I believe it was my fourth Christmas in 1992 that my Dad decided I needed a Lionel train. He had Lionels as a kid in the late 50s/early 60s, dabbled with HO scale in the early/mid 1980s. I remember the table my Dad built in our basement to set the train on, which for some reason I think was built before the train was even opened on Christmas. What I opened that morning was a Lionel 6-1602 Nickel Plate Special set. I still have the set today, and it is still in very good shape even after taking a nose-dive off the layout early on.
A year or two later, I asked "Santa" for a passenger train, so I received a Lionel 6-11739 Santa Fe Super Chief set. We added onto that set with an additional A unit with horn, another coach, and full-length dome during subsequent Christmases. My Dad and my Grandpa (his father in law) and I connected over the O gauge trains, and we started attending shows and the TCA meets at York together, and would do so for the next 20 or so years. My Dad and Grandpa both put together their own layouts and collections, while I fell in love with HO scale trains at around age 6. I still pursue HO scale railroading, and it remains my modeling focus. My general railroad interest eventually eclipsed even their own as I got older, and began to collect all kinds of railroadiana, became a dyed-in-the-wool railfan, and also turned to railroading as a career when I was 20 years old (12 years and counting on the real railroad).
For this Christmas, I wanted to have a train under the tree for my girlfriend and myself. I decided to buy a Lionel 6-11749 Western Maryland service station set and some extra 4-bay hopper cars to go with. I remember seeing this train in the 1990s as a kid and really finding it attractive. I always wondered why we never owned an example, as we lived in central Maryland and were also CSX/Chessie/B&O/C&O/WM fans. But the set arrived about a month ago, and I couldn't be happier. It's caused me to look at some other O gauge trains I remember seeing in the catalogues during the 1990s, and how I would dream about owning them.
Now even more packages have arrived, and it's really looking like a Lionel Christmas over here...
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