cups they served orange juice in - they were the conical white paper cups that fit into a silver (chrome) holder shaped somewhat like an hour glass.  I remember always wanting one of those the few times we ate at the lunch counter and Mom denying it because orange juice was too expensive.  I also remember that the turntable for the cable car was right outside the store.

The big deal with the Emporium was their animated store windows and rooftop rides (small roller coaster, Ferris wheel, etc) at Christmas.  My family bought clothes, furniture, even bicycles there.

We rode the streetcar (light rail) from our home in the Castro/Market to get to Downtown.  We'd board at the exit from the Twin Peaks Tunnel and get off at the Powell Street stop.

I'm hoping Don, or one of the other former San Franciscans, can help me with this - I also remember a town train store that featured Lionel.  It was a brown brick front on the store with a narrow street front but it went deep into the block.  It was on Market Street and only a couple/few blocks east of Castro.  This would've been back in the 60s and 70s.  I used to go there to get parts and supplies for the old postwar Lionel I had at the time.  It's not there any more and I can't find anything that looks like it when I search on Google satellite.

Here's the store in Elgin, IL. that I always frequented..and yes the tubs full of AHM/ Rivarossi passenger cars. My dad bought the Big Boy and I had a IHB 0-8-0 

Town I grew up in had a Woolworth's, Kresge's and McClellans five and dimes. The Woolworth was L shaped with entrances on the two main streets. Of the three it was the best (from a kids point of view). Toys, pets, and a lunch counter where a burger was a quarter but my favorite was the ice cream sandwich--hand cut three flavor ice cream between two pieces of cone like pastry. We also had a real hobby shop where I bought my first HO in the mid 50's, still have the Ulrich cast PRR hopper car I built.

As  a child my mom would take me downtown Macy's and Gimbels in NYC.

there was a Woolworths where we would go for lunch right across the street from one of the big department stores. Maybe on 33rd street?  Anyway, there was a toy area that had some small amount of Lionel, Marx, and Flyer for sale. What intrigued me at the time were the large selection of Rivorossi HO equipment, and the stacks of plasticville for sale. I remember bringing home a plasticville signal tower costing 69 cents!  I was impressed with how many Rivorossi  passenger sets they had and popular steam engines!  Always wanted to visit that Big  Woolworths as the one in my neighborhood had little or no trains. Great memories.

The snack bar had yummy stuff to eat as well.

Leroof.

The Woolworths on Chestnut St. between 13th and Broad was always fun to visit as a kid.  Don't remember much in the way of electric trains there;  mostly the plastic battery-operated sorts.   I do recall buying 45RPM singles in the 70s...  

Mitch 

My mother would take me to Newark NJ on the Public Service Bus from Kearny during the week when my older sisters were in school. She told me I had to be good during the trip, or I wouldn't get my Grilled Cheese sandwich at Woolworth's on Broad Street.

Yep, we shopped at Hahnes, Bamberger's and Kresge's then to Woolworth's  for a grilled cheese and chocolate milk!

I don't remember Woolworth's having Lionel way back when - but the store in downtown Los Angeles did have a great lunch counter with mashed potatoes and gravy that only a bevy of superlatives would do justice.  (OK. There was also Clifton's Cafeteria downtown ... a childhood dream of a restaurant.)  Seems like Woolworth's only had HO but my memory has probably faded on that....

The downtown Los Angeles May Co. (8th and Hill) and Sears had Lionel - with huge (for me, at the time!) layouts.  May Company's toys were on the fourth floor and white-gloved elevator attendants "drove" the elevators to your destination.  May Co. also had soft-serve ice cream on the first floor.  Memories of trains and ice cream are hard to let go.  Seems like Sears had the trains on the second floor.

There were always after-Christmas close-outs - and my mother was adept at picking up some Lionel goodies for me (boxcars @ $1.50 or so).

Good memories.  

rthomps posted:

The downtown Los Angeles May Co. (8th and Hill) and Sears had Lionel - with huge (for me, at the time!) layouts.  May Company's toys were on the fourth floor and white-gloved elevator attendants "drove" the elevators to your destination.  May Co. also had soft-serve ice cream on the first floor.  Memories of trains and ice cream are hard to let go.  Seems like Sears had the trains on the second floor.

Good memories.  

The huge downtown LA  Sears was where my Dad would often go. I've said before I'd always tag along. And if I behaved Dad would give me 50 cents to a buck to spend at the Sears used train dept. Imagine a big chain store today dealing in used O 3 rail??? My favorite find was finding Marx track with the black plastic molded roadbed....I thought it was so cool!! 25 cents per section.....a DEAL!

You do know that Woolworth's was nation-wide...? I certainly went to Woolworth's and S. H. Kress (not "Kresge" - of which I had never heard; it morphed into K-mart, I am told) and W.T. Grant and Neisner's  and Sears in Mobile in the 1950's. In the 60's a Woolworth store opened in one of the malls; eventually Woolco stores showed up here and there in town and the downtown Woolworth's folded. The building is still there, and used, but I forget for what.

S. H. Kress (which we kids called "Kress's") was my main five-and-dime, for some reason. But all were enjoyable to a kid. Woolworth's was my #2. (According to Wikipedia, most surviving Kress stores, like Mobile's, are in the Southwest or Southeast. Maybe that was their main area.)  

O-gauger posted:

BobbyD posted:

Another view of that Woolworth store, I wonder if that Cadillac in your image still exists. Mom worked at Ben Franklin distribution site for a long time. Seem to recall Walgreens having soda fountains though I don't remember trains at any of them by the time I came along. Looking forward to seeing your model Don.

Nice photo. Those folks all appear to be in a queue for something. Makes me curious. 

 

That's the Telenews theater on the left. It showed news footage during WW2 and later strange movies from around the world. 35 cents and you could sit in there all day. Most likely the long line was for some big event at one of the large theaters on the street. The Fox, Paramout, United Artists, and many, many more. I don't think there is a single one now. Also Market street is only two lanes now. The other four are for bikes and walking and painted green. This is a shot of my Woolworths building. The bottom floor will have full interior with lunch counter. Don

Great memories of those wonderful stores and the delicious foods served at their lunch counters. It was another era, indeed! 

The lunch counter in L.A. was billed as the longest in the world.

I grew up in Yonkers, NY and we lived next to the Cross County Shopping Center, said to be one of the earliest outdoor shopping centers built.

For some odd reason, we had 2  Woolworth stores in the same shopping center. I would guess they were maybe less than a quarter of a mile away from each other. I don't recall seeing any trains, but by the late 1960's they had cheap toys. One of the stores had a lunch counter. The other one actually had a nice pet section which carried quite a few fish for people's fish tanks. Both stores always seemed to do a good amount of business. 

Tom

BobbyD posted:

Another view of that Woolworth store, I wonder if that Cadillac in your image still exists. Mom worked at Ben Franklin distribution site for a long time. Seem to recall Walgreens having soda fountains though I don't remember trains at any of them by the time I came along. Looking forward to seeing your model Don.

That "Cadillac" is a 61 Dodge Lancer.

This may be hard to believe, but Orange County, California was once rural, especially the north end where I grew up. There was not a drug store or variety store with a lunch counter in Brea.  To find such a thing, and, maybe also to find a Woolworth's one had to go to someplace like Whittier or Anaheim.  So, this thread has been quite informative to me.  Thanks for starting it, Don, and thanks to all who added to it.

Number 90 posted:

This may be hard to believe, but Orange County, California was once rural, especially the north end where I grew up. There was not a drug store or variety store with a lunch counter in Brea. 

Like Dairy Valley now known as La Palma!!! It was all cow fields and even into the 1970's there were few stores......and why we went to Sears downtown for my trains!!! Yes...a different era!!! 

The "movie line" is a 1966 protest march likely anti-Vietnam War.

San Francisco has many protest marches  for main purpose of getting on the TV news, with their message.

Hobbies For Men was a Train Store in Downtown San Francisco, on Market or Mission Street.

I Purchased a Arnold N gauge Turntable there in the late 60's, it was the most I even spent for trains at that time.

My mother drove me there, waiting in the car and was mad I took so long talking to a nice saleslady.

One of the first jobs I had was at a Woolworth's in Logan, Utah about 1956.  I still remember it fondly..... except pushing  a string broom over the entire floor after closing time five nights a week.

1972 Cumberland Times-News Woolworth Train ad for the LaVale, MD. store, which was located in a sprawling shopping center called SEARSTOWN.

In hindsight, I wish I had gotten more Athearn than AHM for Christmas presents.

D500 posted:

You do know that Woolworth's was nation-wide...? I certainly went to Woolworth's and S. H. Kress (not "Kresge" - of which I had never heard; it morphed into K-mart, I am told) and W.T. Grant and Neisner's  and Sears in Mobile in the 1950's.

G.C. Murphy was another Five-and Dime store of the era. In Youngstown, OH, we had Woolworth's W.T. Grant, S.S. Kresge, G.C. Murphy, and possibly one or two others. Trains were also sold at virtually every hardware store, including Stambaugh-Thompson, Firestone, and several others. And, of course, every department store stocked toy trains. This was a very prosperous area at the time, with all the steel-making activity going strong, and if you grew up around here, trains--real and model--were literally everywhere.

Borden Tunnel posted:

1972 Cumberland Times-News Woolworth

Thanks for sharing that......OH how I got excited when the train ads for Woolco came in the paper......about 1974 was when I bought my AHM Cab Forward at Woolco for $19.99.....still have it!!!

Tom, in the very early 50's we lived in Culver City close to M-G-M studios. Once or twice a year we would travel what seemed like hours though orange groves to Knotts Berry Farm. There were no rides then other than a train ride but you could pan for gold, sit on a stuffed horse and have your picture taken. For some reason I loved the old Borax saddle steam engine. I would sit on the wood front and my Mom would take my picture with her little plastic Kodak camera. I think the real reason we went was that my Pop loved the fried chicken. It was the best we ever had. Don

scale rail posted:

Tom, in the very early 50's we lived in Culver City close to M-G-M studios. Once or twice a year we would travel what seemed like hours though orange groves to Knotts Berry Farm. There were no rides then other than a train ride but you could pan for gold, sit on a stuffed horse and have your picture taken. For some reason I loved the old Borax saddle steam engine. I would sit on the wood front and my Mom would take my picture with her little plastic Kodak camera. I think the real reason we went was that my Pop loved the fried chicken. It was the best we ever had. Don

Still there......