I was exceptionally lucky. My dad worked for the Airforce and made a livable wage but most of it went to the household and the yearly vacation. I never got a new Lionel train set at Christmas but in many ways got something much better for my 3rd Birthday in 1964. Some friends of the family a huge apple orchard in Oneida country NY and had Been able to afford to buy their sons a lot of Lionel trains. They outgrew them and they offered to sell the lot of it to my dad for $50. He took them up. The trains had been “well loved” and not everything was in great condition. It included a 736, 2035, 2020 a x-4-x loco and a 621 switcher with a mix mash of cars including the Milk and Cattle Cars, 2 log Cars, one side dump car, crane and tender cars and a few Cabeese. It also included both log loaders and the coal ramp with coal loader. Some auto crossing gates, light towers, station and Auto gateman rounded out the list as did a fair amount of O gauge track. We set it up on the dining room table but before a more permanent solution was found we were transferred to Utah in 1965. On settled there I got a 4x8 with a 2x4 extension for a layout space and we set everything up. Not everything worked, and this being about the time Lionel went into decline, finding new items, and even getting the old ones repaired was pretty hard. So I spent the next 10 years of my life tinkering with that lot to get it to work. In the process I learned basic electronics, assembly and troubleshooting skills that have made me the “Chief Geek” in my Health System Laboratory computer analyst job. The one thing I never got was the shiny Santa Fe Warbonnet F3’s and aluminum passenger cars I drooled after in the scraps of old catalogs that came with box of trains. I still have some of those trains and with the skills they thought me, was able, some 40+ years later to be able to afford to buy that passenger set at last.
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