I only have three PW Lionel steam engines: 2055, 2065, and this:
It may look like the common 736, but this is one is far from common for me.
You see, back in the mid-late 1990s when I was really into 3-rail, PW in particular, I purchased a 736. My long time friend, David McDonald, was also beginning to get into PW 3 rail. (He had been a Prewar fan and owned some his original Prewar trains.) I first met David at his Golden Spike hobby shop in April of 1969. At that first meeting of him, David invited me to the recently formed Fort Smith model RR club. So, the next club meeting, I went! The club was building a large layout in David's huge garage/storage building out back of his s home place property. (David had lived in his house that his Dad built since before he started school.)
So, I became a member of the club and met many new friends, some of which have now been life long friends.
Anyway, David went nuts when saw my 736 and loved its burly proportions and running characteristics. He was 64 years old at the time, I was 44. As good fortune would have it, at the next train meet we went to, he found him a 736... and he paid far less for his than I paid for mine!
Next time we got together to run our 3-rail trains, he brought along his "new" 736. Wow, it ran GREAT, and out-smoked mine by a long shot! He was so proud of it, and his 736 became good natured raze point "thing" between us. In order to raise the needed funds for front money for our forever home that we still live in, I sold about 99% of my 3-rail collection in early 1998, my 736 went with it.
David and I had SO many good times together. In the mid-1990s I built a 3-rail layout for him at his Golden Spike hobby shop that he received tremendous enjoyment from. A few years later I helped him re-structure his long-stalled On3 layout and together we installed a large 3-rail stub yard on the peninsula, with a wye connecting it a larger loop around the room. By that time, David and his wife Shirley were raising their grandson Christopher. Christopher at the time was in elementary school. He was already a train nut and he would come home from school and join David and I upstairs and "help" build the layout. I have SO many good memories from those times with David and Christopher!
In September of 2023, David turned 93 years old. He had been a widower for several years. For a couple of years, I had been picking him up almost monthly and taking him to our monthly model railroader's "Rails n' Tails" luncheon we had started having. On a good day we had about 12 or more regional modelers show up. Fully 90% of them were all friends because of David's Golden Spike hobby shop he ran from the late 1960s into the early 2000s.
In May of '24, David passed.
I was ask to officiate David's Memorial Service. I was honored to do so.
Last year, about November, his grandson Chris (now in his late twenties had has been in railroading for several years now) and I went up into the layout room for the first time in a long time. Wow. The memories flooded me.
After a while of us just looking around and reminiscing, I noted Chris still had David's 736. Chris kindly sold it to me for a pittance. (I had offered much more, but he wouldn't take it.)
SO, David's 736 sits proudly upon the mantle above our fireplace, along with pictures of my wife, myself, and our only child, our daughter, that passed in August of '24.
As you can see, to me, this is no common 736. Instead it is a precious reminder of my 55 year long friendship with David McDonald.
Oddly, when I look up at our mantle... the emptiness that can often result from seeing pictures of our daughter that passed, can be tempered when my eyes fall upon David's 736 as warm memories of him help soften the hurt of the passing of our daughter.
No, it's certainly no common 736.
Andre
