First Lionel set arrived Christmas 1955 and went up around the tree each Christmas afterwards with an additional piece or two through either ‘62 or ‘63 when I received a Marx HO combination train / road race set. The following Christmas I received an Aurora HO race set and that pretty much terminated any interest I had in toy trains - either O or HO.
Fast forward to 1989 and my oldest son’s first Christmas. Family tradition dictated he had to receive a Lionel train from Santa Claus so I stopped on my way home from work one evening about two weeks before Christmas and purchased a Lionel freight set. I took off a few days before Christmas and after putting my son down for a nap; set up the new train on the floor in my wife and I’s bedroom - “just to make sure it worked”. As soon as I smelled the smoke and heard the whistle; it was as if something had snapped in my mind and I’d been “bitten by the bug”.
Christmas night; I dragged my childhood Lionel stuff down from the attic and tried running it but; nothing wanted to work. The next day I took my stuff to JR’s Hobby Depot in Houston where Jerry serviced everything and got them working and then proceeded to convince me I needed about a half dozen new freight cars and some more track, switches and a bigger transformer.
And thirty years later, I’ve still got the bug. 😁
Curt
