Building a small business of your own and being your own boss is said to be the backbone of the American way. It's right up there next to the dream of owning your own home. But don't get carried away, it's a lot of work and requires discipline, love and luck. For the past 33 years, Ed Rosbac has been working on his dream of building a family owned and operated model railroad hobby shop. It is a Model Railroad Shop like no other. Most of it is for the serious "Scale" model railroader. No radio controlled boats, planes or cars; this is a REAL scale model railroad hobby shop. The clerks that Ed hires are usually long-time customers who love trains and understand scale model railroading. They know what it's like to have a $300 brass engine hit the floor and know where to get it repaired. They are, in most cases, experienced in the hobby and usually ask Ed if he needs help because they would enjoy working in the shop. Ed puts them on his list and when an opening occurs he puts them to work. It's normally a part time gig and always a good place to swap stories. Family owned and operated since 1971, Golf Manor Hobbies is the oldest model railroad shop in the greater Cincinnati area.

Ed's love for model trains began many years ago when his dad gave him a model train for his 6th birthday. His fascination with small mechanical items, like watches and clocks, but especially coo coo-clocks, quietly led Ed to his trade. After his arrival from Belgium with his parents and sister in July 1941, Ed attended a New York trade school to learn the language and the fundamentals of watch repair. Ed's expertise as a watchmaker and repairman led to a career repairing model locomotives for friends and fellow workers. Soon major retailers in the Cincinnati area were contacting Ed to repair the intricate items for their clients. Most stores in the area knew where to get the best repair for the reasonable cost.

It was 1971 when Ed opened the basement of his house on Hammel to the public as Golf Manor Hobbies. Ed's daughter Joanne came to work with Ed in 1975 and she has been part of the business ever since. Ed’s part-time people would show up around 3:30 to open up. You entered through a door in the garage door. A RR yard switch target light in the front yard would show green when the shop was open and red when the shop was closed. The evening hours were always late afternoon when Ed got off work as lab technician and instrument repairman and sometimes he worked overtime. Mostly as a locomotive repair and refurbish model train shop, Golf Manor Hobbies was growing as a specialty shop. Then Ed began offering craftsman type train car kits, scenery raw materials, paints and those wonderful brass locomotives, even scratch builder scale lumber and sheeting HO & N scale detail parts from Detail Associates and Detail West. There were always the new and old magazines available for research (Model Railroader, Railroad Model Craftsman, Trains, etc.) and the latest Walthers Catalogue. If Ed didn't have it, he would order it and usually a few extra just in case and the inventory grew. In those days, the favorite scales were larger then (O & O27), usually Lionel and Gilbert American Flyer but Ed had a liking for those European trains like Marklin, Fleishmann and Trix. The smaller scales (HO and N scale trains), were coming on strong and Ed could work on those tiny HO or N scale mechanisms all the way to Z scale.

To demonstrate how to build a model railroad, Ed and his crew built one in his basement next to the shop area for customers to view. The layout was HO gauge with power turnouts and was crammed full of everything from operating yard lights, crossing gates, milk cars to scenic houses, farmlands and figures. Lots of trains puffing smoke and sounding the whistle. Heck, it was just fun going to Golf Manor Hobbies to run the trains!

Today, the shop has moved around the corner and a few blocks away on a main street called Losantiville Ave. Ed has retired now but still runs Golf Manor Hobbies with the assistance of the shop railroaders and his daughter Joanne.