Model Railroading > Model RRers' Tour of Historic Santa Clara Valley, CA Hobby Shops

Judging from my last eBay post, some of you remember Bill's Train Station, so how about A Model Railroaders' Tour of Historic Santa Clara Valley Hobby Shops? Some of you guys with better and longer memories ought to be able to augment what I have to say. The following is long-winded and reads something like James Joyce's Ulysses, so you might want to pick and choose only the ones that you remember.

1) Hobby shop/toy store on First St., San Jose, a few doors down from the Fox Theater, mid-1950's - The model trains section was in the basement. My brother-in-law bought me a Varney Aerotrain there. The store disappeared before 1960 with the decline of downtown; may have moved to 2).

2) Alum Rock Hobbies - late 1950's to 1970's??? - I don't recall much about it since it was way out on the East Side, far from my home. Was it part of a sporting goods store, or Alum Rock Hardware? I kinda remember the shop selling guns, as well.

3) Ed's Hobby Shop, Willow Glen, circa 1960 -1980 - After it opened, Ed's became part of my weekly hobby shop bicycle tour, along with 5) & 6). Ed was a nice-enough fellow, but I recall driving him nuts once as I lingered for more than an hour considering how to best spent my lawn mower money. After a curt remark by him, I qiuckly selected a Varney SP heavyweight coach. For a long while around 1962, he had a Pre-War Varney HO brass articulated for $35.00. This was about the time that my mother, the lead mathematician at NASA's Ames Research 40x80 wind tunnel at Moffet Field, celebrated cracking $100/week on her paycheck. No articulated for me. Ed sold out in about 1975-76 to another person, who put a ton of money into expanding the stock… and went bust. A third owner closed it in about 1980. Paul Ogren, an old friend who now lives near Portland, was the counter help. He sold me a host of discounted Model Power FA's and Sharks that I still have.

4) Holmes Hobby Center, Winchester Blvd. near Campbell Ave. (across from the Copper Kettle donut shop, which had the best donuts in the Valley after Snyder's Donuts in San Jose closed about 1958) circa 1960-62 - This was a hole-in the wall place that did not last for long, perhaps due to Old Man Holmes age, - early 90's, he claimed. He once told me that when he was young, he had a job loading Florence & Cripple Creek narrow gauge boxcars in Cripple Creek.

5) The Engine House, Alberta Avenue, Sunnyvale 1950's to early 1970's - I used to visit this huge, two story warehouse structure quite a bit, because it was located near my brother's house. Easy Schwaffle (sp?), a nice guy only if you had money to spend, and his nephew manned the place. A truly unique, quirky place, moreso as suburbia grew up around this old agricultural building. I believe that he lived in an old farm house that stood behind behind the apartment building he owned located at the rear of his store parking lot. It was said that he had tons of ancient stuff buried in second story storage. I bought my first brass engine there in 1964, an International camelback for $27.95, I think it was. For six months, I had saved for an MB Austin SP M-21 mogul, but the shipment from Japan was very late, and the money was burning a hole in my pocket, so… The M-21 arrived about a week later.

6) Van's Hobbies, Hacienda Gardens Shopping Center late 1950's-1970? - Van's was a favorite of mine because it had a fair number of trains and alsobecause the bicycle route to it had the area's first McDonald's, just across Foxworthy. Later on, the owner's daughter (I think) worked there and sorta dominated my interest. Van's stood at one end of the original shopping center, and on the other was an ice cream shop that had the best banana ice cream that I ever tasted. Remember how good those long-gone Carmen-Miranda-hat-sized bananas used to taste?

7) San Antonio Hobbies, Mt. View, circa late 1960's - 2010 - In its early years it had an enormous stock of brass locos, and was huge for a hobby shop. I recall buying a Westside DRGW narrow gauge 4-6-0 from them in the late summer of 1971. With the changes in the brass market towards limited runs, much of their brass dried up, so I discontinued going there often to oogle. The same family operated it through its entire existence, I believe, and the store fell victim to higher rents and the Internet.

8) There was another Mt. View or Sunnyvale train store whose name presently escapes me, circa early 1970's, that specialized in Lionel and Tinplate, and was owned by Vern Cole and a partner (Lucky Hitchcock?). I never went there, not being a toy train fan, although I knew both Vern and Lucky somehow. See 13).
 
9) The Whistle Stop, first in Los Gatos, then on Sunnvale-Saratoga Road, circa 1970-75. Owner Len McCurley was a genuinely nice guy. His original store fronted on Los Gatos-Saratoga Road at Village Lane, and was in a complex that had a great Mexican restaurant. This was at the time that Los Gatos was starting to become shi shi, so higher rent drove him to the other location. He had a bad ticker, and he was forced to close the store shortly before his death.

10) Bill's Train Station, first at 12th and Keys, San Jose; second on Woodard Road, between a pizza parlor and war surplus store in a strip mall not far from Cambrian Park Plaza shopping center;  third, on Union Avenue facing Cambrian Plaza, 1971-(early 1990's-ish?). This was the first solely model railroad shop in the Bay area, I believe. The first location was across the street from, how do I describe it, sort of a beer garden catering to the rougher Hispanic element. David W. "Bill" Frederick and I, his first employee (during Xmas college break, 1971) used to watch the Friday and Saturday night riots over there from the safety of his (door locked) postage stamp sized store, a former market whose wood-planked inside was painted a horrific blue. Bill was a stickler for tracking product, and in Feb. 1972, when I helped him with tax inventory, I actually found myself counting Kadee coupler springs at 3:00AM while we, loopy from hours at it, continually shouted in unison, [Roundhouse] "Super Quick RP25 Action Trucks!" You had to be there.

During his early days, Bill and I got along fine, although he was a very devout Christian evangelical fundamentalist, and I a heathen semi-Catholic. While at the original store, I introduced him to the great, but pricey, 95 cent meatball sandwiches from a seedy sandwich shop on East William St. started by the boyfriend of my wife's friend: Togo's. Maybe this was the beginning of Bill's health downfall, because he soon put on so much weight that I started calling him Tubby to needle him.

After a couple of years, Bill's operation outgrew the store, and he moved to Woodard Road. In 1975, I managed his store for awhile. By then, he was burnt out on retail, mainly because he spent all of his time catching up on inventory, I presume. He had become a grouch with the customers, and when I became manager, he spent most of his time away from the store pursuing his first love, preaching. When he indeed was there (doing inventory), we did not get along, for his business had stagnated (I remember his receipts for many days were well under $30), but he would not let me rearrange the store to provide customer interest. This lasted six months until I elected to head off to grad school.

Does anyone remember Armond Conti's (who also periodically worked for Bill) Lionel collection displayed on the wall above the store layout?

The layout was basically a loop, where I once loaded up a Hobbytown/Carey centrifugal clutch equipped E6 with 60+ freight cars and watched it creep around the layout while its Pittman motor screamed at maximum RPMs. This was the closest thing that we had to diesel sound in those days. A fellow I knew had three so-equipped Hobbytown SD45's, and we thought that they sounded pretty cool idling away together at a speed too slow for the clutches to engage. I still have three clutch equipped Hobbytown RSD-5's. Someday I'll have to measure their tractive effort - certainly enough to bust couplers, I would guesstimate.

A big fellow named Dick Smith also worked for Bill at times, as well as a black guy named Chuck who was the ultimate UP fan (he later went to work as an engineer for GM in Detroit, and passed away several years later). Chuck was fun to work with, but when a narrow gauge brass caboose was purloined out of the display case during his watch, he somewhat fell out of favor with Bill for a time. Rick Selby also worked there later.

About 1979 or 80, largely in reaction to dwindling business caused by 9), Bill started a model RR club (aside: anyone recall the circa 1971 Garden City Model RR club at Kelley Park?) in a leased space on Lincoln Ave., Willow Glen next to the freeway. The arrangement was that he would give the club steep discounts if it only purchased stuff from him. Of course, Bill did not always have what was needed, so the club came to use other sources, particularly the "hated" 9), as well, causing Bill and the club to part ways. It partially built an HO layout during its short existence.

After I left the area in the early 80's, Bill moved around the corner to the third location. I did not visit the store much, because Bill and I still were a little edgy around each other. Besides, there was a much better area train store by then. I last saw him when I went to a "Bill's Train Station Reunion" at the Rio Vista Museum in about 2000, or so. By then, the mellowing of age had again made us good friends. He was in bad shape with a weak heart by this time. He had been a gluttonous daily pizza eater when I worked for him, and I joked that some day he would die of pizza poisoning. Little did I know. He passed away a couple of years after the reunion, I was told later.

11) Hobby shop, El Camino Real, Sunnyvale, circa 1970's. Trains were a minor item, except for an extensive offering of Suydam HO brass traction. Only went in once or twice.

12) D&J Hobby and Crafts, first Prospect Road, Campbell, then second location 1980's(?)-2015 - Most of this is news to me: D&J closed it Prospect Rd. location a couple of years back. The owners' son, Jason Pozzi, reopened a much smaller store at an unknown-to-me different location, but closed last October and filed for Chapter 7 bankruptcy the next month.
I did not patronize the place much, particularly after it's model train inventory began to decline in the last decade or so. I can't believe, however, that it's been more than two years since I was in the place. It was, however, a good source for Tamiya and other model paints, as well as misc. other stuff not available from the Train Shop.

13) The Train Shop, first at Meridian and (Curci?); second and third on Monroe across Stevens Creek from Valley Fair; fourth and present location at Pruneridge & Winchester, 1976-present. One day in 1976 when I was managing Bill's, Vern Cole walked into the store, announced that he was planning to open a new store nearby (his former partnership had already closed), and asked for sage advice about his plans. I was sort of taken-aback by Vern asking for advice from a potential competitor, and when Bill found out, he was livid. I still think that this was Vern's real intent - he could have a wicked sense of humor. The Train Shop stuck in Bill's craw as long as he remained in business. Bill likewise felt betrayed when I told him, shortly after the Train Shop opened in mid-year, that I had purchased a Sunset SP Fire Train from Vern, because Bill had failed to order any.

The Train Shop was written up several years back in Model Railroader or RMC. The article's facts are more accurate than my memory in the following. Vern's first place was a postage stamp akin to Bill's first. Sometime before 1980, he moved to the first Monroe location, where his first wife helped out. She sadly passed away a few years later, which knocked the wind out of Vern, and he subsequently closed the store. After a year or two, he reopened a couple of doors down in the same strip mall in partnership with Chuck Givens, who had lately owned the Glenwood Publishers. The business grew considerably, I judge because Vern and Charles were such an amiable combination (along with Vern being a very astute businessman. They eventually moved to the shop's present location (when? I was out of the area then). Charles eventually retired and moved to the Pacific Northwest, where at last report, he was still doing well. After this, Vern's second wife began to help out. Vern continued working there well into his 80's and looked twenty years younger. Our standard joke was that my "$50 brass engine was still on order" at a time when the cheapest ones were selling for several times that. Health eventually forced him to turn over the operation to his son, Dennis, and he passed away not long ago. Now, my standard repartee with Dennis is, "Hey, where is that $50 brass engine that your dad ordered for me?" The Train Shop is the best model railroad shop this side of Caboose Hobbies, as far as I'm concerned.

14) A strip mall hobby shop near Santa Teresa and Snell, I think it was, in the South Valley existed for a short time around 20-25 years ago. I can't remember if it had model trains, or not.

Later additions:

15) Capitol Hobbies, McKee and Capitol, late 70's and early 80's - was heavy into model aircraft, wasn't it?

16) Richard's Model Hobbies?, South Mary and Fremont, Sunnyvale, 1980's to mid-90's - all gauges plus war games supplies

17) Hobby shop at Meridian and Hamilton Aves., first in strip mall next to today's Goodwill store, then on Bascomb Ave. south of Campbell Ave. in Campbell, circa 1958-63. I can't imagine how I forgot this one, which was on my home turf, except that it's model RR department was very small. During my plastic model ship phase in the late 1950's, I bought models of the Polaris nuclear submarine and the USS Essex aircraft carrier (amongst several others). When I moved on to model cars, I placed my plastic ship fleet in a wading pool, set it afire, then blew the ships up with firecrackers that I tossed at them. I still have AMT models (somewhere...) of 1959 & 60 Edsels that I bought from the shop after it moved to Bascomb. The owner made the move due to financial difficulties (he apparently was well arrears in rent when he left the original site). Just prior to the move, one of my buddies deposited layaway money for some models, and surprise!, the owner had no record of this after the move. He folded after only a few months at the new location, since word quickly got around about the layaway money.

EO



Edited 6 time(s). Last edit at 03/11/16 16:02 by hogheaded.

A few more for ya:

Capitol Hobbies - Late 70's to mid '80s, located in a shopping center on the corner of McKee Rd. and N. Capitol Ave. Large Lionel shop with some HO and N.

Richard's Model Hobbies (sp?) -  80's to mid 90's In a mall at the corner of S. Mary and Fremont Aves - HO, N and some Lionel, plus a large "war games" selection.

Here is one more

In the early 80's I visited a train store in Sunnyvale once or twice on Alberta Avenue, close to Hollenbeck.  If I recall correcty, it was in a quonset hut type building.  I was just getting back into model trains, but had just gotten engaged and had little money.
 

Tom Daspit
Morgan Hill, CA
Tom's Trains



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/11/16 11:11 by tomd.

djansson Wrote:
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> A few more for ya:
>
> Capitol Hobbies - Late 70's to mid '80s, located
> in a shopping center on the corner of McKee Rd.
> and N. Capitol Ave. Large Lionel shop with some HO
> and N.
>
> Richard's Model Hobbies (sp?) -  80's to mid 90's
> In a mall at the corner of S. Mary and Fremont
> Aves - HO, N and some Lionel, plus a large "war
> games" selection.


Oh yeah, Capitol Hobbies! I only went in there once.
Richard's Model Hobbies I don't remember.


tomd Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Here is one more
>
> In the early 80's I visited a train store in
> Sunnyvale once or twice on Alberta Avenue, close
> to Hollenbeck.  If I recall correcty, it was in a
> quonset hut type building.  I was just getting
> back into model trains, but had just gotten
> engaged and had little money.
>  

That was my aforementioned Engine House.  The quonset hut looked war surplus to me, and I think it was a tractor shed or something before it became a train haven.

wingomann Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Hogheaded,  Your #9 was "The Whistle Stop" and
> run by Len McCurley (sp?).
>
> As a kid I inherited a bunch of HO scale equipment
> from my uncle.  When I was around 11 my mom took
> me to Bills Train Station and I bought my first
> two new pieces of equipment, a Athearn SP 40'
> boxcar and a Roundhouse SP cupola caboose.  But
> Bills was way over on the other side of San
> Jose.  Shortly after that we found The Whistle
> Stop in Los Gatos.  It was within bike riding
> distance and Len was a great guy.  He always
> greeted you with a smile.  He ended up becoming
> a mentor.  If I needed something repaired or
> needed to know how to put Kaydees on a piece of
> equipment he would have me sit down at the counter
> and he would teach me how to do it.  I would cut
> lawns and wash cars to get the money to go buy at
> least 1 freight car a week.  Len had a wall of
> Athearn and Roundhouse cars behind a counter and
> he would let my friend and I go behind it to pull
> out the cars to look at them - the only rule was
> we had to open the boxes over the counter.  It
> took a minimum of an hour a week talking to Len
> and picking out just the right thing to take care
> of the money burning a hole in my pocket.  It was
> a lot of fun to go there.
>
> Bill moved to the store on Woodard which was a lot
> closer to my home but when my friend and I
> went there Bill was unfriendly and acted like he
> didn't want us touching anything.  Needless to
> say we found it more worth our while to ride out
> bikes the 4 miles to the Whistle Stop than the
> mile to Bills.
>
> I got older and discovered girls and when Len
> moved the Whistle Stop to Saratoga-Sunnyvale road
> I only went there a couple of times.  By the time
> I got back into trains the Whistle Stop was gone
> but then I found the Train Shop on Monroe Ave. 
> Vern and Charlie were very friendly and like Len
> encouraged people to hang out in the store and
> BS.  It made going to the hobby shop fun again. 
> As I think about it one of the things both the
> Whistle Stop and the Train Shop had in common was
> that they used to have a pot of coffie going all
> the time.  I never drank it but I think it was a
> sign that they were welcoming of people coming in
> to a relaxing enviroment and looking around.  It
> worked.  I can honestly say that I never left
> either of those stores without buying something. 

AHA! I originally wrote the Whistle Stop, but changed it because it did not look right for some reason. At least I guessed close to Len's name. I'll edit my text to reflect your corrections. Yes indeed, Len was a good guy.

And yes, Bill Frederick was sour with his customers. After a few years he was burnt out with retail and felt trapped by the store. He constantly had it up for sale, but wanted too much for blue sky and over-valued his inventory, so what few bites that he had quickly faded away. Get him away from the shop and he was jovial and fun to be with. How many people in retail have we known that started out friendly, then eventually turned cynical and sour towards customers? Like you say, that's why guys like Vern, Charles and Len were such a delight.

EO



Edited 1 time(s). Last edit at 03/11/16 13:43 by hogheaded.

One time I went to Richard's to have my Lionel engine repaired and he was working on his in store layout .He got mad and threw something .Not a comfortable feeling.
He did end up fixing the engine .
You mentioned the hobby shop on Winchester near Payne.At one time it was called Houston's Hobbies if my memory is right.
Now it is a dry cleaners.

Posted from Android

EO (Ed, right?),

Thank you for this walk down memory lane.

I started coming in to Bill's Train Station on Woodard shortly after he moved there - whenever I could get my mom to drive me over there.  I worked for Bill from 1985 - 1988 or 89, when he sold the business.   I'm also the guy that suggested the Bill's Train Station at Rio Vista and helped organize it.  You've done a good job summing up Bill.  A small correction:  the African American man who worked for Bill, then General Motors, was Phil Carter.  Last I talked to Phil was shortly after Bill passed.  Bill's funeral happened without any of us knowing, so I organized a dinner in his honor.  Phil was living in Stockton at the time, and was not well enough to attend.  I'm sorry to hear of his passing.

You mentioned a hobby shop at Santa Teresa and Snell.  Van's Hobby Shop had a second location for a few years in the mid '70s, and this was it.  My model building teacher at Dartmouth Jr. High stocked our in-class hobby shop with kits from this Van's location.  I'm pretty sure it was gone before 1980.

Wayne Cohen  

I've thought of another, a hobby shop first located in the strip mall next to the present Goodwill store at Hamilton & Meridian Aves. in San Jose; later on Bascomb Avenue south of Campbell Ave. in Campbell, circa 1958 to 1964. I think it opened when the mall was new. The grocery store that was the original tenant of the Goodwill store opened at about the same time. King Norman, of the King Norman's Kingdom of Toys chain, who once had an early Saturday morning TV show, presided over the opening, as he had done for the opening of the Hamilton Plaza Safeway (Now Whole Foods) up the road at Hamilton & Bascomb (then San Jose - Los Gatos Road), and the original Valley Fair Shopping Center, both in 1957. Nearly two decades later I asst. managed one of his toy stores at Eastridge Mall. (Its model train department swelled in size during my stay.) There I was told personally by none other than Nolan Bushnell himself (accompanied by two lawyers) that his Atari Pong game was trademarked, and that I'd better take down that goddamned sign that I'd made that advertised a knockoff as a "Pong" game. After a later career in the oppressively negative culture of railroading, all that I can say is that toy business executives like King Norman and Bushnell made railroaders look like participants in a a Bubblegum Music seminar. Cripes...

EO

---

wnehoc Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> EO (Ed, right?),
>
> Thank you for this walk down memory lane.
>
> I started coming in to Bill's Train Station on
> Woodard shortly after he moved there - whenever I
> could get my mom to drive me over there.  I
> worked for Bill from 1985 - 1988 or 89, when he
> sold the business.   I'm also the guy that
> suggested the Bill's Train Station at Rio Vista
> and helped organize it.  You've done a good job
> summing up Bill.  A small correction:  the
> African American man who worked for Bill, then
> General Motors, was Phil Carter.  Last I talked
> to Phil was shortly after Bill passed.  Bill's
> funeral happened without any of us knowing, so I
> organized a dinner in his honor.  Phil was living
> in Stockton at the time, and was not well enough
> to attend.  I'm sorry to hear of his passing.
>
> You mentioned a hobby shop at Santa Teresa and
> Snell.  Van's Hobby Shop had a second location
> for a few years in the mid '70s, and this was it.
>  My model building teacher at Dartmouth Jr. High
> stocked our in-class hobby shop with kits from
> this Van's location.  I'm pretty sure it was gone
> before 1980.
>
> Wayne Cohen  

Well I'll be darned! I remember you from the reunion. I happened to run into Armond Conti, I think it was, at the Train Shop one day, and he told me about the reunion and how Bill had been trying to locate me. Darn, but I'm bad at names. I can still recall Phil Carter as plain as day, but obviously not his name until you refreshed my memory. Again, a fellow customer at the Train Shop told me that Phil had passed some time ago.

Van's #2 has me perplexed. I could swear that the shop that I was thinking of existed much later than 1980, but I guess that my memory has failed there, as well. I haven't thought of much about most of this for two decades.

Boy, those were different times, when there were still lots of hobby shops and prune orchards in the Valley, and people didn't lock their doors.

EO



 

Wasn't The Engine House originally down on San Carlos Street in the Burbank section of San Jose?  I can remember as a kid bringing a Lionel switcher ther to have the horn repaired.  The store was on the north side of the street near the big toy store (name fails me) that moved to Stevens Creek and San Tomas Expressway.

Wow - what an historical list! I also remember a small shop on The Alameda in San Jose in the mid-1970s, but because it had only Lionel in the front window, I never visited it. As for the rest...

#3 - Made a few minor purchases
#5 - Living in Stockton at the time, I went there once around 1972 and bought some things I had never seen before of brands I had seen advertised years earlier.
#7 - Lots and lots of brass that I could not afford
#13 - The Train Shop - when preparing for the move from Monroe Street I remember seeing some really old inventory that came out and was offered at discounted prices. Vern was really a nice guy whether you were just looking or buying something expensive. I still have some used working semaphore HO signal parts in a little box I bought for $2 and they are still in that box! A wonderful place to buy RR books and everything else. An SP co-worker and I hit the shop once a week after lunch. If he did not buy something, I did. It remains my favorite although I'm now too far away to visit.

Re:  The Train Shop in Santa Clara and Chuck Givens. 

I was hiking last summer in Silver Creek Falls State Park, east of Salem, OR, when I met Charlie.  He lives in the San Juan Islands north of Seattle and certainly looks in good shape.'

John Bauer

jdb Wrote:
-------------------------------------------------------
> Re:  The Train Shop in Santa Clara and Chuck
> Givens. 
>
> I was hiking last summer in Silver Creek Falls
> State Park, east of Salem, OR, when I met
> Charlie.  He lives in the San Juan Islands north
> of Seattle and certainly looks in good shape.'
>
> John Bauer

Well, that's a coincidence! The wife and I "camped" (in an RV) overnight at Silver Falls late last summer, and likewise hiked the trails. Didn't encounter Charlie, however. It's great to get a first-hand description of his condition. Who says that the good die young?

EO

Van's in Hacienda gardens (or at least, a hobby shop in the corner, towards the  Hillsdale/Yucca corner) lasted until at least 85ish, as I can remember going there and getting either an Athearn Hustler or the Model Power equivilent for my 7th or 8th birthday. I was born in 77.