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I suspect many of us have fond memories of Holiday Seasons standing in front of downtown department store windows watching the electric trains. My earliest memory is outside Woolworth & Lothrup ("Woodies") in downtown Washington, DC watching a silver Lionel Union Pacific passenger train.

Some businesses today still have toy trains in the window. One such place is Simon's Bakery, 582 Cranbrook Road in Cockeysville, MD. The owner of this suburban Baltimore bakery has quite a collection of old trains: Lionel, American Flyer, Marx, and others. There is a display in the bakery window all year long. I took these photos this morning as I stopped to pick up donuts for the folks at work. Saturdays always mean a donut treat.  All their baked goods are just outstanding.

The display is changed periodically throughout the year.

The store is very near the Timonium State Fair Grounds, so perhaps you can stop by if you visit one of the several train shows held at the fairgrounds each year. The bakery is open Tuesday-Saturday, 7 AM-5 PM and Sundays 7AM-3PM.  Closed Monday.

Are there stores in your area with trains in the window?

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BANDOB posted:

I suspect many of us have fond memories of Holiday Seasons standing in front of downtown department store windows watching the electric trains. My earliest memory is outside Woolworth & Lothrup ("Woodies") in downtown Washington, DC watching a silver Lionel Union Pacific passenger train.

 

Woodward & Lothrop, Bill.  

Born/raised in D.C. (northwest section, American University Park area)

And, I'll bet you and I rubbed noses on the corner window glass at 'Woodies' downtown at Christmas!  That scene in "A Christmas Story" is as close to the memory as it gets....except it wasn't a BB-gun in my sights....it was the trains!!

In fact, one memorable layout in that corner display I'm sure was an introduction to "Magne-Traction" for me.  This train went speeding by right at the window, disappeared into a tunnel, and re-emerged a few seconds later....at a higher level!!!!  OMG!!!!  How'd they do dat!?!?!?  So I sidled (pushed!) my way down to that tunnel opening and scrunched down to see what I could of the train INSIDE the tunnel.  

And there it was!...as evidenced by the headlight's glow...a helix of curved track winding upwards!  Holy Cannoli!!  Talk about a mind-blowing vision for a toddler into electric trains!!!!

There were other large department stores with grand corner displays in D.C., too....Hechts, Kann's, Sears.  Some had a Lionel, American Flyer, and/or Marx train.  But not always.  Dad was intent on seeking them out, too.

I wish the stores' photographers had better documented these memories for the ages.  I wish they were available to be put into a book.  I'd buy such a book and stare at it cover-to-cover for hours.  Alas, many of us with such memories are fading away.  I doubt there's much incentive to put it all together anymore.

Thanks for sharing.  No, in our area of Michigan, there are no stores celebrating this iconic memory of Christmas....or any other time of year....except our own LHS.  Sad, isn't it?

KD

I just recently talked to the manager of the Vintage mall here and suggested she let me put a loop of trains in the window for November & December and she jump on the idea thought it would be a great customer draw for the shops. Not sure which set I will be putting in there but leaning on my Williams Girls Freight Set. it will be on and running Wednesday thru Saturday from 10 am - 5 PM so for eight hours a day. I might change trains out on a weekly bases thou to give different looks. I have a old 218 santa fe set of double a units I can put out there with some other freight cars, but need to find some items that won't get to hot. Die cast or tinplate engines might be my better choice. 

rtraincollector posted:

I just recently talked to the manager of the Vintage mall here and suggested she let me put a loop of trains in the window for November & December and she jump on the idea thought it would be a great customer draw for the shops. Not sure which set I will be putting in there but leaning on my Williams Girls Freight Set. it will be on and running Wednesday thru Saturday from 10 am - 5 PM so for eight hours a day. I might change trains out on a weekly bases thou to give different looks. I have a old 218 santa fe set of double a units I can put out there with some other freight cars, but need to find some items that won't get to hot. Die cast or tinplate engines might be my better choice. 

Been there, done that. Burned out a $75 transformer when a piece of decoration fell across the rails. Be very careful that there is nothing that will cause a stoppage because no one will notice before it is too late.

I have worked for 6 or 7 years as a retail display designer and builder. I do Windows and interior displays for a store in New York City. As you can imagine we are already working on holiday display stuff because it is always the most elaborate and time intensive also it gets the most attention.

About 5 years ago I got to put an MTH standard gauge Girls passenger train set in the window because the company had it in their catalog as an extravagant gift. It looked nice in the window but unfortunately the window was too narrow to run a loop like we wanted to so it was just parked but 1000's of people saw it every day as they were waiting in line to see the Rockettes.

I can't find a picture of the MTH set but last years had a gingerbread city with an accurate clock in the clock tower.

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BANDOB posted:

Right you are, KD. Woodward indeed. Woolworth's (or was it G.C. Murphy?) was where my mother worked one Christmas, with an American Flyer B&O Royal Blue freight running "over her head," or so she said. Sure enough, my first train, in 1948, was that B&O Royal Blue freight.

 

My dad got that set in I think it was 1949 it may have been '48. When I was a kid he'd set it up for me. That set planted the seeds for my love of toy trains.

Bill

Hi Folks,

   A few years ago I worked the men's cologne counter at a local department store.  For the store's Community Day event which supported local organizations like boy scouts and animal rescue groups, I set up an O27 Lionel train featuring the top-selling fragrance products, and snuck in Snoopy, too.  This all flew under the radar of the company's visual rules for the 2 days.  I could have sold several sets that day, if only the store still carried Lionel products.  I made the bridge that spanned the gap over the register, and used MS Paint to make the signs on the rollingstock with the store's name/logo.  I also did a quick store facade out of foam core and cardstock to add a little village feel to the display.  Unfortunately, there wasn't any time to do more, and I had to do it on my own time and coin, as a volunteer, to get around the rules.  For some magical reason, the train was running while I was working, too!  Here are a couple vids: 

I disabled the smoke unit but blew the whistle often.  Surprisingly women and kids (boys and girls) loved it and asked about it for weeks after it was gone.  Some men pretended not to notice it.  Guess there is still the stigma about grown men running trains.  (Also, not easy selling cologne in a predominately blue-collar town.)

Take care, Joe.

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jim pastorius posted:

  So men ignored it ??  Strange. 

Not all the men, but several.  (Also got a comment from an older woman about going through my second childhood.  I replied that I never finished my first! Not the best come-back, but it worked in the moment.)    BTW, this is the one in Hanover.  I enjoyed my time there.

Take care, Joe.

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BANDOB posted:

Right you are, KD. Woodward indeed. Woolworth's (or was it G.C. Murphy?) was where my mother worked one Christmas, with an American Flyer B&O Royal Blue freight running "over her head," or so she said. Sure enough, my first train, in 1948, was that B&O Royal Blue freight. 

...and I remember the store name so vividly because that's where my Mom worked....Womens' Department/Dresses, their store at Western and Wisconsin Avenues, N.W.....long gone to the developers whims.  It was only a few blocks from our house.  However, that suburban store did not have a 'corner' window....or many street-facing store windows, for that matter...to draw crowds at any time of the year.  No, the BIG multi-floor stores downtown were THE place to be at Christmas time.  It was a crowd dressed in fedoras and furs, with lots of fellow snotty-nosed kids in puffy coats/jackets with mittens clipped to the sleeves, and woolen knit caps nearly covering their eyes.  (me.)

Ah, those were, indeed, the 'good ol' days'....few as they were.

All gone, now.

KD

The Raus Department Store in Chicago Heights,Ill., which had large display windows in the 1950's displayed a large operational Lionel train layout. This layout was setup after Thanksgiving as were many of the Christmas displays during this time period, on Saturday mornings in late November through the week before Christmas a group of us grade school kids would gather together and walk eight to ten city blocks to watch the trains in the window, this was definitely a different period, no adults or teenagers every bothered us on our Saturday excursions to view the trains. 

 BANDOB thanks for posting this,

 amazing only 4 months away and already were thinking of the days when stores always had holiday themed display windows far as I know New York stores only ones that have kept the tradition alive?

I believe the downfall of people no longer going to shop downtown due to more and more strip malls closer to home did away with the store display windows and the era of a simpler time or was it?

a new era has emerged since we were children all about the next holiday and getting the in store displays up. I was in walgreens last week and they have halloween candy and costumes out were not even done with august yet!

my memory says month of october Halloween candy was put out huh we made our own costumes we had imagination!  the day after thanksgiving christmas display windows were uncovered for all to see and press our noses against to see the trains Tonka trucks cowboys n indian figures and all of the other popular toys ahhh we truly had a great time to grow up in and we played outdoors those of us lucky enough had parks trees lakes to swim in and either a mainline railroad track or a large rail yard and a passenger train depot within a few blocks where we lived.

a side note how many on forum remember the days when the new automobiles were covered up and or showroom windows were covered with brown paper or? until new years day! now days not even a hiccup announcement about it very sad!

I live in an area full of school age children and alas you never hear them outside playing I ask myself why? our children were always outside enjoying running and general horse play and so on we always knew where they were just from the laughter and horse play going on.

I wonder what the generations since 2000 memories of the holiday seasons will be?

 

Hello world

Store windows were magic at Christmas when folks actually walked down a street to go shopping . In the 60's, State St in Chicago was all aglow with animated window displays to draw the consumer in to spend the Xmas budget.   Marshall Fields had the best windows and toy display always with running layouts.   The local Sears had a much more humble loop of Lionel in the 60's window display .   The retail world has so dramatically changed and people's taste for  stimulating attractions heightened  a simple loop of track and train circling would have a hard time a crowd these days.

Below a few images found on the web of various store fronts at Christmas (oops Christmas)  today being PC one must say the month following  Thanksgiving ...( Can we still be thankful and be PC ?)    

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  • 1932 store display standard gauge
  • Scanton store window 1952
  • SpaceAgeTrain store display window
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  • Outfitter supply scanton PA
  • toy store window 1920: Look carefully ..there are Lionel in the window

I live in an area full of school age children and alas you never hear them outside playing I ask myself why? our children were always outside enjoying running and general horse play and so on we always knew where they were just from the laughter and horse play going on.

I think that a lot of parents have their kids participating in organized activities that are usually held away from home. 
Also, kids are that much deeper into electronic games and gizmos than they were just 20 years ago or so. Just read an article the other day, some folks are starting to recognize that all this interaction with computers is not mentally healthy (video games are computers). Duh! 

The most elaborate store window display I 've seen was in the late forties and early fifties at a Firestone Tire Store (also sold Lionel trains) on Roosevelt Avenue in Jackson Heights, Queens NY. They had one full end of a long and narrow store, with windows on three sides filled with trains.  There was just about every accessory available and there were three or four trains running.  My friend and I spent many hours with faces pressed against the windows. Thinking back, I doubt that they sold enough trains at that location to warrant the huge display.  Undoubtedly the owner was a super enthusiast.

Mention above that local stores did not have window displays of trains......I can't remember any in Louisville, Ky., either, although I could have blown by windows racing to the indoor toy departments, since I only got into Louisville on a monthly day off from school shopping trip.   In Louisville there was Sears down Broadway several  blocks from the main shopping (all the dime and Kaufmann's and Stewart's dept. stores, and a small Montgomery-Ward's) Fourth Street.  Sears'  train display was in the basement and where I first heard a recording of Gene Autry and "Rudolf, the Rednosed Reindeer".  The store that had the most Marx, including all the add-on cars I never got as a kid, was a sporting goods store that set them up seasonally in a loft-like mezzanine that was closed the rest of the year.  Woolworth's seemed to have a smattering of Marx year around, but usually the six inch in the little glass walled squares on the counter.  (I cut and installed those glass dividers while working a summer job setting up a new suburban W.T. Grant's one year)  This was in the "post-train" later years (late 1950's) and I remember no trains in that store.  I do not remember seeing Marx 3/16th in set boxes in stores, so have no idea where my family got my or my brother's sets.

 

colorado hirailer posted:

With reference to Mr. Burfle's comment on organized activities for kids, which such I view with derision and am glad I escaped, although my cousins had saxophone and tennis lessons,  I suffered none of that and still got this old.  That may be one reason kids today are not in trains, for they have no time for hobbies?

yes kids of today have no time to be kids and what time they have yes indeed are either chatting on a cell phone or playing a game on it or some other device no time for using the imagination to create fun it is sad. I am with you glad I grew up in an era when it was okay to be a kid and also not have to be stranger danger observant as much as they have to do these days.

on thinking marx trains brought my mind to when I was a kid I loved the windup/clockwork trains and all the lithographed freight cars I played with them until I broke the main spring! I think it was 3-4 years worth of that type train I always wanted for Christmas.

we had a department store called the emporium they had a display window 20 feet long possibly longer it had all the fantasy's a kid could think of automated elves  trains dolls as well as clothing for all ages.

in the toy department on 4th floor I will assume lionel or? created the train layout display possibly not built by lionel as memory says it had American flyer running as well on same layout. it was only large loops of track but to me it was an empire! I can remember still thinking 2 rail track that's just wrong it has to be 3 rail if its a train at all amazing when one thinks hey kiddo real trains travel on 2 rail track soooooo!!

maybe those of you in areas that still have the downtown stores that do Christmas display windows will take photos and post them on the forum for all to see? yes I know normally the New York area has them online to view but sometimes what they show is a smidgen of what's really in them?

I had the benefit of growing up in the Cleveland area where Higbees was the major downtown store and the one used in the beginning of the film,  "A Christmas Story."  Also, in my first job after college, I worked for The Halle Bros. Co., another major department store in Cleveland, and I got to play a major role in designing the Christmas display  windows one year. Great fun!

Nowadays, department stores across the country are in decline as specialty shops and especially the internet are cutting severely into their business. There is still something special about department stores, especially during the holiday season, so I sure hope they survive. 

Personally, I think a revival of the "toyland" concept at Christmas with toy trains as a part of it along with other action-type toys on display might benefit these stores tremendously. Obviously, they don't seem to think so in their board rooms.

 

 

Unfortunately the typical modern train set doesn't have enough elements of interest to hold the attention of children for very long. Train sets are often made to meet a price point so they tend to be basic. If train sets had more than just a basic oval of track there is more potential to create different layouts for variety to maintain interest.

The manufacturers could do a better job of enhancing sets with realistic printed graphics on card-stock buildings and backdrops. Simple card-stock structures that can be assembled easily would be inexpensive enhancements for creatively customizing a starter layout.

Marx was highly successful in earlier times because they created a great variety of toys and trains that were fun and inexpensive. There is still potential to do that with modern manufacturing methods and materials and creative product development.

Last edited by Ace

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