Newbie here

Garden Railroading
1

Guys - great forum. I’ve done some searching but I’m having a hard time finding answers to my super general, rookie questions.

I have my grandfather’s childhood train set. Might be post war, but that dosen’t make sense timeline wise since he was in the Navy towards the end of WWII. I am redoing a rec room and was going to build a valance down from the ceiling to put up a very small track layout. This will be approximately 3’X6’ in the middle of the room over a pool table. Very unexciting from what I’ve seen on this site.

I’m somewhat concerned of the saftey of these old electrical devices. I have two transformers, one is the size of a small car battery, and the other looks like the post war Lionel models I’ve seen linked to from this forum.

I’m so sorry for the lack of details, years, model numbers ect… My basic question is, are there modern upgrades to the electrical components for these trains? I’m not looking to run an authentic, period correct setup - I just want to proudly display and occasionally run my grandfather’s set - without burning the house down. It’s been boxed up for at least 25 years since I last had it set up as a kid, and that’s a shame.

Thanks in advance. Mike.

2

Your local hobby shop will have a new transformer to run with your train. You might want to have someone take a look at the engine just to make sure all those years of sitting haven’t caused some damage or caused some issues of safety.

Randy

3

I think you’d get much better advice if you’d post your questions over on the Classic Toy Trains forum. The Garden Railways forum where you are now covers mainly G-scale outdoor trains that run on direct current (DC) and yours are the old Lionel that run on alternating current (AC). A DC power pack will not run the AC locomotives.

You may have some rare collector’s items, considering their age and condition.

4

Thank you so much - I apologize for the cross post.

Mods - I will repost in the other group - please feel free to delete this thread.