Getting trains from a relative that has past on

I did. Wife's uncle. Restored them to running condition. Bought repro boxes. Run them at Christmas time. 

E-UNIT-79 posted:

I did. Wife's uncle. Restored them to running condition. Bought repro boxes. Run them at Christmas time. 

That sounds cool.

I have my dad's Lionel 249 from 1936. He received the set as a Christmas gift when He was 10. It still runs great but has some paint loss as expected. No dents. I often consider stripping and doing a new repaint. Then I always seem to reconsider. I will probably just leave it alone and preserve the memories.  I will bet the new stuff being sold today wont run in 82 years from now. I have Lionel that wont even operate after 6 months.

The majority of my collection was my Dad's. He started collecting in the 60's and I watched him build the collection, often going with him to visit people who responded to his "Old toy trains wanted" ads in the local paper, and started going to York with him in 1979. When he died in 2001, he left the collection to me. 

With the exception of 2 trains, we run everything. The 2 shelf queens are the Lionel scale PRR switcher and scale NYC Hudson. We don't have any T-rail track, so those 2 stay on the shelf. The oldest train in the collection is a Lionel Standard Gauge #51 steamer, and at approx. 100 years old, it runs very well. 

John

This was my dad’s 2367.  It gets a lot of run time.

Strange timing.......

I will travel about 6 hours next week to pick up my father in laws train collection. It's a lot of stuff....not sure of all of it. I know he had a large Pennys centered book collection, a large collection of high end HO scale PRR locomotives, some PW Lionel and a fair amount of O scale kit built items. All I really know is I was told to bring my F-150 and maybe a trailer.....we'll see.......

Side note I will consider it a honor to get the collection.  He was a WWII vet that freed a number of concentration camps and won a Purple heart.

seaboardm2 posted:

I have been wondering about this.Has any body ever got train from a family member that has died?Do you operate them or keep on the shelf?Lets hear from you guys.

UUmmmm.....it's " passed on " .......

Well, yes and no.  My father left for a better world ten years ago, but his childhood Lionel 252 and its three passenger cars have been in my immediate family's possession since 1955.  It didn't run when Dad brought it home from his mother's attic, and, as Dad was never very comfortable about working with small mechanisms, he never did get it running.

Fast forward to 2010, when I retired.  My mother was cleaning out her own attic, and she brought me a cardboard box containing the 252, mostly disassembled and looking very forlorn indeed.  The wheels were crumbling away with Zinc Rot, the motor wouldn't run (or even turn by hand) and most of the trim pieces and one coupler were missing.

I almost gave it up as a lost cause, but a flash of good judgment came over me and I took it.  First thing I did was look closely at the motor.  As it turned out, both of the brushes were loose, and jammed in the armature.  I cleaned the brushes and their sockets, put them back where they belonged and, to my amazement, the motor began to spin, for the first time in my lifetime.

That was all I needed to convince me that the 252 could be brought back to life after all.  A month or so of work and a lot of orders to The Train Tender later, it was complete and operating again.  Like JINI5 above, I considered repainting it, but decided to leave the original paint alone.  I generally run it at Christmas time, and I hope that somehow, Dad can see it.

When I was about 8 I received a 1947 Lionel set (headed by #2026) plus extras from my dad's 2nd cousin.  He has since passed.  It is what got me to make the switch from HO to O gauge.

We had my dad's mid-60s Lionel set which never worked (headed by #242), it was in the original box so he sold it.  A couple years back I replaced the set for him as a Christmas present.

My uncle recently moved and has always had some 1980s/1990s Lionels stashed away for "someday".  He admitted he was probably never going to set them up again, so he asked me to sell them; I ended up giving him a flat rate for everything.  Besides the "modern" stuff there were quite a few postwar "projects" that were basket cases.  He was very good at restoring antiques (cars, guitars, clocks, etc) but had a thousand and one projects he was never going to get to.  We recently found another box of trains in his basement that had some stuff he had in his old office including the Harry Potter set, postwar Santa Fe F3 and SF 622 switcher (or similar), MPC B&M GP9s, and some odds and ends.  There's also an older Lionel G scale set he usually set up around the Christmas tree.  My uncle is in the last stages of Gleoblastoma.  I know eventually the remaining trains will come to me, but I will offer to buy them from my aunt when the time is right.

In all these cases, I'm an operator, so if I ain't going to run it, I usually sell it so I can get something I like.  I do still have all of my dad's 2nd cousin's set because they are all cars and accessories I like to run.

A good friend of mine left me his trains, a 1956 Milwaukee Road Geep and freight cars, upon his death from pancreatic cancer in 2004. Another friend gave me two nice Marx sets because his family had no interest in them. I run everything.

Dad gave me his trains several years ago. He's still with us. I run his trains through out the year. My Uncle Jim (Dad's brother) left his trains to me in his will. Unfortunately I got them way too soon. I have his train board that was set up at my Grandparents every Christmas, ans I still lay on the floor under the tree and watch the 2020 Turbine and the rest of his trains.

The rest of year they are displayed on shelves with Dad's trains

Jim Berger posted:

seaboardm2 posted:

I have been wondering about this.Has any body ever got train from a family member that has died?Do you operate them or keep on the shelf?Lets hear from you guys.

UUmmmm.....it's " passed on " .......

Some folks cannot grasp spelling.

An editor of a local train club newsletter always wrote that someone "pasted away." I always imagined a kindergartner with a paste pot and a brush busily making an arts/crafts scrapbook.

This was Uncle Jim's Marx CV. After I got it, I found out the "Rest of the Story" from Dad. My Grandmother had worked at GC Murphy during WWll. She got it for Dad for Christmas for $1. Dad later passed it down to Uncle Jim. 

I inherited my Grandfather's collection when he passed. It was rather substantial. About 60% tinplate, Oga and STD, and 40% postwar.

I have my Dad's 2 postwar sets, his pw rolling stock & his ZW.  I run them but take extra care with them. His ZW gets use daily, as it powers my current layout after a rebuild a few years ago. I always like to run them & hope he could see or know the enjoyment I get from his trains

My wife has her grandfathers Lionel and American Flyer trains and since we are starting to finish out our basement she asked if I would be interested in running them. So I started building an around the room platform the next week before she changed her mind.

Jim Berger posted:

seaboardm2 posted:

I have been wondering about this.Has any body ever got train from a family member that has died?Do you operate them or keep on the shelf?Lets hear from you guys.

UUmmmm.....it's " passed on " .......

I will keep that in mind jim.

Hey guys!Thanks for all your reply.It made for some good reading.

I inherited all of my Grandfather's post war Lionel trains.  I have all of the locomotives on shelves and I pull them down from time to time and run them.  They all run, and run well!  I use some of the rolling stock on my layout.  I love them all, they bring back good memories.

Hmm, I'm old enough to have inherited my old trains.

My dad's trains are long gone but our RR memories are vivid and will linger  forever. 

Even now, I can sense him looking over my shoulder as I am presently working on "our" layout.

It's neat seeing all the fine thoughts expressed here..........

My great grandpa's family's first train set was given to me before he passed mid-2000's. Consists of 224E, 2224E, 2652, 2654, and 2657. I've been told from my grandfather that my great grandpa and some uncle's I've never met swapped the prewar trucks and couplers to postwar to accommodate a car to go with the set. My goal is to find some prewar trucks and couplers and put them back. (Photo is of the set.)

In addition, after one of my uncle's passed, my grandfather stored most of his trains and non train toys in our attic and I am preparing to dig through them and see what kind of a collection they built over the years.

December 2009 a box arrived from my oldest brother. Marked DO NOT OPEN UNTIL CHRISTMAS, my then 4yo son was beside himself and even my then-Labrador puppy was nibbling at it. My brother finally relents and tells us to open it on December 15th and inside we find a complete Lionel PW set from 1956 in perfect condition, with the smoke pellets and original receipt. Turns out it belonged to my sister-in-law's Grandfather and was sitting in my bro and sis-in-law's garage, as that had become the temporary storage site for all the stuff left in my sis-in-law's Mom's house when she was moved into a nursing home. And, while it technically wasn't his, that same brother passed away from brain cancer 10 months later and, in his honor, we still refer to it as the Uncle Ray Train…

The closest I ever came to owning a deceased person's trains was going to look at the stuff owned by a former coworker's deceased husband. It would have been a very nice set, headed up by a black 238E, but there was significant moisture damage. The lady was an EBayer, but unfamiliar with grading trains, so she had unrealistic expectations on value.
I thought it best to educate her a bit, and not even make an offer. I think she did sell them on EBay.

I had some the trains that were in the basement of an uncle's house for several years. There was a 10 passenger set, along with many add-on pieces, including Ives and American Flyer. Over time I cleaned them up as much as possible without removing the original finish, and replaced missing pieces like couplers. (We had them running at my uncle's house using paper clips to join the cars). Eventually they were returned to my uncle's son, to whom the trains actually belonged. He put them out on display.

I've already told the tale of my father's #252 and its passenger cars.  But I'd be remiss if I didn't also mention the Lionel #1700 streamline passenger set that belonged to my maternal grandfather.

Granddad Bob was an outstanding hobbyist, craftsman and skilled miniature worker.  In fact, I sometimes wonder if I inherited some of his abilities.  In any case, he built a very elaborate Christmas train platform layout that he erected every year for his three daughters (my mother and her two sisters).  It was the Depression, so he couldn't afford much in the way of rolling stock, and what he bought was a "Lionel Jr." (027) silver streamlined set.

Cigarettes took Granddad's life much too soon, at the age of 48, in 1951.  And when he went, the components of the Christmas layout were scattered far and wide.  My sister and I have the miniature wooden structures he crafted, but no one knows where the rest ended up.

But after some inquiries in the Nineties, I found that my aunt Mary Lou had gotten the silver streamliner.  Neither of my cousins (her two sons) have any interest in trains, so it sat in storage for many years till about ten years ago, when, at my request, she brought it with her when visiting my mother and gave it to me.

Granddad always kept things in top shape, so the #1700 is pretty much mint -- with one odd exception: the third-rail contact skates were missing.  After it came into my hands, I cleaned and lubed the mechanicals, then ordered a pair of skates from Jeff Kane (The Train Tender, for those who don't know), and installed them.  It was very satisfying, to see it circling the track for the first time in years unknown.

I keep it on a display shelf most of the time these days, along with my father's #252 and its cars.  There they live in honored retirement, coming out at the holidays to reminisce about the glories of Christmases past.

I don't have any pictures of it (if it ever stops raining here in the East, I'll take it outside and remedy that lack), so here's a reference photo of a #1700 set that I grabbed off the net: