Boy's Life train articles

Can you post some links to archives or similar Malcolm?

I well-remember reading Boy's Life as a kid but don't remember the train articles. Would love to see them.

Yeah, I remember "Boys Life" magazine and always followed the articles on the HO railroad. I think it might have been Lynn Wescott driven or I could be confused after 50+ years. Great reading for young minds IMHO. I especially remember the Remington 22 ammunition cartoon ads where the boy was always saving someones life by shooting the head off a rattlesnake. Ahhhhhh, those were the days! No Nintendo, cell phones, video games or other electronics to clutter young minds. You had to use your imagination and hands to build what you wanted. 

Butch 

"You'll shoot you're eye out!"

Rusty

I've been searching for the ones that had the advertisements for the conversion to make your bicycle ride on abandoned railroad tracks, lol!

What great memories of a real America. 

I hung onto a few from the early '60's and still like to read them once in awhile. The articles got me to leave O-gauge for while, and build a couple of HO layouts, (which I still have- a 4 x8), but couldn't stray far from my roots. My dad had a 4 x 8 (or maybe 5 x 9 layout which hung on nails in our basement. It came down and was set up right after Thanksgiving, and lasted through January in my bedroom. I still have home movies of me operating it. It had some classic Lionel pieces, such as the 97 coaling station, the milk and cattle cars, magnetic crane, water tower, rotating beacon, and oil derrick. I now have most of those on my layout, but 90's remakes. Great memories.

BTW, I still have my Boy Scout Handbooks from the 50's and 60's.

Artie

I got the book.

And the badge.

My small town Boy Scout Troop never made it to a Jamboree, nor did any of us,

including me, that I know of, win any merit badges, but we did camping trips,

and set me off on years of camping around the U.S., and even Europe.  As for Daisy

BB guns, I and my brother had the cheapest lever action, not the 500 shot one,

and once we got into a shootout with kids down a hill across a wooded pasture

on a street below us, who had the pump action, and more powerful, air rifles.

We didn't lose any eyes, but we were underarmed and got shot to pieces and

were forced to retreat under fire.  My dad, always a gun nut and hunter, when

a kid was out in the woods on the farm with his sister and somehow managed

to have his thumb over the muzzle, shot his thumb,  bled profusely, and then passed out.  His sister had to drag him back to the farmhouse for treatment across a large

field.  So you can get hurt with those things.  I don't remember any trains in Boys'

Life, but remember reading it.

There was an article for building manual 3-rail switches / turnouts. I built a pair, worked fine, but somewhere over the years I lost the article. Wish I had it back.

I remember those articles. In fact, I have 2 or 3 of them saved somewhere in my files. One of them described how to built a realistic looking track bumper for the end of a track.

 I still have a couple of those bumpers I built, using cardstock, straight pins, and white glue.

Jeff