PEABODY — A train lover since he was tyke, Don Stubbs decided to turn a hobby into a business in 1988 when he opened North East Trains on Main Street, about four blocks from the model and miniature train store’s current location.
Located in a former hardware store with high, tin-stamp ceilings and classical music playing at a soft volume, North East is a model-train lover’s dream come true. Display cases and shelves showcase miniature locomotives, passenger and freight cars with names like “K-line diesel” and “Jordan spreader plow.”
A walk around the store is a visit to a world where rail enthusiasts from around the region stop in to shop or sell their train collections. Stubbs says North East also attracts worldwide interest with rail enthusiasts from Switzerland and Polynesia placing online orders through North East last week.
“We have repeat customers from around the world. They trust us,” Stubbs said.
The store also sells radio-controlled cars, slot cars and models.
A Marblehead resident, Stubbs came to the North Shore by way of Michigan after a childhood in Ontario. His brothers gave him his first Lionel train set and his interest in painting led to him to acquire the teaching degrees that brought him to Marblehead in 1980.
He taught at the Bell School where he worked to use art as a medium for understanding academic subjects. A rewarding career highlighted by inspired students and colleagues couldn’t keep Stubbs from deciding he wanted to be his own boss and open a business. Turning to his boyhood love for model trains seemed like a natural entrepreneurial choice.
“It’s a wonderful hobby and I’ve done it ever since I was a kid,” he said.
North East had two previous locations before it ended up at its current site where Stubbs gets a helping hand tending to customers from store volunteer and Lynn resident John Calder.
A true-blue train enthusiast, Calder’s idea of a vacation is to visit a train station converted to an inn in Pennsylvania where guests are guaranteed to see 100 trains roll by daily.
He shares Stubbs’ enthusiasm for introducing model trains to children and buying collections that need a loving home beyond someone’s basement or attic.
Model trains are sold in a variety of sizes or “gauges,” ranging from “Z” to “G.” Hundreds of train cars of various sizes fill North East, including Stubbs’ favorite: a replica of a 1920s era “Climax” logging train engine with a tender emblazoned with the name “Hillcrest Lumber Co.”
History is attached to every locomotive and train car North East sells and slices of Americana are recreated every time a collector assembles a train and the accompanying track, buildings and other scenery, as well as speciality items like the miniature “Amtrak train info” arrival/departure sign with its detailed lettering: “4:00 Crescent No. 9 New Orleans New York On Time.”
Stubbs on more than one occasion as been stumped by fellow railroading enthusiasts who ask him specific questions requiring research.
“We work with people to figure out problems. There’s so much to learn — it beats sitting around and watching TV,” Stubbs said.
