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RE: (erielack) Hobby Shops

Tony, thanks for more great recollections. I am so delighted to be reminded
by name of the Ridgewood hobby shop owner, Carl. He had a real welcome mat
out for interested kids. In 8th G. I bought the Ambroid baggage, combine,
and coach and did them up in my own paint scheme: he liked them and
exhibited them in the store for a month, a nice bit of encouragement. Of
course, he was also the source for my nice Athearn Erie METAL boxcar.
 
These were the days before VHS, DVD, cable TV, and the Internet. These local
hobby shops were our only real contact with the larger modelling world and
with the railroading world, outside of whomever we were lucky enough to know
on the big railroads. I am sure many of our EL brethren on the Erie and the
Lackawanna lines had their railroad and model railroad interests fanned,
nurtured, and broadened by the really fine people who ran these kind of
shops.
 
Joe Braun


  _____  

From: tonyhorn1_@_comcast.net [mailto:tonyhorn1@comcast.net] 
To: Joseph A. Braun; 'JJordan'; erielack_@_Lists.Railfan.net
Subject: Re: (erielack) Paul's Hobby Shop?


Boy, these really are old memories!!!! 
 
.. . a  small shop up in Ridgewood...hey, anyone remember that place...just
east of 
> the Warner Theatre?) 

Sure do!  Rode my bike or walked (through the pedestrian underpass under the
Erie main from Wilsey Sq. to Broad Street, then down E. Ridgewood Ave).
Carl Stechart ran the shop.  It moved a couple of places after that, on the
corner of W. Ridgewood Ave on the street that ran back to the original Pease
Library and also on Wilsey Sq (?) with a view if the RR station and the main
line.   

>How about Mr. Rink (first name I forget) over at Northeastern MR on 
> the Boulevard in Hasbrouck Hts?? 

Oh yes, one of my favorite places!  His name was Arno Rinck and it was
Eastern Model RR Co.  I have never seen shelves so haphazzardly packed with
model trains and parts, yet he knew where everything was.  He moved to
Montana, the town of Hungry Horse, when he continued primarily in mail order
(he wanted a town whose name people could remember).  He was thinking of
taking over the HP Products line of TT gauge trains as well.  That part fell
through.  I had been buying a lot of the early brass imports (Max Gray Erie
K-5a, the Akane USRA engines the Erie had, etc.) and just had gotten out of
the Army as he was about to move.   

 Thanks for the reminder of those times.

 

- --
Tony Horn 
ELHS #2



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