quote:

Posted June 15, 2009 10:47 PM Hide Post
I also remember the wording "Unathorized Lionel Service Station" that was mentioned in the Tom McComas book above. It was on the front of the very building shown in the above photo. Its too bad Tom McComas never did biographies of men Like Glen Uhl, Lou Shur & Carl Shaw of Madison Hardware, Lenny Dean of Lionel & Louise Hertz. All of these men are gone now & took plenty of knowledge & history with them to their Graves. Their life stories & experiances with Lionel Trains & Joshua Cowan would certainly have made very interesting reading & could have filled many chapters in a Book. All we have now are the memories of these Great Gentlemen who many have never met or had a chance to talk to. Take Care.


Keith Woodworth

That is so true, however we still have those retail legends of Lionel that would make great chapters in a book. Lou Caponi, Charles Ro and Joe Gryboski are three that come to mind immediately. I'm sure their stories are different and would make interesting reading. Jerry

thank you abbrail for posting the picture of the building as you would see it from the street.i would have liked to got some pictures inside just to show how 'stocked' the shop was,but i am not sure robert would have allowed it. you can get an idea on the mth site to see dealer stock on hand at glenn's.but i am getting off subject for the reason for this topic.-jim

i just looked at the dealer locater, glenn's was taken off the list on the mth site,they must have quickly reacted to the sad news.-jim

The stories you guy's have told about Glenn's Train Shop are a great way to remember both Robert and his dad. It is always wonderful to remember people with "good war stories"........... ..............for the memories

While I never had the chance to deal with this train seller, he certainly seems to have left a lasting impression here on this Forum. We are all diminished by this loss. My prayers are for his family and friends.

Richie

Courtesy Google Maps:


Matt

While I am certainly sorry to hear of his passing and my prayers go out to the family, I am not going to pretend like this was my favorite hobby shop. I quit going several years ago. I'll leave out the details, but I won't miss that place one bit.

quote:

Its too bad Tom McComas never did biographies of men Like Glen Uhl, Lou Shur & Carl Shaw of Madison Hardware, Lenny Dean of Lionel & Louise Hertz.

Maybe they didn't want biographies done.
I know that one time while I was visiting, Carl was very cool to the idea of being the subject of a human interest story when asked by a reporter who came into the store.

Has any one heard if there are any plans to reopen Glen's, or if there is a process to retrieve material left with Robert? I had an MTH Railking RS-15 that Robert returned to MTH for warranty repair. MTH advised me that they had shipped it back to Glen's prior to his death. I am trying to figure out how to retrieve the item. Any thoughts?

Hey Bill,
When I stopped there, there had to be 12-18 delivery notices stuck to the door. Might want to check to see if it was returned to MTH.

I'd agree in terms of keeping after MTH. However, it was clear to me during the past 2 months when I talked to Robert that he was unable to keep up with the shipments to his store and what exactly had come in. Of course, this is now all quite understandable and I was surprised he was even in the store.

My strategy would be to assume the store will not reopen which unfortunately is probably an accurate prediction. Therefore, recourse to MTH seems to be the only prudent thing to do at this stage but it is likely that all of his inventory is frozen during this period.

Thanks for all your input on this. I checked with MTH and they show signed delivery of the engine on 5/20/09 by UPS. The "unable delivery" slips posted on the door date from 5/22/09. Quite possibly, my engine shipment from MTH was one of the last packages for which Robert signed. It is probably sitting right inside the door.

Hope that those of you in the Ohio area will keep us posted as to what;s going on with the shop. Thanks

I was looking up Robert's number today to make a visit when I found this thread in Goggle.

I am very sad to hear that Robert has passed. I've only started going to Glen's the past 9 months when one of the other local stores told me that for MTH, Glen's Train Shop had the biggest inventory and most competitive pricing in Northern Ohio. They weren't kidding!

At Glen's, I was able to complete my numbered set of the Aliquippa and Southern offset hopper cars. I have found all sorts of interesting cars that only browsing them in person can make possible. My 4 1/2 year old son would constantly call out to me "Dad, look at this!" as we walked through the shop.

Although I don't know Robert personally, I did chat with him on occasions and found him to be a very kind soul. He reminded me a lot of my grandfather...

We will miss his contribution to the hobby. I will miss the fact that I could window shop his inventory - I think Glen's Train Shop brought out the impulse shopper in me!

I'll have to drive by today and see what is happening on-location. If I find anything, I will post an update.

Anyone have an update on the shop?

I was up there last week. The sign in the door still says "open" and there were still a bunch of UPS, FED EX, and DHL slips stuck to the door. One of those was dated for 5-22. I hope this thread stays active as I would like to know what comes next.

I swung by the shop today (Friday, July 24th) and there is still no sign that anyone has opened the front door since May 22nd. Cob webs and weeds evident. The power is still on because the outside lights are on. At some point the executor of the estate will have to swing into action. I imagine some of the creditors, including the utilities, will force some action. Have written two letters about the engine inside that belongs to me and have received no reply. Strange situation. Stay tuned -

Bill Feth,
You should be able to go to the local court house (or ask an attorney where wills are filed) and find out if a will was filed and who was named executor and in turn give him/her a call and explain the situation. If you show proof that your engine was already paid off, then I would think you are leagally entitled to it as no more money needs to be exchanged. If it hasn't or only partially, then thats another matter.

BTW I am not a lawyer but was an executor.

To rrman, Thanks for your comment. I checked on the county web site and the will has not yet been filed. I plan to continue to follow that thread.

I happened by there on 7-26-09 and still no change. It appears noone has even opened the door yet. What a shame. That place has to be packed with trains. It always was. It appears Robert left in a hurry. He never even turned his "open" sign to read "closed".

Jini5, Thanks for your note. I have been wodering if anything was going on there.

I too have gone to Glen's many times over the years, but not recently. It seemed that every time I would try go to the store before or during a trip to court in Akron, it would be closed. And this could be in the morning or the afternoon. After a while, I gave up. I'm glad to hear that others were more fortunate, because the place really was an incredible storehouse of trains.
We'll not see its like again anytime soon.
Rubin

quote:

Originally posted by Bill Feth:
I swung by the shop today (Friday, July 24th) and there is still no sign that anyone has opened the front door since May 22nd. Cob webs and weeds evident. The power is still on because the outside lights are on. At some point the executor of the estate will have to swing into action. I imagine some of the creditors, including the utilities, will force some action. Have written two letters about the engine inside that belongs to me and have received no reply. Strange situation. Stay tuned -

Bill,
To protect yourself, you will have to file a claim against the estate, when it is opened.But of course, this assumes that the shop was held by the owner individually and that it was not a corporation. If it was a corporation, things will be different the store is then a legal entity apart from the estate,even if the stock of the corporation was owned by the deceased. Certainly the advice to try to determine who the lawyer is and contact that individual is good, but make sure you have all your paperwork handy to prove payments, etc., especially since the attorney may not know one engine from another and may have difficulty releaseing anything to you without documentation and perhaps even a court order.
Sorry to sound so lawyerly, but that's the realm your in now, Good luck !
Rubin

quote:

Originally posted by jini5:
I happened by there on 7-26-09 and still no change. It appears noone has even opened the door yet. What a shame. That place has to be packed with trains. It always was. It appears Robert left in a hurry. He never even turned his "open" sign to read "closed".

i would agree with jini5 completly. i stopped aug1 ,the delivery tags are on the door.i saw a outside light that lights up the front of the store at night was on ,so no utilities have been shut off yet.i was going to walk around the building to see if its secure, but its not exactly in the best area of akron, and,with my luck, the police would roll in about that time.-jim

quote:

i stopped aug1 ,the delivery tags are on the door.i saw a outside light that lights up the front of the store at night was on ,so no utilities have been shut off yet.i was going to walk around the building to see if its secure, but its not exactly in the best area of akron, and,with my luck, the police would roll in about that time.-jim

quote:

i stopped aug1 ,the delivery tags are on the door.i saw a outside light that lights up the front of the store at night was on ,so no utilities have been shut off yet.i was going to walk around the building to see if its secure, but its not exactly in the best area of akron, and,with my luck, the police would roll in about that time.-jim

I agree that Glen's Train Shop is not located in the best area of Akron, but if you are concerned (crazy?) enough to make a walk-around to see if the building is "secure", why would you object to the police showing up? There are lots of local folks there that could make your walk-around a whole lot more memorable than the cops. And, it would make for an interesting article in the Akron Beacon Journal too!

Robert had two grown children as his heirs, no one else that we locals knew about. The children worked at the store only sporadically, never evincing much enthusiasm for trains or the business. The store is more likely to be liquidated to clear the estate than it is to be re-opened, but this is my unofficial opinion only. Anyone contemplating opening a train store in Akron could easily find a better, larger building in a nicer area and there seems no need to use that crummy old block building; would you, if you had ever seen it? Robert stayed there because his father owned the building and Robert had no mortgage for the entire span of his ownership of Glen's Trains. Robert knew accounting and he knew the finances of the business. Moving to more expensive quarters would have killed it.

No doubt the inventory is still there, waiting for probate filing to clear the court.

A similar story is told about Jim's trains (The Corner Store) in Lorain, Ohio. When Jim died about 7-8 years ago, his son took over for a time but finally gave it up after a couple years. He had little passion for the business and much weaker connections to his customers than did his father and that did him in, if he even cared at all. So it often goes in the family hobby businesses; remember the film The Station Agent?

boxcoupler: "lots of local folks" were 1 of many things i was concrned about. heck ,sat i never even step foot on the parking lot.
pete: i take it the corner store is closed up? its been several years since i had been there.it too , was a great hobby shop.-jim

Jim,

The last time I swung by the Corner Store was in the early spring of this year in the middle of a business day and I found the shop closed and no sign of life with some of the railroadiana artifacts from outside removed from the premises. There was no one around to talk about it but there was little inventory in view from the window in the front door and I seem to recall a sheriff's sale sign on the door but this memory may be incorrect. My office is only a few miles away and I will verify this fairly soon but based on what I saw I think it closed for good. I hope I am wrong, but do not really care since the son became irrelevant for o-gauge followers or even train magazine buyers as he slowly shut down the business.

Those darn "sons" have closed many of train shops across the country. The Dads made it look to easy to keep the business going.

Well related, but unrelated to trains.
In our town there was a paint shop started "when dinosaurs roamed the earth" and was passed down father to son. However current generation son and daughter wanted nothing to do with paint store so it was sold. At least it wasn't closed.
Todays generation kids want excitement IMHO,and if they don't get gratification within 5 minutes (10 minutes top), they get bored and move on. Even if papa had them working in his business since they were born, I doubt you will see many kids today chomping at the bit to take over a paint store, grocery, etc. After all "once they have seen Paree (read Internet, video games, DVDs etc), how are you going to keep them down on the farm?"

Sam, you sound like my grandfather talking to my Dad. Grandpa had it all figured out. Dad would take over running the long established Mother Butler's eatery at 18th and Quindaro ....and then along came WWII and that dadburned gummit went an' gave all those GI's that dadblamed GI Bill....and wouldn't you know it - Dad became the first member of the family to go to college. He went on to a very satisfying and rewarding career as a biologist...last time I checked 18th and Quindaro was a bakery run by someone else....and every time our family got together Grandpa was always quick to say that Dad's generation was never satisfied and if they didn't get gratification within a minute or two (things moved faster back then) they would get bored and move on....

I think it was Socrates who said, "The current generation of youth is going to the dogs"

Yes Robert I agree.
Now this thread will derail for a few seconds here, when you mentioned your dad getting GI college degree and satisfying career.

My dad's dad (my grandfather) only had a 3rd-4th grade education. My dad completed high school and worked for 40+ years in management, I went to college and had 30+ engineering, my daughter is working on her PhD. Each generation bootstraps itself up from the previous.

We now re-rail the thread back to Glen's Train Shop demise.

Sounds good Sam - back on track. I live quite a distance from the shop so I only visited there once or twice. What is a shame is that, as far as I know, there isn't anything in the greater Cleveland-Akron area that can even come close to standing in for his place. Basically if it was MTH or Lionel and even if it hadn't been listed for a couple of years in the catalogs, the odds were very good that you could find it in his store.

I drove by Glen's on August 5th and the outside lights were still on. However, there was a utility company notice stuffed in the door (dated August 4th) stating that the power would be cut off in 24 hours. Havn't been back to check it out.

And of course if there was an alarm system then the batteries will run down or it may call police or alarm company.
Which if theres a smart burglar to realize system is dead then may break-in to steal or set arson.

Can of worms. Sad.

I just saw on Ebay listings by Glens Train Shop in Akron Ohio.They are listed under trainshop587.

It's actually trainshop587. I've been watching for any activity for a while now.....none since May 7th.

So you are saying these are old listings?

Yes, automatically relisted if not sold......not sure how long that will go on without payment.

All - You might find this interesting. Sent a letter to "Executor ..." care of Glen's Train Shop. Received an e-mail reply from a Jim Uhl. I believe that he must be Robert's brother. He explained that no executor had yet been appointed. Apparently, Robert's son Mathew is the key. He has not returned any phone calls since his father's death, and has not picked up any mail in over two weeks. No one has been in the store since Robert's passing. Went by yesterday and the outside light is still on. Maybe someone paid the light bill. Jim Uhl indicated that he uderstood my engine problem, and would keep me informed as much as he could. I replied to him that I would encourage Mathew to get some good legal / business advice before things deteriorate any further. Vendors can deal with good news and bad news, they can't deal with no news. An obviously difficult situation -

I called the number this morning as I was just curious. The line has been temporarily disconnected.

Any further news on Glen's inventory? Thanks

ANY NEWS ABOUT THE INVENTORY?

Just F.Y.I., Happen to be in the area this afternoon (11/18), so I stopped by.
Still no change.

The phone line is now disconnected.