George's Trains - Moving from Toronto to Markham

[Will_Annand]

Even though I was born in Huntsville, when I was young, my parents moved to Clarkson. Father worked at Ford in Oakville.

There was one hobby store in Applewood Plaza, but he did nto have much. I can remember as a kid, going to the big city with my father to go to George's, did would spend "forever" in there talking to the guys and always came home with lots of stuff, most times a large box full, and enough knowledge to put it to good use.

back then you could get sectional track or you could buy a big coil of paper ties and long 3 foot sections of rail.
I remember father going in and asking about turnouts. well, after studying the turnout and finding out how much they cost... He came home with his big coil of ties and long pieces of rail... he had purchased only two turnouts, one LH and one RH, I remember asking him why he did not buy enough for the layout, he said cause he could copy the 1 he purchased. And he did. His entire layout was hand spiked and the turnouts werre hand soldered and laid. He never did put the two store bought turnouts on his layout, they were alwasy in the drawer.

For me, as a kid, I always enjoyed watching the trains run in George's window. Then when I was old enough to start building, it was the only shop around where you could get a Campbell kit.