I particularly identified with Ron's desire to go back to that Brooklyn apartment to look for traces of the old layout as he describes in "All Aboard".
My trains had been given away to a now long-lost relative years before my renewed interest in Lionel O in the early 1980s.
Wishing for some trace of the old trains, I had the idea to search my father's old toolbox which somehow had survived and had been passed on to my sister. Sure enough, hidden in a miscellaneous screw jar, was one Lionel track pin!
It is now framed and has a place of honor in my train room! 
Thank you for putting the feelings of many of us in words, Ron!
Jim
