I’ve been thinking alot about this lately and it reminded me of a post I made about a year ago… so I set about trying to find it and couldn’t, so sent an email to Ogaugeoverlord, then 2 minutes later I found it! [banghead] Some of you may remember this…
Anyway, I’ve modified it and came up with this:
What do toy trains mean to you?
When I was younger you couldn’t go into a department store, or walk by most business’s store front windows, without seeing a toy train display. Even if it was just a simple 4 x 8 layout with an oval of track and some buildings, or an even simpler oval of track. Places valued toy train because they caught the children’s’ attention and then the parents would stand and watch and remember their youth…
They walk through the doors, not really knowing why. They will follow the sounds of metal wheels clicking along metal tracks, blowing whistles, chugging engines and the smell of fluid smoke wafting in the air. They stand in awe as the trains take on a life of their own, pulling scale tonnage up sharp inclines, through cavernous ravines, around sweeping bends, over tall trestle bridges and peaking in and out of massive tunnels. They appear larger than life, as though one has been miniaturized and swept away to a forgotten land and time.
They bend down and pick up a box, the weight incomprehensible to their hand and mind. With honored reverence they carry it and set it on the counter, the look of childish, wild bewilderment still glazing their eyes. With no regard to price, they pay for the box and take it home.
They arrive home to smells of baking cookies, hot chocolate warming on the stove, and the crackle and warmth of a fire. They wonder over to the sparkling tree and take the lost treasure from its still silent resting place. They assemble the metal track, handling it as though it were as fragile as the sickles hanging from their gutters. They remove th
Toy trains bridged a generation gap between me and my kids. The layout we built together is small and as simple as can be. But we all had a hand in building it, decorating it, and running it. I am gratefull for the great times we have shared together running those trains. Hopefully my kids will remember those times spent together well into adulthood.
At first trains became a holiday event. I ran them for hours around the X-mass tree. Even after the tree was taken down my parents allowed me to keep the trains up until the end of Jan.
Every Sunday my Dad and I went to church, had coffee and donuts after mass and then proceeded to the local train meet or club, if not a club or meet that week then we broke out the paper and looked under items for sale “American Flyer Trains”. He would call the night before and after Mass off we went to see if there was a treasure or not. If only I had a money in my wallet when I was 8 and younger … the items my Dad had to turn down because of lack of money in the early 70’s. some collections were 75 bucks takes all…
I still remember coming down every night in the basement where my Dad set up his layout. The lights were turned low, smoke filled room, bells ringing, choo-choo sounds, a flurry of action and sounds. My Dad would let me take the throttle of those trains and I felt on top of the world!.. I can run those trains today and I think of those times with my Dad… seemed to me time just stopped…
Spending time with my Dad. Even though he died in 1993, he’s right beside me when I belly up to the Layout. Our layout was on a sheet of plywood 45yrs ago, and now we have a 24’ x 15’ room full. Dad is grinning ear to ear.
To me it make me remember being a kid as when we had thanks giving dinner done with ment time to start setting up the trains as the tree had to go up after that then I got to run them every day at least till newyears when the tree came down but atlas I convince my fater to let me havee a area down in the rec room and I had trains till easter a couple of years (mother got tired of them about then) wasn’t till I was in the navy and parents moved till I had my first layout (5’ X 9’) down in the basement that I could leave all year around. and it stayed up till after my father had his stroke then I took it down (mothers request as I was married0 and I took it with me to Memphis my first transfer after being married) Sold them all about then also as had no where to keep them . Wasn’t till about 20 years later till got them back and now again I have to deciede which to keep and which to let go as don’t have room for all of them once again. [:(] but I’m going to keep my favorite ones and sell what I have to . (fife dog said that to me)
Toy trains mean a childhood I never had.(long story)
And something I can share with my 15 month old son,he just learned to say choochoo,he has his first train set(a Lionel Thomas set) and a whole attic full when I’m gone(hopefully not anytime soon).
I’m with Batman. I never spent a lot of time with my dad because he worked a lot (being a doctor and almost always the low man on the totem pole, he was always on call and he was always the one stuck working the extra hours). Dad and me setting his postwar Lionels up in the basement in the mid-1980s is one of the few memories I have of us doing something together.
When I left for college, Dad set the trains back up in the basement and he would unwind by running them at night after work.
I do the same thing now. After spending all day dealing with poorly designed applications running on a poorly designed operating system running on poorly designed computers in an environment nothing like the designers intended (and none of it working right), it’s nice to use the trains to escape to a simpler time. As you might guess, I’m all conventional. After dealing with electronics 40 hours a week (and the people who picked the garbage out complaining about it) the last thing I want is electronics on a train layout. It’s really nice to plug in a wire, turn a lever or two, and see old mechanical-based magic JUST WORK, and take me back to a time and place that isn’t there anymore.
They give me a calming and an inner peace I can’t get anywhere else. No matter how bad a day I’ve had, I feel better as soon as I enter my layout room. Some nights when I can’t wind down enough to go to bed, I’ll go in there, turn on the nighttime layout lighting, and just sit there in the semi-dark quiet. Works every time - in fact, often I wake up hours later on the floor!
Also, toy trains are my only remaining link to my childhood, and a very fond one it is. I was one of those kids who always wanted motorized toys, and after enjoying them for awhile I eventually took them apart to see how they worked. Back then I never could manage to get them back together. Somehow my childhood train set escaped this treatment, for which I am very glad. It never fails to recall pleasant memories when I look at it or run it now.