Interview With Bernie of All Aboard Train Shoppe

Bernie Schulz is good guy and a pioneer when it comes to postwar Lionel trains on the internet. As the owner and expert behind three very well respected model train sites including All Aboard Train Shoppe, The Lionel Trains Library and Lionel Trains Paper, he started what was probably one of the first postwar Lionel websites on the net. We are so pleased that Bernie was generous enough with his time to give ModelTrainsYard.com an exclusive interview and share his unique perspectives on postwar Lionel trains in particular, and the hobby of model railroading in general.

ModelTrainsYard: I’m speaking with Bernie of All Aboard Train Shoppe and he was kind enough to give us an interview. Bernie has an extensive knowledge of post war Lionel and even modern period Lionel trains and more I’m sure.

Bernie: Laughs.

ModelTrainsYard: How did you first get involved with model trains?

Bernie: Similar to many other people you come across in the hobby, my dad was given trains back in the late forties when he was young, and although he probably wasn’t a collector at that time, he did accumulate some trains. Probably a total of about 30 to 35 items. When I was young, we just always had trains around the house, under the Christmas tree and it started out as a hobby and has grown from there.

ModelTrainsYard: I see. So through the hobby and your experiences in it, what would you say are some of your favorite trains or accessories and why would you say they’re your favorites?

Bernie: Probably my most favorite item that Lionel made is their K4 steam locomotive, whether it’s the 675 or 2035, especially the earlier version with the 2-6-2 wheel arrangement. It just looks nice, it runs great, it’s somewhat prototypical, and is just a very nice middle of the road engine that is extremely reliable. I’ve always loved that specific item.

ModelTrainsYard: When you work on these trains in terms of maintenance and repair, is that also apart of your preference for this train?

Bernie: That is correct, I do 95% of all the servicing, repairs and cleaning on site. Occasionally I have to ship something out for more detailed repairs, but generally that’s with transformers and some of the electrical stuff but 95% or more of the servicing is done by myself.

All Aboard Train Shoppe Service & Repair

ModelTrainsYard: Are there any railroads or road names that you favor as a collector.

Bernie: Probably the two road names that I do favor are either the New York Central or the Pennsylvania; and that’s simply because I’ve grown up in the New Jersey area and that’s what I’ve seen when I was young. I lived near the old New York and Long branch rail line which is now a part of New Jersey Transit, which recently has been taken over by Conrail and CSX. I used to see Pennsylvania passenger cars, steam engines and diesels on that line and I just love the Pennsylvania and New York Central road name.

ModelTrainsYard: Did you get to see many of the NYC F3 Diesels?

Bernie: I did not see many of those around here; what they were running were old Southern E8’s on the line. It was just after Conrail had taken over. What Conrail did was they went out and bought a lot of cheap diesel from different rail companies and we saw quite a few Southern E8’s on the line here.

ModelTrainsYard: What would you say is your favorite aspect of the model railroading hobby in general?

Bernie: In general, I would say it’s listening to stories of other people and how they got interested in trains, what they collect, what they’e currently running at home, whether they have a layout, whether they’re a collector or an operator, it’s by far the people aspect of things.

ModelTrainsYard: I see, so it’s a way to bond in a sense? I guess you hear a lot of stories coming from the starting point of the trains?

Bernie: Yeah, A lot of it is how people have gotten reacquainted into the hobby, many stories are that a person, while they were growing up had trains under the tree, whether they were Lionel or another manufacturer, it’s your typical story; they went to college, got married and now they’re entering their middle years, their 40’s or 50’s and their becoming reacquainted with the hobby and it’s nice and interesting to hear those stories.

ModelTrainsYard: What would you say is your least favorite aspect of model railroading, if there is such a thing?

Bernie: Laughs. You know, that’s a tough question, the hobby is fun so I’m not sure how to answer that question, I guess I’d have to say It’s small things that I’m not sure are really even worth publishing, but it’s situations where people call up and they’re picking your brain for 10 - 15 minutes, they want to know a TON of detail about this specific train, and then they don’t say thank you and they just leave. Mostly stuff like that, but like I said, there’s nothing that I could say jumps out as being terrible about the hobby.

ModelTrainsYard: What are some of the changes that you have seen in model railroading over the years from your unique vantage point?

Bernie: Certainly the inclusion of the electronics over the last 10 to 15 years has been great for the hobby, I think it gives the opportunity for the younger generation to get involved and do more than just run the trains in a circle with an accessory or two. It gives a lot more realistic operation or the potential for realistic operation. I think the electronics have helped out quite a bit in the industry.

ModelTrainsYard: Do you work with any of those types of things ex DCC Digital Control or Proto-Sound?

Bernie: I try to stay only with Lionel, not that Mike’s Train House or anyone else has any bad products, I’ve always just liked to focus on the Lionel name because that’s just what I’ve grown up with, but I know there are many people happy with Mike’s Train House and other manufacturers and there’s really nothing wrong with them either.

ModelTrainsYard: What advice would you have for someone just starting out in model railroading?

Bernie: My advice to all my customers getting back into the hobby is go slow, meaning when you’re getting back into the hobby, educate yourself, understand what you’re buying, why you’re buying it, don’t just go out and dump a boat load of money on trains so you can have them in your hands in two weeks. See what’s out there, see what the options are, figure out if you want to have prewar or postwar trains or modern trains and do you want all the fancy bells and whistles and electronics of today or do you want the simpler trains of 50 years ago. A lot of it is educate yourself, read up on the internet, talk to dealers, talk to other friends and see what your interest are.

Q So if you were to sum that up would you say go slowly, don’t yet your spending surpass your knowledge and take your time?

Bernie: Go slowly and buy wisely.

ModelTrainsYard: Can you tell us about All Aboard Train Shoppe?

Bernie: Sure, All Aboard Train Shoppe started out as a way for me to thin out my collection because I had gotten married in the early 1990s and I didn’t have the room for trains. As I was looking to buy more and more I didn’t always have the space, so what I ended up having to do is basically thin out my collection. I ended up advertising in magazines and the company basically grew from that. It’s always been a home based business. It’s basically been a one man show, although more recently in the last six to nine months, my son has gotten involved with it. So I started selling trains in 1993 to the public, I advertised in Classic Toy Trains. In the late 90’s I was probably one of the first postwar sites on the internet and I’ve been doing all my business via the internet for the last twelve years.

ModelTrainsYard: Excellent. How do you like the internet as a format, do you feel it bodes well for model railroading as a venue?

Bernie: It’s been wonderful, there’s pros and cons to it like many things. Obviously the upside is your audience becomes world wide, you have immediate recognition of your product in the market place. When you have something, you list it on the web and people see it the next day, significantly faster than advertising in magazines. It has many upsides. The downside is obviously a lot more competition especially with eBay. So overall it’s been great, I wouldn’t change it for anything, I’ve been very happy with it.

ModelTrainsYard: Can you tell us more about Lionel Trains Library, it’s a great extensive resource that we visit frequently, can you tell our visitors a little more about the site?

Bernie: Sure. The concept of the Lionel Trains Library is a free online reference service for people just getting back into hobby. It is not a web site to replace the popular books by Greenberg or David Doyle, it doesn’t go into that level of detail, nor do I want it to go into that level of detail. It’s basically a reference source for the public to understand what’s out there, what are my options and what did the postwar Lionel company make. You can see a lot of pictures of things that people have never had in their collection, some rare stuff is listed on the site as well as many common things. So that was the purpose, the purpose was really to educate the common person, not the experienced collector.

ModelTrainsYard: That’s very interesting, you must have had quite a collection to be able to start a shop and a reference web site.

Bernie: Yeah, I guess when I started doing business, I probably had around 600 items to offer from my collection, and over the years, my original collection has probably completely gone at this point and now it’s just the inventory that I have. Obviously I’ve saved some special or unique pieces along the way, but I’m being more particular as far as what I’m collecting now.

There’s one other thing I want to throw out about Post War Lionel Trains Library. I want to give a thank you to Dave Boehm from Dave’s Trains Inc. He has been very very instrumental in helping me get the site going, documenting it and proofreading it.

ModelTrainsYard: Where do you think the model train hobby is going, What do you project in the future for your grand children if you have any, what are they going to see in model trains?

Bernie: There’s probably a couple answers to that, as far as where do I think the current train market is going, meaning what will new trains be like in 5, 10, 20 years? I think it’s just further development of the electronics, more accurate models, hopefully more accurate scale models of trains, probably trains that we haven’t seen produced in the past, I think that trend will continue over the next 10 - 15 years.

As far as where the hobby is going regarding the Lionel prewar and postwar Lionel trains, that’s a very difficult question to answer. Up until a few years ago that market segment has always been growing and growing and growing and now over the last four, five, six years, that market segment is actually shrinking, so I’m not really sure where the postwar market is going. I think if you have very clean desirable postwar trains, there’s always going to be a market for those; I don’t think that market will ever go away, but I think there will be fewer and fewer people interested in that market segment.

ModelTrainsYard: Do you think it’s more of a demographic shift or do you think it could be economically related?

Bernie: I think some of it is economics, I think some of it is also just the fact that the younger children of today want more exciting things, wether it’s Xbox or Xbox live or video games, and when you compare the excitement of that or the instant excitement of a video game compared to setting up trains, building scenery and installing lights, it’s a very labor intensive long process, so the instant gratification that a lot of kids receive with video games today doesn’t exist with the trains and I think it’s hard for them to like the trains because of that.

ModelTrainsYard: I can see what you’re saying by that. From talking to people into model trains, It seems like you were mentioning earlier that a good portion of the enjoyment is from a shared activity between a father and a son, the people aspect is an important part of it would you say?

Bernie: I would agree with that, yes. There a lot of dad’s that call me, that are trying to get their young sons interested, and daughters, I shouldn’t exclude daughters. So yes I do see a lot of that. I don’t have a lot of young customers calling me which leads me to believe that there’s still not a strong young base out their but the older base is certainly still very very interested in the trains and they’re trying to get the younger kids involved.

ModelTrainsYard: Well Bernie Schulz thank you so much for your time and your expertise. Are there any other things that you want to add or say?

Bernie: I do appreciate you doing this interview, I hope it’s been helpful, I hope the web site, specifically the Lionel Trains Library has been helpful. If you want to mention it, I do have a third website Lionel Trains Paper focused on the paper products that Lionel produced, that’s also available to the public on the internet.

So in conclusion, I hope the Lionel Trains Library has been helpful to the public, I appreciate all the people that have called me over the years and I’ve built some good relationships and I look forward to the future. It’s still for me, an exciting hobby, it’s a fun business and I wouldn’t trade it for anything.

Tagged as: model train interview, postwar lionel