Model Train Shop Sales Are at Full Steam : Railroads: Culver City store selling nostalgia out of building that is replica of L.A.’s Union Station.

Allen Drucker likes the view through the wrong end of a telescope.

Inside his shop, the displays seem to be right out of “Gulliver’s Travels”: a six-foot-long train winding through a Lilliputian landscape dotted with four-inch conifers, a 10-inch saloon, a foot-high bridge and six-inch men.

But it’s the outside of his shop he is especially proud of. The building that houses Allied Model Trains is a model of Los Angeles’ Union Station, the last great railroad terminal built in the country.

And Drucker says the sales have gone full steam since he moved his 43-year-old shop eight weeks ago to the new building on Sepulveda Boulevard in Culver City from its earlier location on Pico Boulevard near the Westside Pavilion.

“I really attribute it to the building,” he said. “Everybody talks about the building. Even those who are not interested in model trains drop in to have a look.”

The unique architecture of the shop and the holiday season have together brought a stream of visitors: window-shopping pedestrians, children staring at the railroad cars chugging along the tracks and serious buffs such as Jerry Brown.

For Brown, 57, the shop is a nostalgic journey down memory lane. “I have been to Union Station many times. I watched them build it. Dad used to take me and my brother to the railroads. We waved at the engineer and he blew his horn. This shop has the same air about it. It’s a perfect idea.”

Drucker, 41, said the idea of moving to a shop that resembled Union Station was a combination of accident and circumstance. “The large trains took a lot of space. The shop wasn’t big enough. And with the advent of the Westside Pavilion, . . . customer parking became a problem.”

When his architect asked him to photograph buildings that could be used as references for the design of the new shop, Drucker said he found little that he liked at first.

Then, “one day on the way home, I was driving on the freeway and saw the Union Station. I started taking pictures, and the very first drawing came out so well that I went ahead with it.”

The tower and the clock of Union Station have been scaled down to the exact proportion. But Drucker said it was impossible for him to be “completely faithful” to the original building. Union Station, built in 1939, is considered a classic synthesis of Spanish mission architecture and modern streamline design.

The Allied shop lacks Union Station’s marble floors and open interiors, but it does have a curved aluminum roof, overhanging arches and ornate lamps that Drucker says help re-create the station’s feel.

Drucker’s new shop is five times the size of his previous one on Pico Boulevard. This is a great advantage, Drucker said, because of the rising popularity of larger trains and sprawling displays.

Customers agree the shop effectively combines aesthetics with usefulness.

“It is really one of the best of its kind,” said Craig Schieve, 33, a hobbyist who has been to the shop four times since it opened.

The shop, which Drucker said took $2.7 million to set up and stock, has sections catering to serious hobbyists, high-tech railroaders, railroad historians and collectors, as well as those who are just looking for a modest layout to set up under the Christmas tree. It has a small library stocked with railroad literature and a range of magazines devoted to different aspects of the hobby.

It is an expensive hobby these days. Most of the high-quality model trains are imported from Europe, “where railroads are much more important in real life than in this country,” Drucker said. A large layout with two West German LGB trains, tracks, a miniature amusement park with a Ferris wheel and model buildings, including a post office, a railway station and a saloon, can be worth $10,000.

A smaller LGB set, ideal as a Christmas present for a beginner, costs just under $275.

It is possible to buy a small set for as little as $100, but Drucker doesn’t recommend it--they are usually manufactured in the United States and are of poor quality, he said.

“The Germans tend to take pride in this business. The American companies are bothered mainly about the bottom line and the profit margin. Hence, a lot of their stuff is junk,” he said.

Drucker, who bought Allied Model Trains in 1975 from “an airline pilot who ran the store merely for tax purposes,” said he thinks his new shop represents the “future of the model railroad industry.”

“It’s the only building specifically built for model trains,” he said. “The earlier Mom-and-Pop stores are disappearing. What is needed is a well-stocked store--and we have it.”

Allied Model Trains is at 4411 Sepulveda Blvd., Culver City. The phone is (213) 313-9353.