My parents and Aunt Ruth gave me a solid foundation in Lionel trains and accessories throughout my childhood. They gave me as Christmas and birthday gifts the 027 train set headed up by the 2065 baby Hudson steamer, #41 US Army switcher, yellow trolley, gang car, ZW transformer, # 626 B&O center cab diesel, barrel loader and operating barrel car, and several other operating cars and accessories. I still have them all in good operating order.
These trains were set up around the Christmas tree during the holiday season and put away each year, but when I was 10 years old, my dad bought the graduated trestle set and put together a beautiful trestled layout on a 4 by 8 plywood board with grass paper, permanently set up on saw horses in the basement.
The interruption for me started around the age of 16 or 17. The timing corresponded with my interest in girls and the music of 1966 through 1969, particularly a very pretty blonde I had a secret crush on in high school, a very pretty brunette who I had a crush on and who lived in a small town near Princeton, NJ that I would meet at Penn Station in NYC and took to Rockefeller Center, Broadway Shows and La Crepe Restaurant, and The Doors.
The Interruption lasted until after I met a different very pretty brunette at age 25, married her at age 26, and then the Interruption stopped shortly after we had our first child when I was 35 years old. That is when my same childhood trains were set up around the Christmas tree each year.
When I was in my early 40s, we had a son and a daughter, the train collection grew, and 3 different 027 basement layouts were built at different times.
Around 1996, when my daughter was 10 and my son 7 years old, I switched from 027 to 0 Gauge track and switches, and began building my current basement layout that I have tinkered with ever since. Arnold
