Solid Trains
Like many of us my first introduction to the world of trains beyond the 4 x 8 foot plywood prairie or the living room broadloom frontier was the Bantam paperback Model Railroading featuring the world of Lionel trains. I poured over that book and spent endless hours reading and re-reading sections, looking at the blueprints of all of those possible railroad empires, and studying the various pictures.
As it turned out, my favorite pictures, which I returned to time and again, were the railroad empire pictures on pages 18, 97 and 125 of the 4th edition. Of the group, the one that never ceased to amaze me was the one on page 18.
It wasn't the scenery so much as the train in the picture and the text which said "Model railroaders who accumulate equipment throughout the years often wind up with "solid trains" of coal cars, "reefers" and others. Shown above is a "solid train" of cattle cars...."
At that point in my life, it was a very big deal to have just one hopper, reefer, or cattle car. The idea that someday I might actually have a solid train of any of these items was more than I thought would ever be possible.
As we all know, time passes, you grow up, and, if the passion for trains continues through the years, there is a very good chance you will eventually have enough cars to make up a solid train...so here I am, a long way from that young boy who marveled at the picture of the solid train of cattle cars...and various and sundry solid trains are a fact of life on my railroad empire.
Here are five of them - solid consists of boxcars, loaded flatcars, and reefers. They are also solid tinplate and solid Marx.
