Well said...very nice..conrail john

I totally agree. My dad setup under the tree every year, his prewar train set. I inherited the set when he passed. Each year when I take them out of their original boxes, I am brought right back to being a kid again. The smell from that old worn cardboard reminds me of getting the trains out of the attic for my dad to tune up for the season. Sometimes that is more powerful than running the trains. I look forward to that every year and it reminds me of the fun we had together.

You said it all.  I have trains up all year but a few, especially at Christmas, brings it all home.  The visual, the touch, the smell, the sound, just about everything.  It's like having my own DeLorean and heading back in time.

Its funny how many of us are living the same story.

Very well said. You put in words what many of us feel from the hobby of model railroading, in particular, the trains from our youth that we still run and cherish.

i could not agree more.  when ever i put a train on the track it brings me back to when i was 9 and got my first train.  the thrill, smell of the train and oil, the feel of the cars and engine.  it is almost engrained in me that i have to like it.  or as i some times say i take to trains like a vampire to a blood bank  

Well said!!  That pretty much sums up how I feel as well. esp the connection to my Pops,  who isnt here anymore. 

The aroma, taste, and after experience of a robust Bordeaux cabernet sauvignon topped off by a German Riesling for desert brings back many core experiences of mine in the 1970's, including the early years of our marriage. Our daughter has similarly been introduced to fine wines & other key beverages & foods so she can directly experience the good stuff as a frame of reference. She also is the owner of most of the 50 operating accessories on our layout as well as other rolling stock which she values as key gifts of her childhood.

 

There is a lot more to family experiences & memorable heritage worth passing on than just toy trains!

 

I experienced that captivating odor of open frame motors at an early age and it excites me as much now as it did then. Add in the smell of smoke fluid to complete the experience and there is nothing to match it. As the bard once said, "I love the smell of ozone in the morning"

 

Jim McClenin

isnt it crazy how many of us are into building the layouts, thinking up scenes.  each of us do completly different setups, get into different engines and cars and yet, we all come here to chat about what we are up to, and share ideas.  I know I learned 100000000 times more with chatting with you guys and seeing pics.  the wealth of knowledge shared from repair to electrics and how to wire things up. 

It's not the one and only reason I'm in the hobby, but Railroaded is correct.  There is a powerful set of memories wound around the trains.  When I fire up my old 2026 (Korean War version), I remember the excitement of Getting The Trains Down From The Attic, preparing to erect the platform in the living room for another holiday season.  The smell, the sound -- it all comes back to me.  And the scent of Lionel smoke makes it all complete.

 

These days, I have all those high-end locomotives I could only dream about while poring over the Lionel catalogs.  But it's the 2026 and the memories it evokes that is the heart of my stable.

 

And it's now joined by my father's 252 and my mother's 1400, which I've restored and now share trackage rights with the 2026.  They carry their own loads of cherished memories, dimly conjuring up faraway Christmases I never knew.

 

What a hobby.

 

My memories also go back to a 2026 though a little earlier. 1948 2026. Still have it and will run it around the Christmas tree this year again. Laying down on the carpet and looking at that wonderful "detailed" engine was amazing to me. Also when my Pop took me to "Colonel Bob's Trains" in Los Angeles. I think that was the name. They had a layout with track that had real wood ties. I loved that layout. There was a steam switching engine with a working front coupler. I wanted that so bad. Some day, some day I would build a layout like that. Don

I still have my 1956 Santa Fe 204 that my father got me for Christmas that year.  I was not allowed to go into the basement the week before Christmas for some reason.  I would put my ear to the floor and would hear my father working on something.  When I fire it up for the Grandkids, I still remember. The engine smells the same and sparks just like it did all those years ago.

Very well said! I have the same experience as well and anxiously await it again every year.

 

--Greg

Like many "kids" my age we had an HO set on a 4' X 8' sheet of plywood set up on an old pool table in the basement. Ran it with supervision for a couple months before dad let me run it by myself. Later on my uncle bought my first brother and I a Lionel 2600 set which was way cooler because of the size but not near as much track. I bought a Marx 1600 at a farm auction for a quarter but that is as far as the O scale went until about 10 years ago. I have like so many here the Christmas memories of department store layouts and hunting at garage sales and auctions for that "lost treasure". Now I'm older and working on my idea of a large layout, at my own speed and loving all the stories and picture of this forum. Truly a wonderful hobby!

Dan

Great replies to my post. I forgot to mention something earlier. Lucky for me my family took some decent photos back in those days & I have a few pages in the photo album to help me remember some of those old layouts & the fun times that went with them of me or my dad or my uncle. It's really fun to show off the shots from 30 or 40 years ago when standing in front of my layouts I have now & to show people the heritage of just where & when some of the items that they are now looking at came from with us in the pictures. It's like an echo from the past that I can still hear even though no one else does, it's fun to remember it & tell them about it with a smile & a sense of a connection right back to those times. Whatever else isn't in the photos is now only recorded in my own mind, so I make sure to tell my stories about the trains to anyone who will listen. 

Great stories guys!  They are a wonderful testimonial to the magic of model trains.

 

i was born into the hobby when my Grandfather bought a Lionel 2026 in the late 1940's so that his nieces & nephews would want to visit more often and stay longer.  After I was born we had the 5X9 layout set up every Christmas season.  As a young kid, right after we finished the turkey and pumpkin pie on Thanksgiving Day, I'd badger my dad to start setting up the Chistmas layout.  I would help my parents and grandfather build it until I was old enough to build it myself.

 

Then I had the joy of sharing the holiday trains with my three toddlers, and now my permanent layout with my grown kids and our eight grandchildren.

 

Life is good!

There are some lovely stories in this thread.  And they really reveal a large part of the attraction we have for these metal-and-plastic reminders of days gone by.  The smells are such a significant part of the memories, aren't they?  The hot oil, the smoke pills and later fluid.  Good thread, folks!