Have you ever found o gauge trains?

By "found" do you mean fished out of someone's garbage, stolen (goodness, I hope not), or maybe bought for 50 cents at a flea market?

 

All the trains I own, I purchased.  

 

 

I find them in stores, at shows, and on the internet. I don't think I have anything that wasn't found by somebody.

Wow, sort of an open Question. In the 1970's, we attended Garage Sales, Flea Markets, and went into Old Hardware Stores Looking for Old Toy Trains....Yes, some folks gave them away, however for the most part, we bought them for a really good price...Those were the Days my Friend, we thought They Would Never End......Now, we really Pay...

Most of the old trains worked, or could be easily repaired....Good Question.

 

 

Just recently a friend brought me a 2035 that her boyfriend found in the trash. It just needed some TLC and one side rod.
I wonder what else was in that trash bin.

Once I found miscellaneous Plasticville items and small Lionel items in junk bins at a Goodwill clearance place, sold by the pound. I found enough pieces to make a couple buildings and kitbash a couple more.

My daughter found a box of Lionel trains at the local St Vincent DePaul thrift store.  The box included a 2026 and its whole set of cars, a 621 and its whole set of cars, a work caboose, loads of 027 track, two transformers, a postwar Lionel water tank, yard light, and crossing signal.  She gave them to me for Christmas 2013.  Nothing needed external cleaning.  After gear cleaning and relubing, they both run great.  She got it all for $10.  I went back and made a nice donation.

I remember that song Larry, Mary Hopkins, late '60s.  Excellent!

Yes, that was a great Song...Everything has changed over the last 50 Years. Those deals of a Lifetime are Few and Far Between.  The old toy trains of YesterYear are simply plain compared to the Hi Technoloy of today...There is a market for both, but, those bargain basement sales are rare.  It is fun to hunt though......Happy Railroading...

I had a friend who worked with the town garbage pick up doing the summer school breaks back in the 60's, hoping to find trashed trains. He found a lot of trains that way.

My guess as to why old trains in serviceable condition get tossed is that when engine stops running due to dirty wheels and track, it is then considered "broken" and that's the end of it (especially in today's throwaway world).  I have not found any O gauge trains in this manner, but most of my HO fleet is from people who were otherwise going to garage-sale them or throw them out.  I don't recall if they stated that their respective sets were broken or not; most of the locomotives did require some work, and one was even in pieces minus a couple of axles, but all of them are now active members of my HO fleet.  (The Life-Like F7 got converted to a dummy though, due to a bad motor.)

when I was growing up, we lived next to the cemetery, in a rural area. the county road we lived on was safe for bike riding, so I used to ride my bike there, plus it was on a hill, and I could sit and watch the barges coming up the river. One day I rode down to the older part of the crematory, and was looking at some of the headstones. dates from the early 1800s.

I noticed a car stopped over by the dump where old flowers were tossed. after the car left, I rode over. I saw a couple boxes, so being a nosy kid, I had to check them out. I found a green Rock Island 6464,3656 operating cattle car,2419 work caboose,a coffin style Prewar whistle tender, and a beat up Santa Fe B unit. I'll bet I stayed there half an hour making sure I didn't miss anything.

Well I like to thank all who replys.I have never found any trains I wished I had thou.But you hear stories that people finding trains.There was a story were a few guys went into a house that going to be torn  down And found And found some old trains.That were in pretty good shape,Or some people have found them in trash can.Ever hear of Mr Kuhn  who later went on to own  lionel for a while.

Although I have not found anything, my son found a box of Lionel trains in an historic home he was restoring.  The house had not been lived in or open since the early sixties.  There was a 2026 and about a dozen misc cars.  It appeared that these were used by children because all the cars and engine had Georgia red clay on their wheels and undersides so they must have been playing with them outside in the mud

 

He gave them to me for Christmas.  After a very good cleaning they looked great and amazingly, there was nothing broken on any of the cars.  The engine worled great after a really good clean and lubrication job. 

 

He found the trains in a pile of debris removed from the house. 

 

It it was a very nice Christmas morning indeed.

 

Ed

My wife "finds" them when she's looking for places to hide her new shoe boxes.

Other than train shows and LHS,  I have never found any trains outside of my house.

I have found several inside of my house. 

It is sad, but I have bought a train item I really "needed ", got home to put my new treasure away and "found" the same item already there.

So yes, technically I have found trains before.

Yes - A lot of my friends and family find train stuff at garage sales and pick it up for my train room. Even my neighbors drop off stuff. Tonight my neighbor from down the street had relatives over from Vermont and they called and ask to come over and I always try to say yes. They had two small children and they got a lot of hands on, with the Lionel Chief Plus, locomotives.

   Yes - It all seems to work or run.

Gary

Cheers from The

I found a few pre-war items in the common storage area of an apartment building back in the 70's. One passenger car, missing one truck and well mangled, an orange switch tower with a red roof and one of the pea green tall floodlight towers with brass floodlights that was missing one light. The car was junk, and I traded the switch tower and floodlight tower to a friend for some postwar. Both of us kept looking for a brass floodlight to replace the missing one, but we never found one. I guess he still has the "one eyed tower" as we came to call it.

 

When we were dating, I called my wife one day after a train show and told her what I bought. About an hour later she called to tell me she found her brothers train in the attic. It turned out to be a prewar 248 orange electric with two cars. It was played with but in overall good condition. Today I tell everyone it is the most expensive train in my collection - I had to marry her to get it!   

 

It happens once in a while when I'm cruising antique shops looking for fan guts or other old things... 

 

Or on fleabay with the Marx Monon FM and the recently found super minty Hafner 1010 set.

 

 

Hafner

 

Monon, 2/3 the way down

 

It just happens at the best and worst of times. I remember I found some pretty awesome Lionel tinplate stuff at a local antique mall. Went back the next week (after my finances had been fixed for another two weeks) and it had been sold.

     I was driving to work one morning and saw the orange boxes on top of some trash cans. I went around the block parked the truck went up and knocked on the door. A elderly woman answered the door and I asked if I could have the trains in the trash. She said yes because her husband had passed and the children did not want them. I thanked her turned around to go get the trains and A car pulled up and the guy jumped out picked up the trains ran back to his car threw them in the back seat and took off. MISSED BY THAT MUCH!!!!!!!!!!!!! Just my luck!!!!!!!!!!!!! Take care Choo Choo Kenny

My Grandmothers Commodore Vanderbilt buried in a dirt floor garage.

 

 

Helped my parents renovate their retirement home they bought about 15 yrs ago.  Pulling off the old Sheetrock,  an American Flyer box fell out of the wall.  It was a never opened operating lumber car.  Had a Christmas bow still on it.  The best we could figure,  someone bought it for a Christmas gift, wrapped it, and stored it in the attic. But, it fell down into the wall cavity in the old house, waiting for us to find it.

We don't have any S gauge stuff, so sold it on eBay for a nice sum,  and used the money to pay for the end of renovation dining.

I just remember some thing I was talking to a coworker.Said her sons had some trains about 42 cars.She said she might give them to me.They are packed away in her dads home.Her dad has pass away years ago.And she told me the trains might be lionel.Or might be marx trains.But only time will tell.

My girlfriend gave me some marx trains her mom had bought over the years from thrift shops. I got a red wind up loco and some two rail track for it plus some older tin plate marx. i will sell it off at some point. She also gave me a Standard Gauge Ives set(with a OLD American Flyer Transformer)I have to rewire the loco and I cannot tell her brother that she gave it to me!Very Cool.

 

Two that come to mind was a vaguely listed lionel Hogwarts express on ebay. such a poor picture I had too look up the versions of the box to find out if it was the O or G version (it was the O).  Anyway, I took a chance and ended up getting it for $60.  The set was in outstanding condition in the original box and shipper, the track just needed a good cleaning.  I'm assuming this was a Christmas gift that some kid lost interest in quickly.

 

The other one came from when a friend of the family contacted me.  His boss wanted to sell his childhood Lionel trains and he had suggested the guy sell to me.  I couldn't get any pictures, but he sent me a list of car numbers.  It ended up being a cheaper postwar set, the numbers escape me, but I remember it was the small plastic steam loco with the orange stripe.  So being completely sight unseen I offered him $35.  He accepted and boy did I get a deal.  The set was mint in the set box with all of the individual boxes!  I guess the story was he got them as a Christmas present, ran them for a few loops, then the transformer blew up, so they packed them away and forgot about them. 

To my surprise, also included was a well used green tin marx passenger set with a clockwork engine and a cheap, but in great condition, battery powered Japanese tin freight set than ran on o gauge track (though couldn't get that one running).  Anyway, ended up selling everything on ebay for a very big profit margin.  I told my friend and offered to give his boss a percentage or something, but I was told not to worry because they were going to end up in the trash if I wasn't interested.

The only O-gauge item I've ever found was an incomplete Lionel crane car (on the railroad tracks I was walking before I knew better).  I fixed it up and gave it to my son.  It turned out to be his favorite car,

 

A friend who worked the city trash truck found a perfectly good Lionel 1666 atop a can once.  No tender, but the loco ran fine.

 

A friend saw a 4X8 layout at the curb and just removed the 022 switches.

 

My late repairman/painter/train dealer noticed a Flyer set out for garbage pickup one time, knocked on the house door and offered money for it.  He was told to just take it, as no one had any use for it.

I was recently digging in Scott Smith's backyard and unearthed some trains that were buried there, and in good condition. I can only guess how they got there, but now they are mine! Sorry Scott.

 

Erol Gurcan  

Erol,

Could you elaborate more on where, and what you found? Condition? Or have you told the story in another thread?(helpful keywords to search with?) 

 Being literally buried in the earth, isn't exactly a common way to find trains.

   I'll look for a past thread with the long version of my story later today too.

 

 I know over time(50yr), the dirt and dust had buried the boxed CV set I found in that garage(a former carriage house).

 

 My guess would be a garage/shed/cellar/etc. may have stood where you found those.

 

When Madison Hardware closed there was an entire dumpster filled with train debri, 3 foot deep by eight foot wide and twenty foot long, rotted, scrunched together. boilers, trucks, wet squashed Lionel cartons. I got some trucks and some motors. It was almost as if the people who removed the material from the building deliberately smashed every piece with as sledge hammer.

 I forgot about one I spotted atop a garbage can while driving along.

Not a looker, but runs great now.

 

 Tin can cab roof, brass drawbar, and the worn out valve gear had to be covered to keep it from falling apart as it ran. No amount of tweaking could keep it seated on the guides long.

Across the road from my rural home is an abandoned garage, made inaccessible many years ago when they cut the hill to level the road.  In that garage I found a prewar Lionel # 1107 Donald Duck rail car.  Unfortunately the composite figures of Donald and Pluto had long ago disintegrated and were beyond recovery.  Paint had flaked off most of the sheet metal but the litho ID tag was still in great shape.  The clockwork still works fine as does the quacking mechanism.  I restored what I could, hoping that some day original figures can be found.

 

Bruce

A Club member brought home a MTH Railking Ten Wheeler starter set for only 25 dollars at a non-Train Related Swap meet.