[An observation while waiting for the tea to cool…]<\/p>\n
Allied Model Trains in Culver City is closing its big store<\/a>.<\/p>\n This weekend, Allied Model Trains<\/a> is closing, to be reopened in a smaller space across the street in July. The original owner is retiring, and a former worker, together with some competitors, is taking it over. Land is too valuable, and a camera store will be taking over the Union Station scale-model building on Sepulveda Blvd.<\/p>\n What’s killing Allied? The shrinking of the model train hobby, combined with the fact that, to quote the owner:<\/p>\n Then there is the looky-loo hobbyist who, he said, comes in, checks out the latest model trains with powerful lights and digital sounds but buys almost nothing.<\/p>\n “He says, ‘Wow, I would love that.’ Then he walks out of here with a tube of glue and a magazine and buys it online from some guy working out of a barn in the middle of Kansas. Folks like that are the first ones to scream, ‘I can’t believe you’re leaving.’ “<\/p><\/blockquote>\n Now, I remember Allied from their old location on Pico. I would stop by occasionally and pick up books on the Pacific Electric (I was never into model trains, unlike my colleague Marshall<\/a>). I think I visited the Culver City location once. So I’m certainly not helping. Still, I loved the store and its look, and it is sad to see such architecture lose its use, and the city to lose such a resource.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":" [An observation while waiting for the tea to cool…] Allied Model Trains in Culver City is closing its big store. This weekend, Allied Model Trains is closing, to be reopened in a smaller space across the street in July. The original owner is retiring, and a former worker, together with some competitors, is taking it Read More …<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[1],"tags":[140,158],"class_list":["post-2191","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-lj-xfer","tag-los-angeles","tag-railgeeking"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2191","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=2191"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/2191\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=2191"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=2191"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/cahighways.org\/wordpress\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=2191"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}