Hey guys, great forum. Been lurking awhile, thought I would say hi. About 20 years ago, When I was 12, I found my dad and uncle’s old Lionel at my grandmother’s house. I tried to get it to run, but it would only run backwards. I went to the library, and they had one or two Lionel “collectibles” books, couldn’t find an exact match. Took the locomotive with me to Dallas one weekend during a vacation, & went to a local hobby shop. They quoted me 75 bucks to get it fixed. That was a ton of money to me back then. Needless to say, I brought it back home unrepaired. Then out of the blue, one of my uncles wanted the train, and asked for it, so I had to give it up.
Throughout the years I have bought model RR magazines, books, a few HO box car kits, but never commited to the hobby. I’m still not sure how “deep” I want to get into it, but I would like a train that resembled the one my father did have when he was young. I recall it having a maroonish boxcar with a man that waved when the door opened (?), a red caboose, and the tender having Pennsylvania on it. The locomotive had the metal chrome wires on the side, it could smoke with pellets, and there might have been a whistle button on the transformer. And yeah, I assume my uncle still has the train set, but its not even worth trying to get, trust me. ( I talked to my father last night…he says they got the train set in 1947 or 1948.)
We had one local store back in the 60s, 70s & early 80s that had a train display at Christmas. Wow, what magic to see those trains. In my neck of the woods (NE Louisiana), there isn’t too much of that christmas magic around anymore, to me.
I think I have talked my wife into the idea of a train around the christmas tree this year, so there is my “in” so to speak. I have about 9’ x 4’ of floor area to play with. I went to our new local hobby shop, and checked out their limited train supply. They had one Lionel set, so I picked up a few of the Lionel catalogs and have been poring over them every day for two
