I saw the obituary on Don Shaw’s passing in the Fall 2025 CTT. It brought back fond memories.
I first met Don in the summer of 1975. I had just married that July and lived in Morris Plains, N.J., only a few miles from The Train Station store in Mountain Lakes. At the time, the store was housed in the old stone structure Erie Lackawanna train station (which had been closed and vacated by the railroad several years earlier). The store moved to a larger space just across the street on Romaine Road where it still exists today.
I ended up working for Don in the store as a part time weekend salesperson, with my “pay” being postwar trains I could take home from the store. I was 22 years old and he was 44 years old. He was still working for the government as a contractor at the Picatinny Arsenal in Wharton, N.J., a few miles west of Don’s home in Mountain Lakes.
I was a guest at his home one time, met his wife, and remembered he had many Lionel trains on shelves in nearly every room of his house. I was working my first post-college job at Westinghouse Electric Corporation, in its factory located on Chestnut Avenue, Hillside, N.J.
The factory was within walking distance of the postwar Lionel factory at 28 Sager Place. Several Westinghouse plant workers had worked at the Lionel factory in the 50s and 60s. By 1975, Lionel had left the factory at the end of the previous decade, although for a short time it kept a service department (Lenny Dean was in charge) at the location until, I think, 1972. After that Lenny’s repair shop moved to Totowa, N.J., if my memory serves me correctly.
I remember walking the Lionel plant grounds, gazing at the water tower, and hoping to find something toy train-related discarded in the rubble. It was a few years after Lionel had left the area entirely so my chances of finding something were zero, but that didn’t matter. I just wanted to be near the place.
It was Don who inspired me to get back into the hobby after abandoning it during my teenage and college years. I worked for Don at the store for two years on a part-time basis. I was living in an apartment in those days, so I really couldn’t build a layout. In the summer of 1977, I moved out of the area and purchased my first home in Monsey, N.Y., just over the state line. Again, space constraints, financial constraints, and the responsibilities associated with the early years of child rearing precluded doing anything layout wise. However, I still visited Don’s store and purchased trains every now and then. It wasn’t until the early 1990s, when I purchased a larger home in Princeton Junction, N.J., that I had sufficient space to build a layout. I joined the T.C.A. in 1995 and as the saying goes, the rest is history.
I saw Don at a York Meet several years ago, but I don’t think he really remembered me. That’s ok; he was in his 80s at that time and I was just one of several kids that worked in his store so many years ago.
This hobby does inspire some great memories and friendships!
Read more about The Train Station in the November 2017 CTT.
