Department Store Window

r_i_straw Dec 15, 2016

  1. r_i_straw

    r_i_straw Mostly N Scale Staff Member

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    From 1939 in San Antonio, Texas. Two shoe shine boys dreaming. They need to shine a lot of shoes to afford that train. Is that a MARX set?
    1939SA.jpg
     
  2. Hytec

    Hytec TrainBoard Member

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    The rounded caboose cupola looks like Marx, also the rounded tender. Lionel tried to follow prototype lines and shapes more, even the 0-27 line.
     
  3. Mike VE2TRV

    Mike VE2TRV TrainBoard Member

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    I can't count the number of times I did that as a kid.

    Come to think of it, I still do that today. :D
     
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  4. Hardcoaler

    Hardcoaler TrainBoard Member

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    When I was young, my mother allowed me one day off from school near Christmastime and we'd ride the C&NW into Chicago to shop and meet my Dad for supper. The trains were on the 4th Floor at the big department store Marshall Field and there were two more large hobby shops along the way. Such happy memories and the return train ride home was magical, waiting in grand Northwestern Station (built 1911, since demolished) and watching signals in the snowy darkness as the train picked its way through the terminal switches, past manned towers (at Lake Street, Clybourn, Mayfair and Deval) and on toward home. I guess it's still fun to be a kid, but looking at photos on Amazon can hardly compare to the experience those kids in the above photo had.
     
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  5. MarkInLA

    MarkInLA Permanently dispatched

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    I had a similar experience but with a loco under the glass counter in a train store on Long Island in the 1950s. I was maybe 6 or 7 when my mom drove me to a train store (I think in Williston Park) on hillside Ave. I saw a Mantua HO 10 wheeler and began to throw a fit because mom said we can't afford it ! I was beginning to scream when the clerk rescued my mom by asking me what radius (Atlas brass snap track [ugh] ) I had on my 4x8 layout. I said "16 inch" and he looked at me and said "Son, this loco won't go around your radius curves, only 18" and bigger ". I immediately mellowed out and we went home like nothing had happened. Funny thing is I do have one in a box somewhere of which I'd never bother to bring up to today's electronic and physical specs (pizza cutter flanges, archaic open frame motor taking up cab space, 1 wire to tender [analog] with too long a draw bar, heavy as a bowling ball !).
    Happiest of holidays to all,...M
     
    Last edited: Dec 16, 2016
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  6. r_i_straw

    r_i_straw Mostly N Scale Staff Member

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    It was still there in August of 1977.
    [​IMG]
     
  7. acptulsa

    acptulsa TrainBoard Member

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    I'm going to identify that car outside the window sooner or later. I swear I am...
     
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  8. Calzephyr

    Calzephyr TrainBoard Supporter

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    Too much glare off the windows to identify the hood ornament... which would give it away.

    Sent from my SM-G530T using Tapatalk
     
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  9. Doorgunnerjgs

    Doorgunnerjgs TrainBoard Member

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    From the lines, hood ornament, door handles, and louvers on hood, I think it's a '33 Dodge.
     
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  10. dalebaker

    dalebaker TrainBoard Member

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    Hey, isn't that Friscobob and Boxcab in that picture!?!?!?:sneaky:
     
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  11. Calzephyr

    Calzephyr TrainBoard Supporter

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    Looks about right... I couldn't see all the details you picked up on.

    Sent from my SM-G530T using Tapatalk
     
  12. marty coil

    marty coil TrainBoard Supporter

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    Even toady...Xmas is not Xmas without a TRAIN!!!!!!!
     
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  13. Mike VE2TRV

    Mike VE2TRV TrainBoard Member

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    Christmas time was always a time of good, warm memories for me, and particularly if there were trains involved. Being with family, having good cheer and warm feelings for each other, while the train hummed along, either on that first oval laid out on the floor, or on that first layout in my room, or the second one that was made out of the first... Hot cocoa, Christmas tree lights, and the wonderful smells coming out of Mom's kitchen, where she always performed her magic, but more so on Christmas.

    Christmas time was also the time leading up to the big day, in the malls, doing like the kids in the first photo, dreaming, wishing, hoping Santa would deliver a bounty of trains.

    That's why people like us cherish Christmas. It's a time to spend among family, to get together and celebrate. The trains are part of the magic, like the lights and ornaments on the tree, set the mood, and take us back to a simpler time, when kids were kids and we were one of them.

    It's a time to appreciate what we have and what we remember. To be grateful for the little things, the simple pleasures, like seeing the glow in the eyes of the little ones when they unwrap their first train set.

    I'd better stop before this turns into a Paul Reid thing...;)
     
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  14. Hardcoaler

    Hardcoaler TrainBoard Member

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    Yes! I distinctly remember the steam locomotive wheels, bells and rail worker's tools in the ceiling tilework and I think that the men's restroom entry doors had some sort of rail detail on the brass push plates and handles. Such a terrible shame that all of this beautiful and laborious handwork was reduced to rubble in the name of improvement.
     
  15. Hardcoaler

    Hardcoaler TrainBoard Member

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    Some model trains have crossed three generations in our family. These Lionel tinplate gons were my Dad's when he was a boy, then I played with them and with cute little animals inside, my daughter enjoyed them too when she was little.

    Lionel and Little Pets 3 - for upload.jpg
     
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  16. ken G Price

    ken G Price TrainBoard Member

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    The car picture you posted is not the one in the window. Look again. The one above has a sloped curved roof not square. The running board is not the same shape, and the doors and windows are not even close. Other then they are doors and windows.
    IMO, it has more of the look of a 1938 Nash LaFayette.
     
  17. Calzephyr

    Calzephyr TrainBoard Supporter

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    Well... I think the car in the picture has 'suicide doors' for both front and rear occupants... Nash Lafayette only has them for the rear occupants.

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  18. ken G Price

    ken G Price TrainBoard Member

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    The mystery deepens. The doors are definitely looking like "the car in the picture has 'suicide doors'".

    Ken
     
  19. Calzephyr

    Calzephyr TrainBoard Supporter

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