As a young boy growing up in Wales, Richard Davies would listen for the postman dropping his favorite model railroad magazine at the front door.
“If I heard the Railway Modeller being delivered, I would jump out of bed and I would look for the Hattons adverts inside,” he said. “Hattons always had the best adverts, and that was why my dad used to take me to Hattons whenever I had enough money to spend there.”
Years later, Davies is now managing director of Hattons Model Railways, one of the most popular model railway retailer and manufacturers in the world, based out of Widnes, Cheshire in England.
And now, the company is looking to set up its first United States distribution center – in Fremont, Nebraska.
“I have always preferred to be away from big cities,” Davies said. “Fremont is in a great location for accessing the rest of the U.S., but it’s not too built-up and intense.”
Hattons was founded in by Norman Hatton in 1946, after arriving in England shortly after his release from a Japanese prisoner of war camp while fighting in World War II.
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“As soon as he got back to Liverpool, then he found some money to open a shop and would trade in anything that he could: firewood, children’s toys, just any general merchandise that he could get his hands on,” Davies said.
As Hatton’s company grew with model trains forming the bulk of his business, he formed a relationship with a nearby Meccano factory, which offered him excess stock at a discounted price in the 1950s.
Offering a large amount of model trains, locomotives and scenery, Hattons has stock from a wide variety of manufacturers. In 2013, the company began offering pre-owned items as well, and in 2016, relocated to Widnes.
Growing up in Flint, less than a mile away from Liverpool, Davies said his father got him into model railroads around the age of 4. The two would travel to the shop every couple of months to buy model trains.
Although Davies lost interest in the hobby as a teenager, he said his interest in Hattons grew after taking his father’s shopping list to the store during a visit back home.
“It was during one of those visits where I had a list of the items that he wanted, but then it just struck me how it was a very interesting business, lots of activity,” he said.
At the age of 19, Davies started work at Hattons. At the time, in 1999, he said the primarily mail-order company began to embrace the internet.
“I like working for a smaller company, fighting against corporations like Amazon,” he said. “I think firms like us are the future of retail, so I want to do my bit and lead the way in our sector.”
Shortly before his arrival, Hatton had semi-retired, with his children Keith and Christine running the business. After Keith Hatton’s death in 2008, Davies became managing director and bought the business from the family in 2018.
After the buyout, Hattons began selling its own manufactured products. The opportunity also gave Davies the confidence to introduce more trade changes to improve customer service.
“Nowadays because of the internet, you have to have family-style principles, but Amazon-style service levels,” he said. “So that’s what we’re very good at providing.”
Working at Hattons, Davies said he’s loved the staff and company cultures, as well as hearing stories from its customers.
“Model railroads attract interesting people: They all have stories to tell, are very interested in the topic, but no one takes it as a matter of life and death,” he said.
For Hattons, Davies said the United States is a huge market, even bigger than mainland England for the company.
“A lot of customers who are in the U.S. say, ‘We wish that companies in the U.S. treated us as well as you do,'” he said. “And that’s the kind of comments that have inspired us to take a location in the U.S.”
Having first visited the U.S. in the mid-2000s, Davies said he was impressed by the country’s thriving convention scene and ecommerce events.
“The future of retail is all about logistics, and we were looking for a location in the States where we could help get products to and from customers with less friction,” he said. “So we surveyed many locations in the U.S. last year.”
Davies said he developed a relationship with Heartland Hobby Wholesale, a model train company based out of Lincoln with a distribution center in Fremont.
Wanting to take advantage of his friendship with Heartland Hobby and ability to promote their products across the continent, Davies said he ultimately settled on Fremont.
“We’ll support him with the development, so I think that strengthens everything,” Heartland Hobby owner Allen Dayton said. “There’s a great friendship between him and me personally and with the company, and we’ve learned a lot from him.”
Davies said he’s hoping to start trading around late March or April in Fremont.
“We’re going to have some vacancies for a variety of positions, mostly involving handling stock,” he said. “We’ve got our service to set up and some networking to install, and then we should be good to go.”
Although he said the time difference might be a challenge, Davies said he’s looking forward to meeting more Americans as Hattons begins hiring in Fremont. Interested applicants can contact him at [email protected].
“We only recruit the best people, and as a result, the service levels that our customers get are very, very high,” Davies said.
Since starting work in the Fremont community, Davies said he’s been welcomed by its residents and is excited to take part in area model railway exhibitions and hear more of their stories.
“We have been invited to lots of people’s houses and strangers have pulled over on roads to offer us lifts,” he said. “So we’re very grateful for the opportunity to have this adventure in the U.S.”
