About Us

 An introduction and friendly story of sorts of who we are and where we came from.

I'm Joe, business owner and own this website. My son is Nicholas - my assistant,  part-time valuable web design critic, customer relations, packaging. My best friend. We are a small USA manufacturer & international retail supplier. We offer our own unique custom weathering products for Hobby Custom Model Railroading. 

Besides having enjoyed a very successfully travelled career in non union and then union residential and commercial construction, I've acquired past experience to create new, and or improved products in this model train hobby and market. Nick, and I enjoy today being a business that I originally started in 1997. That was when I began selling just one product on eBay when it was first incorporated in 1995. The Decal & Detail Remover.

My father was a very skilled tool and die man from São Paulo, Brazil coming to Kaiser Aluminum, Erie PA. He had a nice machine shop at home too. I paid some attention in his machine shop and those skills and knowledge suit me well today. Our family also had a beef farming operation.That was the "love of labor" like I never imagined! In reality a very expensive hobby too. God please bless the farmers today! But the family farm 100% provided the countless valuable experiences to all of us, and of course such great times in learning, togetherness, and life. 

In High School one of my studies was Chemistry. During my last year in school I got a 2nd shift job at the General Electric Co. I got hired as an apprentice in locomotive assembly (foreign, domestic, and Amtrak). Leaving as a Mechanic 5 years later after and a 1 year layoff when Amtrak was discontinued with GE during bad economic times. I then charted onto a new path in the construction trades. So lucky for me! Eventually seeing the country as a very well paid professional tradesman and supervision it was, for me anyway, far better than a time clock at my work station inside a factory. But I will never regret a second of it working and learning on the factory floor!

Owing to that love of Trains.. I built a 6' x 32' (1.8m x 9.8m) HO layout in my parent's 3rd fl. apartment building. It was brass track. That is when I first became obsessed with the sides of my track not looking "real". My first idea was using black and brown Magic Marker pens. Does that sound familiar today? But this was very short lived. The sharp track rail ties shredded the tips. Dragging a felt marker across smooth metal rails was just not at all the way. But funny a half century later today modelers are still trying it. So the idea for weathering model railroad track and more has stuck with me. After many dozens of combinations in my trials I continually was obsessed with improvement. I invented and developed a reusable, refillable mini paint roller specially designed for painting model railroad track. Culminating in my latest version called - Rusty Rails Painter. 

About the same time came the desire to safely renumber about 50 Nickle Plate coal cars. I began experimenting with- paint removers, brake fluid, you name it. Again many trials. So in 1995 Joe's Decal & Detail Remover became a thing, popular amongst a growing railroad community, then sales, and today keeps evolving with the new formulas the hobby train manufacturers use in painting our models.

Not being much of an artist I wanted to weather scenery, buildings, and rolling stock. The powders and paints were ok but then one needed to seal it with clear so it wouldn't fall off or smear when handled. That seemed to be a final say with it- You better like it or else! Too often the look even later was not ideal to me. So I began formulating liquid colored dyes that feature being that when even after they dry they can be           re-manipulated by a liquid again. But then when dry- not need any sealers to prevent a later change and yet be safe to handle. The only change since 2022 was going back to a powder with the Limestone color. There really are many color tones to this Limestone color and can be mixed / blended with the other liquid dyes to yield even more favorable results such as with having a spot paste consistency! It is soluble and has the same advantages as the liquid dye. The range of transparency is excellent too. 

Real Rocks is real crushed stone. Made with an added colored dye powder and baked for color fastness at the manufacturer. Better than much lighter crushed and dyed walnut shell that won't blow away when a ceiling fan turns on. It keeps small rolling stock on the tracks far better too. 

Nick is around me a lot too! But it was one of his early passions in college Graphics Design that showed me how impressive a computer could be. So I learned from him! Today I can do this web site, configure networking, repair our own color printers and we even perform hardware upgrades to our computers and laptops. Nick moved on from Graphics Design too. With a ton of student loans to pay. He has a full time career as an Advanced Medical Technician at UPMC and going soon to school for Anesthetist Tech. He monitors and troubleshoots all the digital things we see plugged in a wall behind every hospital bed and nurses stations on assigned floors. When any devices get plugged in or button is pressed in any patient room or nurses station that signals or prompts another thing to perform a function and has monitoring in a main Monitoring Room. Everything runs smooth until it doesn't. So his time is limited with Joes Model Trains Co. We love each others company, humor, and share new ideas and a thirst for knowledge. 

_____________________________________________

Where we are.

Our home and office is no brick & mortar / re-seller kind of hobby store here folks☹️. Once in a while train enthusiasts via Google Maps and a Yelp inquiry have ventured here hoping to find a retail store. Nice warm welcomes but had to leave disappointed with money left in their wallets.🙂.

Our work-only shop is near downtown Erie and full of tooling & jigs, workrooms, benches, chemicals, processing space, and stock materials that literally take up A LOT of space.

When the Covid-19 pandemic came, many in our hobby wondered what happened to us! Many in our model trains retail business quit for one reason or another. Since then, strange economic times for model railroading have seen a new normal. We used to supply several hobby dealerships in France and the UK. Like the historic Bromsgrove Models in the UK, they are gone. Today may notice hobby shops in general do not even carry as much inventory. This sometimes causes our online items showing up as "Out Of Stock". If even they carry our products still. We we apologize for that but here we are, and in a pinch... Joe's Model Trains Co. has a good supply to serve your needs! 

Thank you for your valuable time here.

Keeping Model Railroads Great!

_____________________🚂-----📍_____________________