A Lionel Christmas

Classic Toy Trains Forum
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OK. I know it’s March. But this wouldn’t sit till next fall! [;)] You have got to see this website: https://www.cardboardchristmas.com/papateds/Christmas1920s.html

Remember this pic?

This site has the info that goes along with it! [:D]:

“A Keen Christmas - 1920:” The Christmas tree of Mrs. A.M.Keen, ca. 1920. Washington, D.C.- Harris & Ewing glass negative.
We have Howard Lamey to thank for spotting this one among the Shorpy.com photo archives. A remarkable display! The trains, telegraph poles and lamp posts are German. It appears to be a small Bing or Karl Bubb 0 gauge set of charming European style. Of particular interest is the lower track down on the floor. Enclosed within another charming Dent cast-iron fence, this type of two-rail track with wooden ties is characteristic of the very earliest kind of electric trains. Setting them up was not for kids!You got a box of pre-cut ties with slits in them and flexible strips of steel rail which you had to push down into the slits. Lionel’s earliest trains -between 1902 and about 1908 used this kind of track 2 7/8" wide. This track is narrower at 2", and marked an advance in that it came sectional, as I have just been informed, and that is definitely not a Lionel engine on it. I have never seen that little steeple-cab engine. I guessed Bing or Bubb or even Maerklin, but I just don’t know. All the train stuff is pre WW I. In those early times, several manufacurers made running models of the strange little mining trains - now extremely rare - that hauled coal out of the

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Hey, if the Hallmark Channel can have Christmas all year long why can’t we?

I was floored looking at that storefron in the website’s second photo, wow, them’s real guns in that display!

Looks like a (left to right) a Mauser automatic, a Smith and Wessen M&P, and a Colt automatic. All of which cost as much, or close to it, as those Lionel sets!

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LOL! That reminds me of when I visited Cleveland about 10 years ago and stopped to visit the late Don Speidel and his wife in mid to late March (about a week before Easter) and their house was still decorated for Christmas, with several loops of track circling a live Christmas tree that was barely retaining its needles.

When asked about the tree, Don replied that he had cut it from a neighbors lawn, and when asked about the decorations, Don replied that his wife collected Christmas ornaments.

I still laugh when thinking about seeing their Christmas decorations up in March.

NWL

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