Salt Lake City hobby shops

[Tom L]

Going to be in Salt Lake City for 4 days including this weekend and may have a few hours here and there to kill. Google showed several hobby shops like the Train Shoppe. Are there any that are worth a visit, N Scale wise?

Thanks
Tom L.
Wellington CO

[Jbub]

The Train Shoppe is the store I referenced in a thread in the crew lounge about someone stealing from them. They have wall of n scale items but nothing hard to find. I've never looked through their building kits so there might be something there. Prices are decent and if you spend 200 they will give you 20 bucks off.
M.R.S. hobby has a small selection of n scale AMD prices are slightly higher than The Train Shoppe.
West Valley hobby is more of an RC shop
The hobby stop in Orem has some n scale stuff. Prices are high imo but there is a lot of stuff they have that is not on the shelf that they sell at the train shows. There is also train life in Spanish fork which is about an hour drive south of salt lake. That is exact rails headquarters and hobby shop.
Points north of salt lake I'm not very familiar with.

[thomasjmdavis]

I visited my daughter in Salt Lake a few years ago and did a hobby shop tour.  Did not spend a fortune, but found things to buy everywhere I went (Train Shoppe and M.R.S noted by Jbub, plus one other, forget the name).  If going to Salt Lake, take a trip north to Ogden.  Train museum there is worth the trip (it shares the old train station with a car museum and western gun museum- also worthwhile), and there is a hobby shop on the south end of town (IIRC).  Don't recall the name, but its the first floor of what appears to have been a residential house.  Ground floor is packed with stuff. Not a lot of N scale, but again, found several items.

At both M.R.S and the store in Ogden, I found a lot of "old" stuff- things that have been out of production for a while. 

Don't quote me on this, but I think the SLC light rail runs all the way to Ogden.  I did not hear about this until after I had made the trip via car.

[C855B]

... Don't quote me on this, but I think the SLC light rail runs all the way to Ogden.  I did not hear about this until after I had made the trip via car.

While UTA has a lot of light rail in SLC, what goes to Ogden are UTA's Front Runner commuter trains. It's "heavy" rail. Trains terminate a block north of the restored Ogden Union Station, the very site of the aforementioned museum. There was a small but nice train store in the south end of the station that unfortunately closed four or five years ago.

[Jbub]

The only train store north of Salt Lake that I know of is Wonderful World of Trains in Ogden. I've been there once a long time ago. They have all scales but I'm not sure how much of each. I did see a facebook posting from this last June that said they had redone their N scale case. The store Mike mentioned closing a few years ago was Warren's. It was a sad story with that store. They seemed to be doing well, there were always people in the store and not just looking but buying stuff too. The owner sold the store due to aging and health problems to a couple guys who wanted to be partners. One of them decided that they were entitled to more of the revenue secretly which caused the store to close. I don't remember them having any N scale stuff though.
The Museum is worth a visit. There are a lot of iconic UP engines (no Challenger or Big Boy's) there and other pieces of equipment that are interesting.

[Tom L]

Thanks for the info everyone. Weather may not be that great while I'm there, so might have more time to check them out.

Thanks!

Tom L
Wellington CO

[Rossford Yard]

Provo is 45-60 minutes south of the airport, right on I15.  Train Life is just a half mile west of the highway on 1860 (Lakeview drive?) and worth the trip for the warehouse full of Exact Rail products, hobby store front with some N, and Pelle Soeburg (?sp) on display.  It is near the back of an office park with all gray buildings, on north side of road.  There is also another LHS in Provo, about medium stock, but I did find some stuff in their clearance bins I had been looking for.

[SquirrelHollow]

Times sure do change.

I grew up in the Salt Lake Valley, and lived there again for five years, through 2013. (Foothill, SSL, WJ, SJ, Sandy, Midvale, Riverton)
I still visit pretty much monthly.

Just before I moved away, I sold $7,500 worth of 'train stuff' to MRS (mostly N scale rolling stock, locomotives, and details).  They were good people.  (But, hey, times change!  Who knows now...)

But, other than MRS.... Not one of the above mentioned, current train shops is recognizable by me.  And no other train shop I used to do business with is still afloat.