What would we be posting in the 50’s?

I'd be complaining about my horsies always falling down in the corral or refusing to go up in the ramp. (Come to think about it, I still do!)  But when you put the horses on the Electric Football field, they ran great!  As a youngster, I would think of Lionel as some godly organization, like the Wizard of Oz, that could do no wrong. So if something didn't work right, it had to be all my fault.

I'd be complaining that Dick next door, Denny across the street and Wayne down the street all had neat Lionel trains and I had Marx trains.

No CA ZEPHYR cars for the WP F3's.

....and:

No TX SPECIAL, or any other passenger cars in the same colors as F3's, except CP and ATSF.

I would suspect any video would show trains running much faster. If you look at videos just 30 years ago ( for instance, in TMs Toy Train Revue), the trains are always speeding along. Nowadays, most of the videos show slow speed (and more prototypical running) thanks to speed control.

Peter

I'm not sure there would be as much complaining as you see today.   The world had recently come out of a major depression and a war that claimed around 75 million lives.  The average per capital wealth had increased and was still rising.  There was a lot to be thankful for and most Americans were grateful.  And there were still many pressing problems to deal with.  Polio was still a major childhood fear as well as an atomic war with Russia. For most kids, getting a toy included at Christmas along with your yearly "new" clothes was a thrill.

It's hard to speculate what the impact would be of selectively moving various technologies around in history such as cell phones, gunpowder, the combustion engine, airplanes, the internet, etc.

I think if you transported the current American population back to the 50's, we would crater, even if we had the  internet.

How about this headline (probably never was) from 1956:

”Southern Pacific retires and scraps its roster of AC-9’s”

Or, if you’re a NYC fan, everything that has ever amazed you as a child, gets the torch.

I think these are among the topics we would be discussing in the 1950”s.  Maybe some forum members would’ve started a “save a Hudson” or Niagara campaign.

Next up, 1960”s, “What’s a Penn Central?”

-Brian

I'd be posting a photo of a borrowed O gauge outfit, with a whistle, that my dad borrowed from a friend so that I had something to run under the tree, on a white sheet to imitate snow, at Christmas since my Marx set went belly-up (anyone remember the cardboard girder bridges).  The next year a new Lionel HO set and a hand-me down 4 X 8 platform sent me on a decade and a half  long journey in HO.  I still have the Marx transformer and most of the HO set.  O gauge Lionel came back when my children came along.  Yes, I blame them.....my wife doesn't buy it.     

Wow, my brand new 773 Hudson runs as well as the one that Joe DiMaggio ran on television!

#397 coal loader throwing coal all over the place!

The dial up was horrible in the 50s.  I remember my dad telling me it took 3 days to download 1 photo fun picture and that was just the avatar of the guy starting it.

Well, by late 50s my mom was selling everything for food.  I guess I would have been complaining about the low resale value.

1954:  Anybody else notice Lionel has gone cheap on ALCo and Switcher frames?  What's next?  Plastic trucks?!?

Jon

That Goldblatt's and Sears only sold trains during the Christmas season.

Rusty

Zinc rot on Dads Standard Gauge wheels...

How can I control my ejecting milk car, the milk cans are being thrown all over the place?

My dad made a mountain out of mountain paper over chicken wire.  I was able to crawl inside of it.  Had a problem getting out.

Using American Bricks I built a wall over the tracks and smashed it to pieces running my NYC A-B-A units through it.

Saved my allowance and picked up a 50 pound bag of plaster for $2.00. at the Springfield lumber yard.

No Southern Railway passenger cars or Southern Railway caboose to go with the Southern 2356 ABA.

Complain? About what? Trains that work right out of the box (even after sitting in those boxes since last Christmas), "Casey Jones" starring Alan Hale Jr., and the Paul Winchell and Jerry Mahoney show BOTH sponsored by Lionel with all those commercials, Christmas display layouts at almost every Fire Station in Baltimore, not to mention Monkey Wards, Sears and hardware stores. Top it off with those beautiful catalogs! After Christmas sales and Layaway plans and Christmas Club accounts. Complain?

The only complaint I have was that it took me a lifetime to get all the things I wanted back then.

"My little sister got this weird train set with a pink engine. My dad says it'll end up in the junk pile."