We used to have a train set when I was little -- it was real old but the trains were in great shape. I remember everything being real HEAVY (!!) the trains, the rails, the control box. The trains would go fast around the tracks with the engine even making white puffs of smoke out of the top -- the oil that we'd lube and prime the tracks and wheels had this unique smell which will always remind me of Christmas.
We had an Engine, a couple coal and wood cars, a caboose. Then a "Snow Plow" Train with a thing on the font that spun real fast, another Armored train car (probably WW2 vintage) which had cannons poking from its windows -- man they were fun.
The Trains fell to disrepair after a couple years and then we stopped using them... maybe I'll by a set this year for me and my son to play with.
Jeez, what a good Christmas memory this thread sparked up -- thanks to the poster!
Last edited by Fezziwig; 11-06-2011 at 11:27 AM.
"I have always thought of Christmas time, when it has come round, as a good time; a kind, forgiving, charitable time; the only time I know of, in the long calendar of the year, when men and women seem by one consent to open their shut-up hearts freely, and to think of people below them as if they really were fellow passengers to the grave, and not another race of creatures bound on other journeys." ~Charles Dickens
My wife collects porcelain houses and every year they are coming out with nicer ones. We always pick up a couple of new ones each year and I have to make more room for them if we can’t part with an old one.
Last year I had a weak moment and bought a third train that was on clearance for a price I just could not pass up. So the last few days I’ve been completely changing everything around and have added 12” to the front and side. It has taken a large chunk out of our living room, but we are fortunate enough to have a large TV room where we have moved things for now.
My wife and I have always gone all out on decorating the house, including filling the front yard with fun things for the kids, but my body can’t do all the things I used to do like climbing up in the trees to sting a large Santa with Sleigh and reindeer across our driveway overhead. So now I’m focusing on the Christmas tree display.
I wasn’t going to do much this year, because my wife was struggling with cancer and I just didn’t have it in me to do any more. She’s had some major surgery and it looks like we may have beaten it for now. Now she wants a big Christmas tree display with trains and I’m going to do my best to build it for her.
I would really love a big train under my tree, tis year..
I think I may ask from Santa...
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And so, as Tiny Tim observed, "God Bless us!! Everyone!!''
A Christmas Carol - Charles Dickens (1843)
I want a train, I want a train, I want a train......maybe if I say it enough I'll get one. Two of my favorite childhood Christmas memories are sock monkey garlands and a train set up to go around under the tree. We had 2 over the years, a Lionel and an N-scale. They were presents to my brothers and they took them when the grew up and left home. I never got a train - I got dolls - would have like to get a train set.