Playing with Grandpa's Lionel (1987)

While going through some old pictures from my grandparents, I found this one. It has a lot of great memories for me. The train is probably a Lionel #1543 set which came with the Lehigh Valley #627 44-tonner engine (perhaps the start of my love for GE centercab switchers), a flat car with pipes, a gondola with red canisters, and a caboose. The sets were released around 1956, though I don't know what year my grandparents purchased them. They bought two sets, gave one to my Uncle, and gave the other to the neighbor's son who couldn't afford one. They were low cost sets. I don't know how much my Uncle used it, but whenever I visited my grandfather he pulled out the plywood board painted green with a simple loop of track and one remote control track and off I would go! 

My grandfather later purchased some additional cars, including a red M&SL boxcar and a US Air Force boxcar with missile firing mechanism. Oddly, there was also an unidentified HO engine which is shown on the flat car that I later learned was a "Sakai" brand engine.

The Guidancetown buildings were also a lot of fun to put together and take apart every visit. Also pictured are some other notable accessories: giant orange, purple and yellow alien creatures (I think they belonged to my other uncle); a stuffed animal dog and Boo Boo; and and American flag. Oh the adventures we all went on.

Sadly, almost everything on the table is now gone. The train disappeared after my grandfather passed away, likely by a visitor who thought it was worth a lot. None of my immediate family would have taken it as they all knew I loved it. I have faint hopes that someday it will turn up. The buildings and aliens are long gone, as are the stuffed animals. But, in 2018 when visiting I removed the track from the plywood board. It was as rusty as sixty year old track can be but I managed to save most of it. I cleaned it up and use it today under the Christmas tree. So, part of it lives on.

Train show bounty

Two recent train shows allowed me to purchase some supplies that I needed for future projects. 

At the Polish Community Center show, I bought a set of sitting passengers from Woodland Scenics (A2759) for my Atlas passenger station project. I wanted some people that weren't dressed like they came out of the 1950s, or something too modern either, so hopefully these will look more 1960s-1980s.

I am always on the lookout for scale size freight cars and two friends were selling ones that I wanted. A MTH RailKing boxcar is scale size but has molded on details like grab irons and such, but once weathered I think it will look fine. I thought it was Penn Central but actually it was New York Central, so I may try and patch it before weathering. The other car is a MTH car lettered for Ralston Purina and I bought it because I think the red/white checkerboard emblem is sharp. I am planning on putting an Agway on my layout so this car might be a good fit for that industry.

At the second show a couple of weeks later, the Great Train Extravaganza, I spotted a Hornby O scale passenger car for $5 that looked lonely. It joined a few other cars I purchased this past spring at a train show in Toronto. A friend of mine also had an old Weaver troop sleeper car that I desperately needed for the trucks so he brought it for me. The Weaver cars are notorious for warping and zinc rot on the wheels and frame but this one was surprisingly in okay shape. I considered myself lucky to acquire it.

No one had any new Gargraves track but for $20 I found a pile of used track that I can hopefully find a few decent pieces in. If not, there is always Springfield in January.

Harrison was not forgotten, and between my wife and I we purchased a Thomas bedtime story book, many wooden Brio-compatible trains (a lot of oddball characters and freight cars to be sure, as we have most of the "main characters" by now) and  $5 Marx crossing gate for his Lionel layout that he will happily manually push up and down.

The highlight of the show was that my friend also brought a set of 710/712 pre-war passenger cars especially for me. I cannot afford a standard gauge Blue Comet set, nor do I have the space to run it even if I did own one (though my wife suggested acquiring it and sticking it in a display case... bless her!) so these are the next best thing. They were made by Lionel between 1933 and 1934, so they are possibly 90 years old. They are in nice shape considering, but I plan to have another friend give them a good look over and clean and repair them. But that is a future project.

Finally, this last picture is a bit of a reunion of sorts. In 2010 I saw an FM Trainmaster painted for the Delaware and Hudson #100 and thought it was really sharp even though it wasn't prototypical. It was a Williams engine custom painted by Frank's Roundhouse. I soon wanted to buy one (despite being an N and HO scale modeler) and looked online for more information. An inquiry on the CTT magazine forum provided some information. In 2011 I purchased one on Ebay, but since I didn't have an O scale layout I gave it to a friend a couple of years later. Now I have a layout and wanted it back, so I made arrangements with my friend to reacquire it.

Some of my purchases were inexpensive, and some were not. However, I have been writing articles for publication in magazines which has provided me some extra train spending money. I am very thankful for that, as well as for a supporting wife who encourages my hobby splurging.

That's all for now, as Christmas is nearly here and there are other priorities. But so far it has been a good hobby show season!