Popular Toy Train Store Heads for End of the Line

“Frank the Trainman.”

For more than 40 years those words have evoked images of Christmas mornings for thousands of San Diegans: the squeal of children delighted by the sight of a new electric toy train circling the tree.

It’s a testament to lasting enchantment that after many of those children grew up and married, they returned to the comfortable clutter of Frank the Trainman to buy toy trains for their children, a cycle that’s still alive as aging Baby Boomers introduce yet another wided-eyed generation to the store.

In a place like San Diego, where growth at full-throttle has made a shambles of many attachments to the past, Frank the Trainman has stood resolutely for 43 years at the corner of Park and El Cajon boulevards as if suspended in time--its old and unique Lionel train sign of a steam engine rumbling down the track a familiar landmark in a changing town.

Starting Friday, it’s the beginning of the end for Frank the Trainman.

That’s when the shop starts its going-out-of-business sale to make way for a new building to be constructed by a credit union, which owns the property. By Feb. 1, Frank the Trainman will close for good.

The impending demolition also comes at a convenient time for proprietor Jim Cooley, a genial man given to wearing a Santa Fe conductor’s hat who six years ago took over the store from Frank W. Cox, the original Frank the Trainman.

“Basically, I’d like to retire,” Cooley said Wednesday, as he stood behind a glass counter filled with a variety of locomotives.

Behind him shelves were stacked high with more trains and the intricate paraphernalia for model railroading: delicate little green trees, railroad signs, tracks, Lilliputian crewmen and engineers. An adjoining room was also filled with trains, carrying the names of famous lines like Southern Pacific, Rock Island and Santa Fe.

On the very top shelf, behind glass, were the large trains, the antiques, many of which will remain as part of an exhibit in the new building.

There are so many trains in the small store and in the storeroom that Cooley has no idea of their number; probably thousands, he says.

“Even I have no idea how many trains are in this place,” he said. “But I know it’s a lot. What you have is a 40-some-odd-year accumulation.”

He adds good-naturedly: “It doesn’t make a lot of sense what we do sometimes, but that’s why we’re here.”

For years before he bought the place from the original Frank the Trainman, Cooley was in love with the store, and spent many hours there. He has been at it for so long that he knows many of his customers by first name, like Eric, who wandered in Wednesday to show the paint on an old but shiny coal car.

An elderly man, who had just bought some railroad cars and a train station, said he hadn’t been in the store much since he bought a train set for his grandson, but he was back to buy one for his great-grandson.

“There’s a lot of personal involvement in this business and it extends to your customers,” said Cooley. “Most places when you buy a train the service stops when you get the receipt. Here, it’s just begun.”

Cooley, who declined to give his age (“Even my wife doesn’t know.”), said he can remember when the old San Diego trolley ran past Frank the Trainman’s.

“This place,” he said, “has remained the same. It’s something people can count on. There’s no other store like it in this area.”

Endorsing that sentiment was Don Halvorson, a retired weatherman and part-time helper at the shop.

“When this place closes it’s going to be a great loss for many people. . . . It’s not only a place to buy but a place to visit if you have problems with your trains or have questions or want information,” Halvorson said.

Asked about his work at the store, Halvorson laughed and said, “Would you call playing with trains work?”

Cooley and his workers are preparing themselves for their last Christmas season. Though the store sells a wide variety of trains, it has long specialized in the Lionel brand.

“If ever there was a toy that became a part of American tradition, it was a Lionel train,” Cooley said. “Lionels are nostalgic, almost everyone can relate to them. Usually there was a Lionel train under someone’s Christmas tree . . . whether it was a brother, an uncle, a cousin.”

And although it is the adults who become the toy train collectors or the owners of toy train stores, Cooley says he never forgets that “children are what it’s all about.”

“The trains are designed for children and their enjoyment,” he said. “But older kids can play with them, too.”