Today River City 3 Railers wrapped up our longest running display ever. Wilton Properties was kind enough to allow us to set up our modular layout for the months of December and January. Today we ran from 1:00 - 5:00 PM.
Around 5:30 a Dad with his 5 year old son came to see our layout. We had already closed and I was in the process of packing up buildings. The little fellow was dressed in bib overalls, wearing a BNSF fleece jacket and a Lionel engineer's cap. He was carrying his very special Orange Lionel box. I saw his Dad reading our sign with the operating hours and stating that today was our last day. The little guy's face melted into tears and he melted my heart.
I unlocked the door and asked him "do you want to run your train?" His response though his sniffles was "uh huh". I pulled my Bush 4141 and fired up the main layout. We put his Lionel BNSF on the tracks. He asked where my BNSF cars were. He seemed a little disappointed when I told him I didn't have any (after today, I'll be buying "something" BNSF). All I had was a half dozen Weaver PS-1 "Fallen Flags" box cars, three Harry Potter passenger cars and a Bush 4141 caboose. As soon as his engine was running, he was happy. We ran this consist for about an hour. The little engineer chased the consist continuously around our 20x26 layout.
Ever think about joining a modular club? Wonder what the payback is? Well I lived it today. Wish you could have been there to share this experience. The best run of the season was the last.
Gilly
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Al
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