Model train store offers much more than just toys

PINELLAS PARK, Fla. — In Pinellas Park, there’s an age-aged company that not only survived the pandemic but grew much better for the reason that of it.

Like the real-life metal titans, their products are designed to replicate, which does not search like it’s going to adjust at any time shortly.

HR Trains and Toys has been providing design train proprietors with all the things they need to have to make their railroad desires arrive genuine for 45 several years. They sell all types of design trains, all the fixings that make people sets appear to life, and repair service types for customers.

They’re also in the business of earning desires come true for people of all ages.

“We aid individuals in a interest that is almost certainly 1 of the oldest hobbies all-around,” Dennis Hoffman, proprietor, operator, and prepare fanatic advised me.

When I arrived to meet Dennis Hoffman, I thought I could possibly truly be interviewing Santa Claus. He even showed me his vacation train that runs year-round and a puzzle with his likeness. I had overlooked how a great deal individuals do love to place trains all over their Christmas trees and out of the blue remembered that I had 1.

My grandfather, George Apthorp, was a conductor on the Erie Lackawanna Conrail Railroad in Upstate New York, and I just so took place to have an industrial rail garden suitable powering my house. On particular times I could go out the backdoor, stroll down the hill to the tracks, and my grandfather would decide on me up. He would permit me experience with him a couple hundred feet until I experienced to get off. I was only about four or five a long time outdated, but it is a memory that even now sticks in my head.

He also had a massive product practice set in his basement. I try to remember going there and seeing him participate in with his trains. He even gave my father a set that we nevertheless have in a box in their basement.

More than enough about that for now.

Dennis was born into this hobby. His father was a model railroader and begun the enterprise with his spouse back in the ’70s. Now Dennis and his mom operate the store attempting to go their appreciate for this on to much more generations.

“We get our little ones in below with Thomas the Tank trains. Then they transfer on to some of the more compact products. We get the grandmas and grandpas that want to develop teach sets they experienced when they ended up kids. We also get the railroaders that have been executing it all their life,” Dennis explained to me.

While the pandemic damage so many companies, HR Trains thrived because as he put it, “model railroading is a keep-at-dwelling variety of passion.”

It is the most significant product coach store in Florida. Possessing a shop that sizing with the variety of solutions he will take in on a each day foundation needs the proper workforce to make it operate easily.

Dennis is the conductor in this article, but he admits he’s not the most educated particular person at the retail outlet, and that is when I met his engineer.

Operating absent in a workshop in the back again of the retail outlet, I fulfilled Marco Camuzzi. On this day it was his birthday. He’s 18 many years old.

Marco started right here as a client and now for the earlier 12 months has been Hoffman’s correct-hand guy, fixing types for customers, stocking shelves, and encouraging consumers select out the ideal coach.

These days he was repairing a train’s electrical that shorted out following the operator unintentionally put the completely wrong ingredient in to make the smoke stack operate. He was also providing me with a background lesson.

Like Dennis, it is in his blood.

“My Uncle had design trains. He built a desk. He developed a table for my cousin. When he grew out of it, I bought all the stuff. My grandmother’s father was a conductor for the railroad in Cuba,” Marco Camuzzi claimed has repaired a customer’s coach.

Product railroading is not Marco’s only thing while. He’s been singing and actively playing the violin given that he was 8 and also does musical theatre.

“I’m the kid that needs to sing and act for a dwelling but does design trains on the facet,” Marco claimed with a smile.

Even if he does not stick to design trains as a occupation preference, Dennis is grateful to have these types of an enthusiastic human being encouraging guide the store for a new generation.

“He’s a go-to person if you want to know a little something about European trains, electronic, and American trains. He just knows every little thing,” Dennis reported.

He understands it so very well that he productively mounted the train he was performing on while we were speaking.

His excitement for this is contagious. So contagious that I went looking for my grandfather’s railroad car and really uncovered it.

From the realism of these models to the technological capabilities they require to maintain up, there is no denying they’re doing considerably additional than just actively playing with trains at HR Trains and Toys.

“I just enjoy it and when you adore one thing as a lot as this you just study as significantly as you can about it,” Marco claimed.

You can pay a visit to H-R trains and toys on 49th Road North in Pinellas Park.

They are open up 6 days a week but expand to seven times throughout the holiday getaway period. You can also shop online.

The retailer is also planning for a large educate exhibit this October, which will incorporate classes, speakers, and the prospect for children to make and race their pretty own trains!