Model Railroading > And another one bites the dust.

Haven't seen a report on this yet, but as a brick and mortar store, it seems Denver's Caboose Hobby Shop is RIP.  There have been a lot of commetns about the shop the past 9-10 months, and the closing is totally expected.  I hear they may continue as an internet store, but with bad feelings amongst customers, I would be hesitant to guess their survival prospects.

Robert

Really no great loss to the hobby. The store created a lot of ill will for itself.

Posted from Android

I did hear elsewhere that locals on Facebook were reporting yesterday that Caboose aka pretending to be Caboose Hobbies incarnate, had closed.

If Caboose goes internet only, they can shed the cool real caboose and b&m store to help the bottom line. Maybe there will be a real DRGW caboose go up for sale, hopefully to a good home. I imagine they won't be needing a Cultural Curator now either, which seemed like an unaffordable luxury when model train products have such a thin profit margin. I wonder whose basement will be the warehouse for internet sales. And will Chris Palmerez stay on?

Posted from Android

Drove by yesterday and it looked pretty empty (always was anyways)...and there was a for sale sign outside.

I thought that Caboose (not Caboose Hobbies) hired Chris Palomarez from Horizon/Athearn to manage the relaunched store? About this same time, Caboose announced that they were now employee owned. 

My understanding also, probably the finances weren't there to save the shop as is was planned. And the drawn out pandemic was likely the coup de grace.

Posted from Android

Interesting watching the place go down over the past couple of years. Have business in the CSprings area when traveling from the east coast and tried to visit whenever I was in the area. Not really surprised as it was definitely going in the wrong direction, at times it was a flea market without the prices. Luckily for me, picked up some SN3 brass items there that were on consignment.  Too bad. Wasn't aware of the ill will stuff that the locals experienced.

Jim Bertone
Quincy, MA

I did not know the folks who owned this reconstituted Caboose, but I feel sorry for them none the less.  If I had to take a guess, the core problems were lack of sufficient financing and relying too much on the draw of a grand, old name.  These days, price competition is tremendously fierce and if you can't survive for three plus years on zero profits, then you had better not enter the game.  Add to that, the ever increasing availability of MOUNTAINS of second hand equipment, and you just know that it's going to be a long and difficult grade to climb.  

Hope you are all well,

Allen Drucker

Not surprising at all, unfortunately.

This recent post from Iowa Scaled Engineering gets at some of the problems the store has been going through.  When manufacturers are at the point of publicly calling out their supposed partners, things are officially bad.  

https://www.iascaled.com/store/

- Jeff Carlson