All aboard the family business

Karen S. Kim

MAGNOLIA PARK -- Burbank resident Gary Keck, 65, received his first

Lionel toy train set as a gift from his parents shortly after World War

II.

He put the set away when he turned 16 and didn’t really pick the hobby

up again until his son Brian was a toddler.

“He liked to see it run, but I’m the one who got interested in it

again,” Keck said.

To offset the cost of his hobby, Keck started selling train products

at train shows. It wasn’t long before the hobby turned into a business,

and Keck left his full-time job in human resources to open Burbank’s

Train Shack in 1985.

The store opened in a 770-square-foot house on the corner of Burbank

and Victory boulevards, thus befitting the name Train Shack. And though

the business moved to a 3,000-square-foot building on North Hollywood Way

two years later, the name Train Shack stuck.

“The popularity of the store grew extremely rapidly,” said Lowell

Majors, a former customer of Keck who has been an employee for five

years. “It’s not at all a shack anymore, it’s a train mansion.”

Keck’s store, as well as the toy train hobby, is booming.

“Today, it’s bigger than ever,” Keck said.

And Keck has a lot of family help when it comes to the store. His

30-year-old son Brian, the toddler who had little interest in trains, and

his daughter Mindy, 32, now help run the store.

And both children have more train sets in their houses than Keck does.

“Mindy married a guy who’s into trains, so she and Brian both have

operating trains at home,” Keck said. “I really only have Thomas and Brio

trains at home for my grandson.”

Train Shack is crammed with all the train supplies a hobbyist might

need, Keck said. Wooden trains for children and heavy plastic, metal and

aluminum trains for adults are piled all over the store.

Accessories, including signals, bridges, tunnels, telephone poles,

background buildings and operating Ferris wheels and lighthouses, are

also available. Even material to make trees, grass, mountains and hills

are for sale.

“It takes you to all kinds of walks of life,” Keck said about the

hobby. “We have studio people, we have professionals, we have laborers.

You name it, it crosses the whole economic gamut.”

TRAIN SHACK FILE

WHAT: Train hobby store

WHERE: 1030 N. Hollywood Way

OFFERINGS: Trains, track, accessories, books, videos and more.

INFO: 842-3330.