Confessions of a Serial Collector – “Chasing Madison Hardware”
By Chip Kessler, TCA #93-38197 Winter 2025 e*Train
How does one wrap his hands around a ghost? In my case, “the ghost” at one time was alive and well residing at 105 E. 23rd Street in New York City. Its name: Madison
Hardware.
To backpedal a little: I am captivated with this long-time mecca of the toy train community. I had numerous “chances” to go to the store while visiting New York City several times from my native Philadelphia in the early 1970’s and then while attending New York University towards the end of the decade. Problem was, I never went! Worse, I never even knew the store existed. You see, I wasn’t into model trains back then nor into the 1980’s when I returned to the city on a few occasions after graduating college. It wasn’t until the 1990’s when I first took up the hobby that I became aware of Madison Hardware, but by then Lou and Carl were gone and the store relocated to Michigan in a new reincarnation.
All that was left consisted of reading everything I could find about the long, narrow establishment in the Big Apple. Stories in Classic Toy Trains Magazine and The TCA Quarterly along with Derek Thomas’ outstanding book, The Madison Hardware Story had to suffice. Yet something was missing.
No, I could never set foot inside Madison Hardware. However, a good friend of mine did, so I have to live vicariously through him. Fellow TCA member Richard Barker TCA #83-19593 lives one town over from me in Northeast Tennessee but over forty years ago he made the trek up to New York City to watch the Yankees battle the Kansas City Royals in an American League baseball playoff game.
Richard picks up the story. “I was meeting a friend who lived in the region and he asked if there was anywhere in particular, I wanted to go? I told him, Madison
Hardware Company. My friend knew the place well because he bought trains there as a youngster. My father had also bought from Madison years back through the mail, so I always wanted to go there if I had the chance.”
Like many have stated before him, Richard allows how Lou and Carl were standoffish, but it didn’t deter his enthusiasm for finally setting foot inside this hallowed ground. “Yes, it was very narrow,” he remembers, “and yes there was stuff piled high on the shelves. Things were everywhere, right up to the high ceiling and on the floor.”
Did Richard buy anything? “Yes. I got a Lionel MPC Tuscan GG-1 #8753, new in the box from them and still have it today.”
Speaking of buying from Madison Hardware, no as mentioned, I never did in person, yet I’m still able to now say “in a round-a-bout way” I finally have! Pictured are a pair of mint #2383 Sante Fe F3’s from 1965, unrun, new-in-the box I recently acquired from a New York friend who bought them as a boy with his father from Carl Shaw back on July 7, 1967. So, as you can see, in my own way, I have been able to finally “catch” Madison Hardware after all of these years! In my mind it is that warm summer day in July 1967 and my thirteen year old self is setting foot inside the store, walking towards the back, eyeing what is on the shelves and on the floor as I excitedly go to make my purchase. As many have said before me, Madison Hardware Company may be gone it its physical sense, but the thought of this Lionel Train collecting hallmark lives on.
What about you? Do you have a particular Madison Hardware memory you’d like to share with your fellow TCA members? Please email me at [email protected] and I’ll be pleased to feature it in this column. Others have already responded.
Bruce Bittenbender, TCA #97-45367, writes: “I saw your invitation in The Train Collectors Quarterly. I wrote a small book for my daughters as a memory of what toy trains meant to me and how they influenced my life. They never caught the “bug” of train collecting. I’ve been married for 50 years and finally we have a grandson, and he loves trains and my collection and layout in the basement. The problem is he lives Tucson, AZ and we are in Malvern, PA.”
Here’s the opening of Bruce’s book, A Boy and His Toy Train (reprinted here with his permission):
This story starts in 1949 and contains history, family traditions, and a dash of humor. It was a few weeks before Christmas and the excitement was building. It was not like today when stores start to decorate in the beginning of October. They waited until the day after Thanksgiving to start the holiday rush. In the Philadelphia area, every kid would look with great anticipation to the Thanksgiving Day parade and the arrival of Santa. In those days Santa came to town riding on top of a big red fire engine with a large ladder. The ladder would be extended to the fourth floor of the department store and Santa would climb in the widow to signify the Christmas season has started.
And as Bruce goes on to state, Christmas meant toy trains! Thanks, Bruce, for sharing your wonderful book with me. I’ve also received Bruce’s permission to send his book in a word document file to any of our fellow TCA members who would like to read it. It is well worth your time so please email me at the address listed at the top of this column and I’ll be happy to forward it to you.
Next up is Scot Kienzlen, TCA #90-30653, who writes that he’s keeping busy fashioning a new a 28×22 L-shaped layout. He’s sent along a photo, which I’m pleased to show. Very impressive Scot!
We’ll end with Reverand Phillip Smith, who offers: “Railway Preservation Project 113 on Facebook maintains and runs Jersey Central 0-6-0 113 at Minersville, PA, with passenger cars from the Reading Blue Mountain & Northern. Excursions usually reverse at Cressona, near Schuylkill Haven. A building with a sawtooth roof like Lionel’s factory is easily visible to the east. And that building looms large in Lionel’s history.
In 1949 came a complete line of beautiful extruded and polished aluminum passenger cars. In the words of a trade journal, “The seasonal success of the A.M.T. streamliners manufactured by American Model Toys of Auburn, Indiana, is the BIG news in model railroading circles. These cars are distinguished by incomparable engineering, craftsmanship and materials resulting in the equally remarkable functioning of their cars under extraordinary conditions.” Toy Train Treasury, Vol. 2, p.95. Lionel offered heavyweight Irvington cars and Hillside o27 plastic streamliners but nothing like those AMT cars. Customers purchased Lionel locomotives and AMT cars. Lionel designed aluminum streamliners a bit longer and taller and priced competitively. But there was no room to manufacture them at Irvington / Hillside. So, Lionel contracted with Cressona Aluminum to extrude the bodies. From 1952 through 1966 these bodies were shipped to Lionel, where windows were punched and floors. trucks, lights and vestibules were installed. Of note, recently arrived are RMT-9649926 CNJ PROJECT#113 40 ft PS-1 Boxcars CUSTOM RUN with a choice of car numbers, beginning with 113. I chose 113134.”
I’ve included a photo he sent of this special boxcar.
That’s a wrap for now. Please send me anything you’d like to share: perhaps a particular model train memory, a present model train activity you’re involved in, or maybe your best-ever find, and of course as earlier stated, a good Madison Hardware tale!
