Pennywise11788 posted:I grew up next to tweetsie and Spencer train shops. It’s in mY blood. My mom got me a Lionel as a kid and I lost interest. So first up the easy things. I enjoy collecting figures and horror memorabilia. So I’m a kid at heart so there’s that. I enjoy putting scenes together. It is somthing my wife enjoys too, the crafty part of it. I enjoy the train history behind my toys. Exspecially the SR. Now the deep stufff. And a well a gripe. I noticed last few times I was sad to leave Spencer shops. It is like a graveyard to past. Hisory rotting away that no one my age (29) gives a **** about. Everytime we got there I feel some force that the engines prevay to me. “ our fathers magic carpets made of steel” I can keep talking about but yea you get jist. Guess I feel I can honor them in some way in my layouts. Plus my kid is somewhat old enough to like them, which to me feels like it gives daddy the ok to drop the money on high end stuff.
each locomotive has a history and one day the new and well my generation won’t care. When I go into shops and talk to the good ole timers, I always get this look that I’m to young and sadly to late to the hobby
Hang in there, Pennywise. Many of us old timers would love to bring more people your age into the hobby.
Speaking of horror memorabilia, you may be able to combine some horror into your layout. A few years ago, I went to a nice Halloween train display near where I live in Yorktown Heights, NY. They had some scary figures and scary scenes that everyone enjoyed, especially the kids.
Speaking of horror, I went through a sadistic phase as a kid that included tying figures (from my older sister's doll house) to Lionel track and running them over with Lionel locomotives. I got this idea from cartoons I used to watch where the villain (was it Dudley Doright?) would tie a girl to the railroad track. I also remember using string to make hangman's nooses and hanging my sister's doll house figures from a Lionel signal bridge. I didn't think of this, but another horror idea would be to take those dollhouse figures, tie them to a miniature chair, run wires from them to a ZW, and electrocute them!
