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Many of us have experienced the euphoria of getting later in life what was unaffordable for our parents and us when we were kids.

Took me about 60 years to get these top of the line Lionel Postwar NY Central F3s with Magnetraction from the early 1950s:

Don't they look good circling Yankee Stadium?

Let's see what you love now that you couldn't have long ago.

Arnold

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Funny you should mention that Arnold.  I have been thinking about that lately, about what I can have now vs what I had and what I wished for when I was a kid.  I got my first train set when I was six, it was a used Lionel Santa Fe Freight set with F3s, I still have it 53 years later.  When I got that set my dad also gave me a brand new Lionel for 1966 Catalog, I literally read it until it fell apart, dreaming of the pieces I would one day own.  I have many of those today and treasure the thoughts that some young boy or girl and their parents had when they bought or were given the trains many years ago that I now own.  I gravitate towards the toy train spectrum as in your train in the video as they remind me of when I was six getting my first.

Thanks for the reminder of simpler days.

Chris S.

Arnold;

First, do you lay awake nights thinking of all these interesting topics??? 

Second, “Don't they look good circling Yankee Stadium“ - in a word, NO 

Now, as to you query, two stories...

I got my love of trains from my mother. When she was young, she spent many a summer going from Brooklyn down to Asbury Park on the Jersey shore, so she was well acquainted with the PRR GG-1’s. She always wanted one, but it just wasn’t ever in the budget. When I was in college, she gave me an MPC 8753 (which I still cherish), so when I graduated and got my first job (on 26th Street and Park Ave. South), I walked down to Madison Hardware on 23rd and Park Ave. South and bought her a 2360. Would have preferred a 5-stripe, but really love the larger keystone. 

As for me, I always LOVED the Santa Fe F3’s (also not in the budget) - so colorful and they looked like they were speeding along even when standing still!!! I finally went down to Madison Hardware and bought myself a 2383 set. 

One of these days, I’m going to have to set up a conventional track to run some of my old memories.

Last edited by Apples55

Arnold, I have a memory of showing my father a Lionel catelog with the gorgeous Santa Fe  F3's with aluminum passenger cars and on the next page the NYC F3 set with aluminum passenger cars. "look dad, the whole  set only costs $99!  This led to a stare with that look. Ok.  not until forty + years later as an adult did I aquire a worn A-A set from a friend and collegue. Wow! They were beaters, but that did not matter. I also was gifted his childhood trains magically realizing my childhood wish list, a 2360 GG1 and beater Santa Fe F-3's A-A, a ZW, some rolling stock. I was on a time machine adventure! They hadn't been run since the Sixties.  

Recently I bought a decent NYC f-3  A-B-A. Growler power. 

I agree that encircling your  Yankee stadium All postwar is king.

APPLES55, as an adult  you bought your mom a 2360. This was very moving. Thanks for sharing.      Also, Arnold IS the topic master.

FIREONE, History of joyful  first time experiences are imagined in the postwar ones I own now and run as well.  

Mass produced durable 50's and 60's  American toy trains still are an available thrill for me no matter what condition. Run 'em in good health everyone.

 

Arnold, I didn't even try to get my Pop to buy me the center fold Santa Fe and passenger cars. Knew it would never happen. I would get a log car or crossing gate for Christmas and was happy with those. One of the first things I bought when I went to my first local TCA meeting was a A-A Santa Fe with four passenger cars. $100 was the going price at the time. Got a baggage car a little later. They were going for $25 depending what size doors. Then a Santa Fe B unit. That set was every boys dream but only for the rich kids. Don32eb2c61b02334ee16925b63ef43a6bdlionel-catalog-1952-inside-pages-10002

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Arnold D. Cribari posted:

Many of us have experienced the euphoria of getting later in life what was unaffordable for our parents and us when we were kids.

Arnold,

You are exactly correct in my case. My father's family could not afford to buy him any Lionel trains when he was a youngster. By the time I came on the scene, he was able to buy me a small set when I was four years old and a Santa Fe 2207W ABA diesel freight set a few years later. I believe they were the first Lionel trains he ever purchased. They were for me, but he liked them too...

MELGAR

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Apples55 posted:

Arnold;

First, do you lay awake nights thinking of all these interesting topics??? 

 

Paul,

No.

They pop into my head when not even trying. Why that happens is a total mystery to me. 

This Lionel Postwar NH EP5 may be the one I coveted the most as a child, and did not get until my mid-50s. My mother and I would take the New Haven from downtown Mt. Vernon, NY to Grand Central Station when I was a young child.

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Arnold

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Since a lot of the focus here is on Santa Fe engines and cars I might as well share my story.

I guess it must have been in the early 60s that my Dad built a basement O gauge layout - two ovals and a figure 8 in the middle on trestles that he made himself. My best friend, whose father modeled in HO in a serious way, was very dismissive - "Call that a layout?" he said. At that time we had the old Santa Fe O scale layout in the Chicago Museum of Science and Industry and I recall being totally fascinated by that when he took me to see it a number of times.

But it was not until nearly 30 years later, when I got into the hobby myself, that I realized how significant was my Dad's investment in time and money in what he had. Aside from the layout being constructed on a table that was about 8' x 12', there was a massive ZW transformer, Super O track, a Lionel Lines steam turbine and a fine Santa Fe F3 A-A set. Of this, the turbine and one of the F3s survive and are, respectively, in my brother's and my possession. The amount all this must have represented out of a steel mill worker's pay was very considerable. 

I don't remember much about the rolling stock other than there was a vintage operating milk can car. I always wanted an aquarium car and eventually bought a couple myself.

So this is an example of stretching the budget to get something that was and is prized. I have no doubt I have exceeded my Dad's spending and I think he'd have been fascinated by what I have, which includes a few VL and MTH Premier engines the likes of which just did not exist way back when.

I am delighted you'all seem to enjoy this topic. 

It occurs to me that many of the original trains we wanted were top of the line Postwar Lionels. We may have gotten those exact same trains as adults. Or, we may have gotten modern trains by different manufacturers later on that reminded us of what we wanted and didn't get as kids. I think MTH has done a great job fulfilling those childhood dreams for us.

For instance, I never got a Lionel FM Trainmaster diesel, which I regarded as an awesome impossible dream as a child. My first FM Trainmaster was this MTH Railking Proto 1 smoking diesel that I bought about 20 years ago:

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Arnold

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Just about all of my model trains are modern, although some of them are more than twenty years old. Whether running them, looking at their detailing and paint schemes, listening to their sounds, or just admiring them, I am impressed by every one of them. I couldn't have imagined having such trains as a youngster.

MELGAR

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My mum would take me down to the toy shop/hobby shop and buy me a small die cast "Dinky Toy" and I would grab any free train catalogues or flyers take them home and pretend this is what I would buy if I had any money. I don't have to do that anymore but I still look and pretend....sometimes!  Roo.

For me as a kid it was Marx. It wasn't that my parents couldn't afford the more expensive Lionel or Flyer but rather they chose to spend $$ differently. Our neighbor would kid my Dad saying we must be rich to take all those long vacation train trips. Dad would laugh and say that is why we didn't have any money because we spent it riding trains . Instead of Lionel F3s I had this:

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Breakfast aboard the City of Portland Dome Diner, C. 1963.

 

And yes, today I do have the trains I dreamed of while pouring over the pages of Model Railroader and Railroad Model Craftsman: an O scale switching pike:

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So it's, indeed,  all good.

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Last edited by geysergazer
geysergazer posted:

For me as a kid it was Marx. It wasn't that my parents couldn't afford the more expensive Lionel or Flyer but rather they chose to spend $$ differently. Our neighbor would kid my Dad saying we must be rich to take all those long vacation train trips. Dad would laugh and say that is why we didn't have any money because we spent it riding trains . Instead of Lionel F3s I had this:

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Breakfast aboard the City of Portland Dome Diner, C. 1963.

And yes, today I do have the trains I dreamed of while pouring over the pages of Model Railroader and Railroad Model Craftsman, an O scale switching pike:

So it's, indeed,  all good.

That's pretty awesome - your dad had his priorities straight! It was one thing for me to wish for a set of F-3's with some shiny passenger cars in tow, but actually riding in one of those cars never even occurred to me. Apparently it was beyond my imagination. So when my first opportunity appeared on the horizon many years later, I jumped at it, and loved it! 

My Mom got us nice Christmas presents each year, but other than a Tyco HO set I got at 8 years old one Christmas - which was an added gift from St. Nick ~ probably because of my sledding accident a few weeks prior - trains were not included. I learned later in life why: they were prohibitively expensive compared to other toys and games. Of course, if I really wanted them, I could've opted to include them in my letters to Santa, but as kid I knew what was and what wasn't reasonable to ask for.

To this day, I consider trains expensive. In the 1990s, I could barely justify buying a Railking steam engine. Now, I am buying scale steamers from MTH and Lionel.

Its amazing how the change in disposable income has changed from the generations.

geysergazer posted:

For me as a kid it was Marx. It wasn't that my parents couldn't afford the more expensive Lionel or Flyer but rather they chose to spend $$ differently. Our neighbor would kid my Dad saying we must be rich to take all those long vacation train trips. Dad would laugh and say that is why we didn't have any money because we spent it riding trains . Instead of Lionel F3s I had this:

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Breakfast aboard the City of Portland Dome Diner, C. 1963.

The closest experience I had to this was riding with my mother on a PRR passenger train pulled by an awesome GGI from Penn Station in NYC to Princeton Junction train station in NJ to visit my aunt and uncle, and eating peanut butter/cheese crackers and having a sida during the train ride, and I loved it. LOL, Arnold

I used to get as Christmas presents what was sold the day after Christmas the year before. I still have a Generator car with a marked-down sticker of $2.75 on the box. At age 67, I've managed to buy all the accessories, operating cars, passenger cars and engines that I couldn't afford (but dreamed about) when I was a kid. and finally built that dream layout I envisioned back in the 50's.

It's been a lot of fun, and I get a big kick every time I go down to the basement for any reason.

I'm really enjoying everyone's responses!  Arnold, no doubt, being the avid baseball and train fan, you have now hit another home run by starting this thought provoking thread.  Thank you!   I want to circle back around this weekend when I have more time and contribute my story as well.  Thanks everyone for your stories!

And Arnold ... any train on your layout that circles Yankee Stadium is a home run for sure!

I got my first Lionel 736 Berkshire freight set on the Christmas just before my 3rd birthday in 1953. Every Christmas thereafter, Santa Claus would add to the set.

My mother's side of the family was a Railroad family. My grandfather, William Schubert, worked for 42 years on the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) and retired as a freight conductor. I loved hearing his railroad stories from the time when I can first remember. Therefore, I fell in love with my Lionel trains and could not  wait until Christmas each year to see and run them again. My younger brother also had a set, both of which were incorporated into a basement, "Christmas Garden" as seasonal train layouts were called in the Baltimore, Maryland area. When the 1957-58 Lionel catalog came out, I was given a copy. From that I realized what a significant investment my father had committed to the original Berkshire locomotive. Being a PRR GG-1 fan, I wanted one, but did not have the nerve to ask for one because of its price.

Fast-forward to the late 1990's after my only son Christopher was born. He became a lover of Thomas the Tank Engine videos. So, Santa brought him a Lionel Thomas the Tank Engine set that appeared on a platform around the Christmas tree. The following year, the layout moved to our finished basement and expanded.

The first addition to the layout was a  MTH GG-1 and a set of PRR, heavy weight passenger cars., something I had wanted as a child. Chris is now 24 years old and, though his time for the layout is more limited by work and his lady friend, He still has a great interest in the trains and enjoys running them in addition to occasionally scratch-building an O gauge structure or two.

To sum things up, We still have and run my original Berkshire locomotive and all of the rolling stock that came with it among many other trains that we have acquired over the years including a Santa Fe, F-3, ABA with aluminum passenger cars from the post-war era. The hobby has enriched my life and solidified the relationship with my son. My wife also enjoys the trains seeing the nostalgic reactions from visitors who remember trains that they or their fathers had in Christmas' past.

 

Randy Harrison posted:

I got my first Lionel 736 Berkshire freight set on the Christmas just before my 3rd birthday in 1953. Every Christmas thereafter, Santa Claus would add to the set.

My mother's side of the family was a Railroad family. My grandfather, William Schubert, worked for 42 years on the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR) and retired as a freight conductor. I loved hearing his railroad stories from the time when I can first remember. Therefore, I fell in love with my Lionel trains and could not  wait until Christmas each year to see and run them again. My younger brother also had a set, both of which were incorporated into a basement, "Christmas Garden" as seasonal train layouts were called in the Baltimore, Maryland area. When the 1957-58 Lionel catalog came out, I was given a copy. From that I realized what a significant investment my father had committed to the original Berkshire locomotive. Being a PRR GG-1 fan, I wanted one, but did not have the nerve to ask for one because of its price.

Fast-forward to the late 1990's after my only son Christopher was born. He became a lover of Thomas the Tank Engine videos. So, Santa brought him a Lionel Thomas the Tank Engine set that appeared on a platform around the Christmas tree. The following year, the layout moved to our finished basement and expanded.

The first addition to the layout was a  MTH GG-1 and a set of PRR, heavy weight passenger cars., something I had wanted as a child. Chris is now 24 years old and, though his time for the layout is more limited by work and his lady friend, He still has a great interest in the trains and enjoys running them in addition to occasionally scratch-building an O gauge structure or two.

To sum things up, We still have and run my original Berkshire locomotive and all of the rolling stock that came with it among many other trains that we have acquired over the years including a Santa Fe, F-3, ABA with aluminum passenger cars from the post-war era. The hobby has enriched my life and solidified the relationship with my son. My wife also enjoys the trains seeing the nostalgic reactions from visitors who remember trains that they or their fathers had in Christmas' past.

 

Randy, your whole family has exquisite taste in model trains, as is evident from the fact that you started out with, and continued to have, the best. Arnold 

trumptrain posted:

I'm really enjoying everyone's responses!  Arnold, no doubt, being the avid baseball and train fan, you have now hit another home run by starting this thought provoking thread.  Thank you!   I want to circle back around this weekend when I have more time and contribute my story as well.  Thanks everyone for your stories!

And Arnold ... any train on your layout that circles Yankee Stadium is a home run for sure!

Thank you, Pat. One of my goals is to entertain. And I always enjoy your positive posts with photos and videos of trains surrounded by the beauty and splendor of autumn colors. Arnold

My late father had a OO model railway in the basement of our shop and house in Islington, North London in the early 1960s. It was mostly Tri-Ang which even then, was regarded as inferior to the die-cast Hornby Dublo (although Hornby Dublo had just gone out of production). 

I remember seeing Lionel at the Gamages’ Xmas layout in the West End, I knew about Lionel because I had cousins in the US but never really thought of owning it. 

Now I’ve got some and I’m pretty pleased with it. As someone else has already said, it’s a sign of the change in disposable income (and don’t forget, we Brits regarded America as the “Land of Plenty” in those days..)

My mother told me that my father liked trains but since he had only sisters his father never bought one. So my father took good care of us:

This picture, taken by my much older brother Ben around 1956, shows my older brothers Dick (right) and Theo (left) and me playing with a Märklin H0/00 clockwork train and some other toys (amongst others Mobaco, Dinky Toys, Schuco). We were the three youngsters of a large family and were often playing together with our toys. From Sinterklaas (a Dutch kind of Santa Claus) my brother Theo had received the Märklin S837/2 trainset with a 0-4-0 streamlined clockwork locomotive with tender and 2 goods wagons; I had received set S837/1, the same set but with two passenger cars. The locomotive of these sets was based on an American PRR streamlined prototype while the rolling stock was typical German. This first train has influenced me very much, since my main interest in collecting is still streamlined passenger trains. The viaduct you see is part of a Schuco clockwork car system. The houses are made from the Dutch wood and carton construction toy Mobaco. You can also recognize some Dinky Toys including a Dinky Toy Super Constellation airplane, owned by Dick. As you can see, we mixed scales without bothering about that.

Regards

Fred

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geysergazer posted:

For me as a kid it was Marx. It wasn't that my parents couldn't afford the more expensive Lionel or Flyer but rather they chose to spend $$ differently. Our neighbor would kid my Dad saying we must be rich to take all those long vacation train trips. Dad would laugh and say that is why we didn't have any money because we spent it riding trains . Instead of Lionel F3s I had this:

      DSCN3135

Breakfast aboard the City of Portland Dome Diner, C. 1963.

Hey, that was me - about 8 to 10 years earlier.  My family used to take the City of Portland from central NE to the Pacific NW on family vacations.  They had to pry me out of the dome cars.  In the early 1950's UP was still running big steam (Big Boys and Challengers) and Gas Turbines, all of which I could see from the dome cars (though as a kid, I could never figure out how the GTELs worked, as I thought it was the thrust from the turbine that drove the train, and it was clearly pointed up and not straight back -- hadn't made the connection to spinning a generator...).  We just returned from chasing the 4014 in southwestern UT (topic of another thread) - so this picture doubled the nostalgia.

On the original topic - the beginnings of my Flyer 'empire' was the same as many other posters here - a Xmas gift when I was ~6.  Successive Xmas gifts were cars, track, switches, accessories, etc.  Pretty much SOP until teenagedom and my discovery of girls...  I still have all of my Flyer stuff, to which I've added post retirement.

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My father was a Shift Foreman at an Alabama Power Co. steam generating plant when I came along, so he could afford most of the cataloged items (NOT multiples of them; we were working-class) in the Lionel catalogue. In fact, I have no memory of asking for a particular "train" - or, indeed, of asking for an electric train at all! But, I am sure that I had expressed an interest, and do remember being interested in the real thing very much. We did not live near the tracks, but I was always wanting to go to the waterfront to "see the trains" and the ships. We often did.

I digress. Sorry. Anyway, I got a nice "set" (dept. store made up?) with a 2055 Hudson, several cars, and he built me a layout - 4 switches for 1 siding and 2 spurs. Scratch built buildings. (I've never seen my "set" in a catalogue.)

Now, after all this, I occasionally asked for a second loco. Nope. One was enough, I guess.

I specifically wanted the 6-8-6 Turbine or the 0-4-0 switcher (it looked more realistic than most Lionel locos). Nope. "You have an engine." (The 1930's 5344 scale Hudson that I had discovered in magazines was the Holy Grail; I might as well have asked for a new $5000 '57 Chrysler 300C - actually, I did ask for one of those, come to think of it .)

So - as time went by, I got the Burro, the Allis-Chalmers car, the track cleaning car and the single separate-sale passenger car - but no more locos. He chose to not "afford" it.

No doubt this scarred me for life and explains all those d**n steam locomotive now in the house with me.

Well Arnold, you've done it again...another fascinating topic.

I was treated as well a financially possible as a child but there were still voids in what I could have.  In my twenties I was able to acquire some of the missing items; 2332 GG1, 746 J, and 2321 Lackawanna FM.  Those items came my way by a local collector who always found a good deal for me, Paul Rowlen (fellow forum member John Rowlen's father).  These were truly delightful additions to my collection and I still have them.  

One item that did not escape me as a child was a 681 turbine.  The local second hand shop run by a fellow known only as Yaro had the turbine.  It was the princely sum of seven bucks.  I ran the wheels off it.  I found that my father also liked that engine.  Sometimes after school I would head downstairs to see that the train on the layout was changed to the 681 and my father had been running it while I was at school.  This was in the early 60's.

Small world that it is, years later I had lost a hubcap off my Olds 98 and stopped at a second hand shop called Hubcap Heaven.  I got my hubcap and found that the owner was a chess champion.  Sometimes I'd just stop in for a game on lunch and one day we were talking about second hand shops like his and I mentioned getting a train from a guy named Yaro on Miles Road at East 123rd.  The owner of Hubcap Heaven smiled and said Yaro was his father-in-law!

Lou N

 

My cousin had a pre-war Lionel latch coupler Lionel set that my brother and l were allowed to run....l asked for and got a train set, but it was Marx 3/16..l was thrilled and ran it until l discovered HO in my teens.  We had little money, but relatives were, some, much better off and gave two brats money for Christmas.  However, while both of us had similar Marx freight sets, neither set ever added freight or passenger cars, for the store that had those cleared them out/sent them back?  immediately after the holiday.  I set out to fill that void much later, and did, for many of the Marx 3/16.  Now l run Lionel compatible with those roadnames and prototypes of interest, but would acquire more if made. Teen camping trips to Colorado exposed me to Colorado narrow gauge, and standard.

Hmmm, good question ?  I do remember wanting a New Haven 2350 EP-5 which I received one christmas.  I still have that.  I was always rather fond of the Lionel Jersey Central Fairbanks Morris.  Later in life I purchased the Williams version: a good runner too.  I always wanted passenger cars but that was not to be.   There was an interference issue created by passenger car overhang on tight turn radius.  Today, I have many passenger sets.  On my layout today, the overhang issue is still with me.  This time, it's the giant locomotives, like Big Boy, which will never be.   Like father, like son, I guess.

The first train I purchased that my parents couldn't afford was actually purchased while I was living at home and going to high school.  I had always been impressed by Lionel's #773 (by both the looks of the engine and the price ) but I knew it was way beyond anything I could hope to ask for as either a birthday or Christmas present.  The good news was I managed to land well paying summer jobs during my Junior and Senior years.  Most of the earned money was earmarked for college tuition but, since I was earning my own money, Mom and Dad said I could use some of it for trains if I so desired....so, it was over to Joe The Motorists Friend with $50 I went and home with #773  I came. 

  Once home I opened up the engine and tender and set them up on the dining room table.  I was sitting there admiring my #773 when the doorbell rang and Mrs. Cooper, a friend of my Mom's, stepped in for a short visit.  As she came in she looked over at me sitting in the dining room, noticed the engine, and promptly asked," How much did THAT cost???"  I just  smiled and said, "$50 dollars Mrs. Cooper."  She didn't say anything more but the look she gave me said, "Mrs. Butler, you have raised a fool for a son." 

  I was aware that she and other adults in the neighborhood considered the Butler kid to be a little off when it came to personal choices for monetary expenditures so her look was not unexpected.  I'm sure if I had spent my money on some beat up car (like her son's $500 Volkswagen) the reaction would have been much different.  As an aside, I should mention my railroad was all 0-27 so I couldn't even run #773 (she didn't know that and I didn't volunteer the information) thus it was a long time before I was able to put the engine on the rails and run it.

  We now must fast forward to 1978 and my attendance at my first York meet.  By this time Mrs. Cooper was a long forgotten memory.  I was strolling down one of the isles in Blue Hall when I came upon a boxed #773 in the same condition as mine sitting on a dealers table with a price tag of $1,100.  I stopped and looked in amazement and from the depths of my memory came the vision of that day at the dining room table. The memory was accompanied by a mental voice whose shout echoed down the canyons of time and queried, "So, Mrs. Cooper, where's your son's long ago scrapped Volkwagen now??? "  

I still have #773 and it runs just fine.

Arnold, when I was a youngster, my mom and dad never gave me any Lionel or even Marx trains for Christmas  or even my birthdays.  My uncle always had Marx trains that we literally ran the wheels off of them at Christmas, for some reason, I always thought they were Lionel and I guess I got that impression because we would go to the Sears store and go back to the garden area and my uncle and I would watch the trains run on the huge layout they had for displaying of the newest trains as well as whatever they had in stock.  My parents would go shopping while my uncle and I would walk around the layout for what seemed like hours and watch the trains and all the latest accessories.  I would tell my mom and dad how great they were and I always wanted the Santa Fe A-B-A passenger car set and I hinted and hinted but come Christmas morning they were never there.  Those Silver and Red War Bonnet's never seemed to make it under the tree, maybe Santa wasn't listening to me for some reason, not even at my grandmothers house would they show up.  This was  back in the middle 50's.  I don't remember what year it was but I got up on Christmas morning and there was a train set under the tree but to my surprise and dismay, it was an HO set, an NW-2 in a Santa Fe Zebra Stipe paint scheme from Athearn.  I never ever got any O-Gauge trains when I was little, I found out later that my dad thought the HO was a better deal and the gauge of the future.  It wasn't until a number of years ago that I bought my first train set, it was the 2026 set with a number of cars and a ton of track (that was in pretty bad shape or so I thought)  and a 1033 transformer.  I basically stole them from this woman who didn't care a thing about them because they were her ex-husbands trains.  For some reason, she got them as part of the her divorce settlement from him.  She worked with my wife and they got to talking and next thing I knew, my wife was asking if I was interested in them and that was the start of getting my cake and starting to eat it too.  I would pick up a few pieces here and there but since there were no train shows here in the arm-pit of Texas, I never got to go to any of the stuff like York or any others so I just kind of put them on the back burner until a few years ago.  I was in my local hobby shop (I hate to say it but the guy was a crook) and he would give people pennies on the dollar for their Lionel trains and turn around and sell them like they were in mint condition.  That was when I discovered Classic Toy Trains magazine (I know, they are the competitor) however, they didn't carry OGR so I didn't find out about the OGR magazine until I happened into Barnes and Knoble book store and was looking thru the magazine racks and that is when I came across OGR and not to long before I found this Forum.  I love my trains and when I buy a new locomotive or piece of rolling stock, I feel the same way each time I buy one.  It is like the Christmas I never had.  I have to say, I owe it all to my lovely wife, she has bought me trains and supported me all along.  I wouldn't have all I have if it wasn't for her.

Arnold, thanks for this thread, there have been some really great answers and it has been fun reading everyone's reasons why they are where they are at now.  Cool thread.

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