Friday, September 05, 2008

photo request #8: neon train sign



laurie of the fantastic glimpses of south pasadena site suggested i track down this neon sign on colorado. here it is. friday neon and a photo request all in the same day!

i've got a few other photo requests in the pipeline. sorry for the delay!

7 comments:

Mister Earl said...

One of my favorite places in Pasadena! The Whistle Stop is one of the oldest, if not the oldest, train shops in the LA area. They used to be on Colorado near Rosemead and moved to their current location maybe 15 years ago. I believe they brought the sign with them from the old location.

Laurie Allee said...

Ben! I feel special today!

I simply must take my daughter here. (Note: that means that I am the one who really wants to go and I'm so glad to have an excuse... :-) )

I'll bet it's great at Christmastime. I used to go into Allied Model Trains in Culver City to look at the sprawling holiday set-ups.

(BTW: Hi Mister Earl!)

pasadenapio said...

I know a Lionel aficionado in Valencia who comes to Pasadena regularly just to go to this establishment.

Growing up in San Diego, the Model Railroad Museum in Balboa Park was a favorite on our list of places to visit. It's still alive and well. www.sdmrm.org.

Patrizzi Intergarlictica said...

This is the place where I bought Pip his first train set one Christmas.

We had fun making little trees and buildings for years after.

Mister Earl said...

Hi Laurie:

Actually, Allied Model Trains in Culver City realized that their wonderful building, custom built to look like Union Station, could bring in more rent than the train store was making selling trains, so they sold the train business and rented out the building. The guys from the Whistle Stop in Pasadena bought Allied and moved it to a new location across the street in Culver City. So now, the Whistle Stop people own both stores!

Did you know that Gary Coleman is a big train buff? I own a few model train cars that were once owned by Gary.

The small Lionel layout that Allied used to have on display was used in an HBO movie about Frank Sinatra, who, as you know, owned a large collection of Lionel trains that were kept in a converted caboose at his Palm Springs digs.

Did you know that rocker Neil Young owns at least 25% of the stock of Lionel Trains?

Laurie Allee said...

Mister Earl, I didn't know ANY of that! Thanks! I think it's interesting that Neil Young is a train buff. He's so melancholy... I can imagine him sitting alone pondering things with miniature trains going around him.

I saw that Allied had moved across the street. I wondered what happened. Now I know! :-)

ben wideman said...

Today's post was a perfect example of why the blogging world is so wonderful. Look at all the insight the readers added to my post! Amazing stuff, thank you all!