The Jonction Hobby Express shop in Dorval is slated to close its doors in March or April after a 27-year run on Cardinal Avenue, a few blocks west of the Pine Beach train station.

David Jenkins, one of three owners, is still hoping to sell the business to someone who will maintain the shop which has become a popular spot for Montreal hobby enthusiasts who specialize in miniature trains and plastic model building.

Although the hobby business has seen better days, Jenkins said the main reason for closing up shop is that he and his co-owners are getting up in years and want to retire.

“It’s time to start enjoying ourselves,” said 70-year-old Jenkins, who co-owns the shop with Paul Crépin, 65, and Anthony Chan, 77.

Chan, who was working the front cash on Saturday, said he is looking forward to retirement. “It’s time for me to enjoy some of the model trains I collected over the years but never had time for.”

Jenkins said the hobby business has become a grind in recent years due to competition from online shopping and the fading interest of young people who used to account for a big chunk of the plastic model business.

“The younger generation is not interested in it. They don’t want to work with their hands. If it’s not electronics, they don’t want anything to do with it.”

Jenkins said it’s hard to compete with prices offered by giant online retailers like Amazon who ship merchandise directly to consumers.

He said independent brick-andmortar hobby shops have to constantly evolve in order to survive. Another issue is the rising retail prices of model kits.

“You remember buying a Spitfire for $1.49 at Woolworth’s as a kid?” he said. “Now it’s $159.95, that’s the mail price. The regular price is $225. That’s one of the reasons the hobby is dwindling.”

“Prices have gone crazy,” he added. “We’re talking about a model car, a railway car, a gondola, in HO scale that 27 years ago would have sold for about $20. We’re looking at $62 today for a little car. It’s also getting harder and harder to get supplies.”

He said plastic models of Second World War era German tanks and planes are among the bestsellers, but the British Spitfire fighter plane remains a classic.

Jenkins said the shop always catered to both beginners and serious hobbyists. He noted the store policy was to offer merchandise repairs free of charge to clients aged under 15.

Jenkins said the store also steered proceeds from in-store coffee sales and miniature train repairs toward the annual Christmas fund at the local Dorval Legion.

Jenkins says Jonction Hobby Express, with its retro pegboard walls, is the last of its kind in Montreal. He said Tedd’s hobby shop in the Pointe-claire Plaza might partly benefit from its closure, but the miniature train hobby business caters to a niche clientele.

Jenkins said the historic role that national railways played in Montreal’s development as a transportation hub provided a strong base of customers eager to collect miniature rail cars of Canadian National and Canadian Pacific.

A black and white railway crossing sign sits in the window of the shop that is located in a strip mall facing the railway tracks next to Cardinal Avenue.

“This was the location for train watching,” Jenkins said. “There was a time when we’d have a group of guys who’d bring their own deck chairs and sit outside the store and watch the CN and CP trains roll by. We had people from Plattsburgh and Burlington, Vt. Then they’d come back inside the store and buy the locomotive or boxcar they had seen go by.”

Customer Yves Baron, a retired Air Canada employee, laments the store’s closing because he often met people from other local hobby clubs. “There are not a lot of clubs around so this place was special.”

Interestingly, sales soared recently after the store announced it was closing. “It’s been crazy in here lately, especially on Saturdays. Our shelves are emptying quickly,” Jenkins said.

Unless a new buyer is found soon, the store will continue selling off its remaining inventory, then close.