HI-STYLE : Making Tracks

IT LOOKS LIKE a new train museum but Allied Model Trains in Culver City is not--it’s just the “largest train store ever built.” The confusion is justified because architect James Mount designed the building to look like Union Station. The light fixtures are streamline moderne; the foyer is domed and the checkout stands are designed to look like ticket counters.

Old as well as new trains are for sale here--vintage Lionel or other antique toy trains and clever reproductions including Lionel and Lionel look-alikes. As for new trains, the big, weatherproof LGB trains are favored by today’s children and used outdoors in garden railroads by adults. There is even a big, fully operational model of the famous orange-and-red Daylight locomotive, the most expensive thing in the store at about $8,500, and smaller scales, or sizes, including HO, N and the diminutive Z, which is small enough to keep in a coin purse. Owner Allen Drucker says he is not done yet. “I have always wanted enough room to set up toy train displays like the department stores did around Christmas time when I was a child,” and to that end he has plans for some “very elaborate layouts” for the six 12-foot-wide windows.

Allied Model Trains, 4411 S. Sepulveda Blvd., Culver City; (213) 313-9353.