[PRCo] AB Charles and Son

[AProchek at aol.com]

Bud was still there when I dropped by last Spring, and looks little different than he did in the 1990's, 80's, or 70's when we started going there.  Still has a photographic memory, though he's losing track of time.  He recalled selling me something he thought was 8 months ago but was actually about 7 years ago.  I only go in there occasionally when I come back home, about every 2 years or so, and I was never a regular customer, but he still remembers me.  The store is still good but to my mind not as interesting as it was in the 70's - he used to have everything, all sorts of weird stuff that you couldn't find anywhere else in town(all kinds of european building kits, very early in with z gauge and LGB, carried the complete Brawa line - trolley buses and inclines, and had a casting of a N scale PCC car long before Bachmann made a mechanism for one) and a constantly good brass collection. That was when his advertisement in Model Railroading simply said "if its worth selling, we have it"  Now its pretty much mainline stuff any well stocked train shop would have and the ads say "model trains and accesories in all gauges" or something similarly generic.  The light rail still stops near the shop, too bad not PCC's anymore.