first post 10-08-14
Up to about 5 years ago I laboriously maintained a website AF316s pertaining to my interests in trains (mostly Gilbert prewar) and audio restoration. It became exasperating, so I abandoned it… Fortunately I still have many if not all of the elements. Some of my buddies & followers have been bugging me to resurrect it. I was about to sign up for an adult ed. course to learn something much more powerful & much less cumbersome than Front Page. So it was exhilarating and ironic that last night I was introduced to this forum by one of my train-audio-music buddies (Hi Mike!).
I was ‘Gilbertized’ when my parents gave me an AF S steamer set. I think that the enlightenment happened in 1955. I distinctly remember that It was a Chanukah present. Some years later I mistakenly decided that I was ‘growing up’ & gave away everything. In retrospect, it’s nothing to now regret because except for a Hudson that had slammed on to the hard tile (from perhaps 30” below grade), floor several times.
30 years later our son Peter had turned 6 & I decided that he should get an electric set for Chanukah. I was determined to replay the past & started to research AF S. I erroneously deduced that they were too esoteric as compared to then new and postwar Lionel. Had I not come to that questionable decision, then I’d might not have discovered ANY Gilbert or Chicago Flyer O. BUT it turned out that a valid justification for Lionel was that Peter’s Smurfs could more easily fit into some freight cars & a steamers cab.
I soon became hooked on attending local (NYC area) t