Christmas Trains?

A few years back I noticed my old Lionel electric train in a box in the basement, and after we set up the tree I pulled it out, took the engine apart and cleaned up the motor of old grease and grime, put it back together and it ran!! Thinking back, our house burned in the summer of '57, and this train was under the Christmas tree that year, making it 53 years old this Christmas! Says something for good QA/QC at Lionel, and setting it up under the tree has become a new tradition, a part of "transformation Friday", the day after Thanksgiving when the house is transformed for Christmas! The old guy takes a bit to get moving (like me :LOL: ), but once you get the motor turning and warmed up a bit it pulls the train just fine - enough to fall off the track on the corners if you leave it at full throttle ;)

Any more old Christmas trains out there??

Roger - that brings back fond memories.

(Unfortunately, my mother threw my Lionel train out after I moved away :CRY::CRY: I've tried to duplicate it with some HO stuff, but it just isn't the same)

Mine did too!

mines alot like yours rspears ... has a stain less steel hand rail that run along from the cab to boiler and no orange stripe . its a lionel was my dads he was born in 1934 so i am not sure were he pick it up but it old as moses . is has the tin covered coal car . i have the cast metal power gen serach lite car that lites up .and a card boad tunnel made up to look like snow on a hill .some of the old lionel stuff is not to bad to buy alot cheaper then hot rods

The one is my dog NOT LIKING the train lol:whacked: The other is a Rock Island that and 3 or 4 other trains were my grandfathers. Click on the link below to see the layout. This is where I go when I'm not in the shop

Charlie, I figured you would respond to a train post :) having clicked on your link and read of your hand excavated train room! Quite an undertaking!!

Pat, does the old Lionell still run?

Back in the early 50's my grandfather bought me a American Flyer train so I would leave his Lionel alone didn't work. Been playing with trains longer than cars**)

[QUOTE=rspears;

Pat, does the old Lionell still run?[/QUOTE] yep like a big block chevy:3dSMILE:

Mine looks alot like Pats. It still works, lets see it must be 44 yrs old. Got it for christmas. Told my grand son that the train is his but i have a problem of just letting it go. (some of us never grow up)

I still have my HO train I got when I was six, its packed away, just no place to set it up..

How timely! I was curious if my old train would still work so I dragged it out of the garage and set it up near the tree. It's an old Marx set, looks alot like the lionels, the coal tender also has the search light! And it has the sweetest crane car! All metal with 2 cranks on one side, one raises / lowers the boom and the other raises / lowers the hook, I've never seen another one like it! In any event, the puppy decided the train was a great toy so I took it apart and put it back into storage for now. I got it for a birthday present in 1961 or "62", it's still in good shape and I want to keep it that way!

I remember my dad had the basement done up with a train garden. After I married and moved away I went back and asked him if he still had them. The answer was no - he sold them. He told me he asked me if I wanted them; I guess my Alzheimer kicked in earlier than expected. Later on I tried to create a train garden for my son, but I couldn't afford cars and trains. The cars won - sorry son.

Yep just hadn't put it out this year! Always wanted a Lionel, and 10 years ago I finally got one!

I had my old Lionel trains from when I was a kid. I found them after cleaning out my moms place. I have a good friend who collects them and figured they go to a good home. He gave me $1000 for the whole setup. They have a new home and the $$$ went into my car. But have the memories of my dad and I setting them up as kid. Can't erase them.

Our house was one of the few I remember that did not have a train set - for the tree at Christmas, and for playing with in general. My folks just were not "into" some things, electric trains being one. I have dabbled in them since I grew up, and tried to interest my kids, but they didn't seem to care much whether the train was there or not. Maybe some thing are in the genes. I do have an old American Flyer set that I saved from the dump, and some HO pieces, but nothing that is serviceable at this time.

I've still got my old HO from the 70s. Packed up.
Ran across it the other day while cleaning up the upstairs in my shop.
Mouse nest in the box. :eek::CRY:
I set up a circle around the tree several years ago, but not lately.
Ya know, a slot car track would be cool too. :D

Quote:

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Originally Posted by jefscoupe

I've still got my old HO from the 70s. Packed up.
Ran across it the other day while cleaning up the upstairs in my shop.
Mouse nest in the box. :eek::CRY:
I set up a circle around the tree several years ago, but not lately.
Ya know, a slot car track would be cool too. :D

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Yah I thought about that too, just no one to race with! I think I'll take the train out this weekend though. Last time I set it up, the dog got too close to the track and got it's wet nose zapped!

Quote:

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Originally Posted by jefscoupe

I've still got my old HO from the 70s. Packed up.
Ran across it the other day while cleaning up the upstairs in my shop.
Mouse nest in the box. :eek::CRY:
I set up a circle around the tree several years ago, but not lately.
Ya know, a slot car track would be cool too. :D

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Back when I was in the Navy I had a buddy from MN and his wife bought him a 1/32 scale slot car track from JC Penny's where she worked. We played with it a while and learned that a single car running got more power so we bought a second track, split the power feeds to run individual transformers for the two lanes, and finally took them apart and added a couple of hundred turns on the secondaries just for grins:D We wore all the tread off of the rear tires and had a ball messing with that track for several months. Had not thought about that slot car track for about 40 years :eek: :LOL:

Back many moons ago, my brother worked with a guy that was quitting his job and moving. He and his wife were living in his wife's parent's old house.
Since the parents had passed away years before, they cleaned out the house.
Well, there was a pile of stuff they didn't want and my brother offered to haul it all away for him.
There were all kinds of stuff in that pile. From a big pile of hand woven or crocheted doilies, like you'd (or grandma would) put on the arm of a chair and couch, table runners, etc. Beautiful work.
There was an old wedding dress that my brother's girlfriend at the time eventually wore at their wedding.
And what I got were some parts and pieces of an old 1/25th scale slot car.
With a Cox hand control complete with alligator clip connectors.
Cool. I was telling a friend of mine at work about it and he gave me some track of the same era.
No tranformer but I've wanted to check it out and never have.
Still all boxed up and stored.
I found two of the four lane Aurora HO race tracks at a flea market some years before that.
If I only had a huge basement to set it all up in along with my train set.
(there, back on topic.:3dSMILE:)

I had an Uncle that lived in a surburb of Atlanta when I was a kid that had a huge Lionel layout in his basement.
His son was a good 10+ years older than me so I never really got to know him too well.
I do remember him having a brand new 68 Camaro, maybe an SS or RS.
Anyway, back to the basement.
That's where I'd head whenever we'd visit. He didn't have scenery or anything, but a lot of cars and two or three engines that used the tablets to make smoke.
Had the big double handled controller with the whistle switch on top.
His layout took up a whole corner of the basement (maybe 10X20? That was a long time ago) and the basement was huge!