Yup, I am in Quebec City again. If you are a regular reader you may remember that I was here in December on business. I arrived here from Montreal a few hours ago and since the hotel has wired internet I can update you on what I’ve been up to. My laptop is quite old, without built-in wireless, and neither my USB nor PCMCIA ports work.
The last time I was in Montreal I visited Hobby Junction on Cardinal Ave. This time I decided to check out Udisco Hobbies at 4660 Decarie Blvd. Derwin mentioned it a few times in the past and it sounded like a pretty good spot.
My purpose for traveling to Quebec is to check on our potato units in Metro stores in the province. It just so happens that one of those stores is only about a 10 minute walk from Udisco. So, after finishing up at that store I took a little time to visit Udisco.
When I first walked in it looked like a small little place. I walked to the back, which opened to a relatively large warehouse like space. I walked the aisles for a few minutes and all I saw was plastic car models. I asked where the train stuff was. They told me to “follow the yellow line to the 2nd floor”. I followed the line, which wove around several aisles, to the stairs. Thank goodness for the yellow line because it was a bit of a maze. The second floor turned out to be about 3/4 model railway stuff in N, HO, and G scales with several long aisles of HO. I was very impressed.
I browsed for a while, was tempted by the sound equipped locos that I managed not to buy, and chatted with one of the sales people. He was very knowledgeable about the products and showed me around. Unlike the impression you get in some stores, he did not mind spending time with a customer. I ended up only spending a little bit of money, taking away only a couple Athearn ore cars, some Walthers Modulars Columns and Cornices, and some dullcoat. But I will probable be ordering on-line from them in the future!
I’ll be home and back to work on the Bayside and Tidewater on Saturday! I likely won’t stop at any train stores here, but my co-worker wants to visit IKEA. I wonder what havoc that will wreak?
BTW – I’ll be back near Montreal in a couple weeks for a Metro Vendor’s Trade Show. I might try to get back to Hobby Junction then.
Scott