I was down at Nicholas Smith last week a couple of times the last couple of weeks...and I live almost an hour away - it is that good of a train and toy store (and there was a Christmas train displayed on the shelf that I just had to see again)! It is a busy season for them and I always seem to make the pilgrimage this time of year, partly as a diversion from my work and medical which takes me in that general Philly direction.
I'd bet there are very few stores like Nicholas Smith left in the country. The downstairs is mostly toys and models, some train stuff, while the upstairs is all trains of multiple gauges. For whatever reason, the shelves at in the upstairs part of the store display trains in the most attractive and realistic light I've ever seen - yet they appear to be simple wooden shelves and the lighting is not bright. While the internet has taken the hobby shop experience out of the equation for some, walking around Nicholas Smith is a treasured and unique experience, kind of like walking around an old hardware store with floor to ceiling shelves of every possible wonder known to man.
I recall I was living in an apartment along the mainline when I discovered the shop by accident in the mid 1990s. At that time, I was collecting Corgi die-cast (still do) and was just thinking about getting back into trains, which I did a couple of years later and purchased a Railking PRR K4 steamer from those very magical shelves I mentioned earlier.
fwiw: The original store, and actual Nicholas Smith the person, was in Philly and I had the honor of seeing their G-scale train layout that they setup during Christmas season at John Wanamaker's department store in the early 1970s. It was a tremendous display.
