I, David Zucker, along with my wife Debby, started our hobby store business in 2000. It has been a lifelong dream to own my own model railroad hobby store. We have grown from a 5’ x 10’ enclosed trailer to a store (which I never thought we could fill) and web-site. We were excited when our son Jeff and his family moved back to Deshler and joined us in 2017. We look forward to serving modelers long into the future. We still love doing the week-end “train shows” as we travel throughout the country and get to meet many of our customers in person.
I have been in love with trains for as long as I can remember. I grew up in Deshler, Nebraska on a branch line of the “Rock Island” railroad. Mom always said she knew where I was whenever she heard the train whistle blow, and she always gave me a break when I was late for supper if there was a train coming through town. Deb moved to town when her father took over as the Rock Island Depot Agent in 1971. The rest, as they say, is history. Deshler is located on Hwy 136 – 8 miles west of Hwy 81 in south central Nebraska. We are about 14 miles south of the UP’s “Marysville Subdivision”. I learned to love coal trains partly because that is about all we see.
I actually began with a manufacturing venture in the hobby several years ago. A friend helped me design custom molds for casting lead weights. My weights are specialized for several different cars that did not come with a weight from the manufacturers. Be sure to check out my “custom weights” page. From there it was a giant leap of faith to start our store. Our stock is designed to accommodate HO and N scale modelers with some Atlas O added in. Our oldest son Jeff and I model in HO scale and our younger son Mike chose to be different and model in N scale therefore that is what we began to carry. I extended my love of coal trains into my hobby store by commissioning LBF Company to produce several custom painted runs of coal cars for unit trains exclusively for us and of course I made a special weight for them too. Over the years we have done more custom runs with other manufacturers. Visit the “Spring Creek Exclusives” page to view all of our custom cars.
Thank you for visiting our website and I hope someday we will have the privilege of meeting in person if we haven’t already. Always remember, “Have fun with your trains”.