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Cut from the Wish Book

Back in 1935, no self-respecting wish book went to press without train sets. Depression-era prices for Lionel and Marx make modern collectors drool.

 When I was a kid, the run-up to Christmas included letters to Santa. At the same time as I grew old enough to have some suspicions about the Crimson Crusader, I was also old enough to read the wish books. Several retailers of the period had large catalogs, Sears, Penney’s, and others. Sears got out of the catalog business, Montgomery Ward’s got out of business period, but Penney’s soldiers on. However, they have no toy section in the Fall/Winter 2002 Catalog, nor do they offer a separate toy specialty book. No trains here.

Toys R Us sent me a catalog. I flipped through page after page, front to back. The only trains I found were a Thomas plastic track and another wooden set. Fred Meyer, our local Northwest big box retailer, has toys but no trains. K-Mart no longer retails in our area, so I can’t talk about their ads, but Wal-Mart is here. The trains aren’t.
That doesn’t mean that discount retailers don’t carry train sets. They do — sometimes. They just don’t feature choo-choos in display ads. So what happened? I worked in retail many, many years ago (photo departments) and learned about buyers. It would be tempting to blame the people who select what gets purchased, but buyers don’t manage the advertising. Often, they are working from a list which tells them to find a deal on dish towels, some sweetness on sweaters, or a steal on steak knives. If they get the call to buy train sets, they’ll do it. If train sets aren’t on the list, they won’t.

I chatted with a couple of big box retail toy buyers who urgently wished to remain anonymous. They go to the meetings and hear the party line. Trains? What trains? Nobody sees trains anymore. They may be there, but people don’t see them and kids don’t want them. I asked if they actually believed that, and I could see some confusion. They hemmed; they hawed. In the end, they weren’t sure. They don’t want to get into the habit of thinking outside the box painted by management. What they hear is: get some train sets, a few cartons for each store. A couple of HO sets, maybe a Lionel cheapie, a New Bright G-scale, maybe an N-scale if you can get a deal. We don’t want to have any left after the season, so it’s better to order short.

What does this mean to our hobby? In a world of impulse buying, especially for kids, products not advertised or available offer no impulse. You might cruise the aisles of your local big box and not hit any trains. Conversely, if you want to hit trains, you will probably have to think outside the big box. That means the hobby shop. Yeah, you can order from the Internet, but you’ll have to know what you want. The hobby shop lets you walk in, look at a variety of sets, peek into your wallet, and decide what you can afford. At the same time, you can see the shelves of stuff which will extend this set into a hobby.

So why am I writing this after the holiday season? There’s less than 350 shopping days until next Christmas. Model railroading is about planning, and you need to start planning someone’s entrance into the hobby right now. Good train sets are available all year round. There may be some after-holiday sales. Save money by smart shopping, not on cheap, poorly-made products. Get a good set and shop for the features you want. You’ve got time now.


John Sipple, Editor
To respond to this month's Editorial, send comments to: Editorial@modelrailroadnews.com