Chicago is the railroad crossroads of America. All the class I roads have a presence in Chicago and its suburbs. I lodged near a large yard for the
Belt Railway of Chicago, a terminal road that does a lot of the switching and interchange for the other railroads. It was loud and I was over a half a mile away.
Further from my lodging were a handful of hobby shops that specialize in model trains. I scouted out these shops online to see which one would be closest. I found one- Golden Spike Train Shop- that would be close to the hotel where I would be staying. Unfortunately, I came to find out it had closed up a few years earlier. I looked further and realized I would need use public transit to get to the others.
I attempted to Uber to one but no Uber wanted to pick me up. I was pretty flustered since I was seeing Uber drivers all over the area. I gave up and decided to schedule one in the morning. It got cancelled. Finally I decided to bus it out to Berwyn's. I only had a small window to visit before I needed to board a plane to return home.
After a few hours of bus riding, and waiting in Cicero, I made it to the shop out in Berwyn, Illinois.
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| Berwyn's is out on old Route 66 |
Berwyn's Toys and Trains specializes in Lionel and also has good amount of Brio and Thomas the Tank Engine wooden train items. They also have a store dog that has been there since the previous owner.
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| The hobby hound |
Of course they had lots of post war Lionel items in addition to the many newer items that MTH and Lionel now produce. And also some old stock from the 80s and 90s. I had little room to add any large items to my layout. So no cars or engines. In fact I was looking more for detail pieces and small buildings to adorn my layout at home. There were a lot of larger structures. Non fit in my bags or struck my fancy. Finally decided to get the Plasticville Frosty Bar that I have been trying to procure for a while. I also go a few items for the kids.
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| Post War Lionel and then some |
The shop also has a fine operational display layout. It includes some buttons to operate the trains and accessories.
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| Working layout |
It was getting late so I needed to leave and figure a way to get to Midway Airport. UberX was ignoring me so I tried another service level. Viola! A vehicle arrived in 5 minutes and whisked me off to Midway with enough time to get through security and get another Chicago Dog.
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