The Hobby Smith - Portland, Oregon

[nickelplate759]

Hobby Smith is a great store with lots of N scale (HO too, but that's less important to me  ).
When I lived in Portland it was my go-to- store, and I still order from them to ship to me in Arizona.

The store was started by Lowell Smith circa 1993, then passed on to Ron Maize.  As of January 2023, Ron has retired and passed the store on to Jerry Craig, a longtime employee, and all-around good guy.

Address:  1809 NE Cesar E Chaves Blvd, Portland, OR

Web site: https://hobbysmith.com/
Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/hobbysmith

Closed Mondays.

[wazzou]

I've often wanted to ask George, but are you the same George that was around operating the OT in the basement of the previous store and on other PDX and Puget Sound layouts?

Meet-N-March, later Meet-N-May

[nickelplate759]

I've often wanted to ask George, but are you the same George that was around operating the OT in the basement of the previous store and on other PDX and Puget Sound layouts?

Meet-N-March, later Meet-N-May

Alas, no.

[James Costello]

Great store, I always find a way to leave some money behind when I visit 

[MetroRedLine]

I went to The Hobby Smith back in 2007 during a trip to Portland, and I was still new in N scale. I purposely didn't rent a car in Portland, getting around strictly via MAX light rail and rental bicycle, so it was great to learn that this store was just a couple blocks from one of the MAX stations. I was fascinated by the N scale stock they had. I bought a weathered Intermountain BN hopper car (since this was BN territory, I considered it to be a souvenir) and a bunch of MTL 89' TOFC flats (they were painted in a white Pepsi scheme, I was planning on repainting them yellow for TTX but never got to do that). I couldn't find MTL 89' TOFC flats anywhere else at the time. Ron the owner wasn't there, but the guy who was running the shop was nice enough to take me downstairs to show me the club layout.
 
As a new N scaler at the time, I thought it was real cool how I can travel somewhere, buy a bunch of stuff at a hobby shop, and it would still all fit in my carry-on luggage.

[eja]

I took my 6-7 year old grandson with me to visit this store when he lived in Portland.  They allowed him into the layout room with the admonition "don't touch the trains".  He didn't and had a great time.

He is now in college at UCSC ... seemingly uninterested in trains, but who know, interest may resurface sometime. (Hope so).

eja

[C855B]

Nice to be reminded of this great store. Was there in 2015 (IIRC!) on an Empire Builder adventure making sure we rode both Western legs, spending a week in Portland.

We were invited to see the layout. Walked out with two bagfuls and a much lighter wallet.

Loved the city enough to look into relocating there, but eventually discovered the several days of clear, sunny weather we had on our trip was atypical.