I've got blisters on my fingers

It was Christmas morning a long, long time ago. In front of the Christmas tree was what I believe to be a dealer display layout built on Masonite board. It was painted green with roadways in black. Plasticville buildings were included in the village. The train was a Lionel Berkshire freight set. That was it, I was hooked. What a wonderful Christmas present.

Christmas, 1956 or57. Just a Lionel Scout set going around in a circle but boy was I hooked. The photo is of me in April of 1959. A 4x8 sheet of wood that my parents let me set up in the living room.

It was an American Flyer Hudson 21130 . My Dad had two loops set up on a very large table and what really "awed" me was when it stop at the Mystic talking station, and the record player played all the cool anouncements... then the engine and  650 type passenger cars when on its way... it had the mail car on front end and would pick up the mail bag too... I got to hit the button on the  american flyer whistle billboard as much as I wanted... very cool... I think I was 5 at the time.

 

 

 

John Lennon, from the White Album, but I can't remember the song.

 

Earliest toy train memory would be watching the little blue man come out of my 027 SF Animated Boxcar. Probably second would be the milk car a few years later. It's no wonder my main interest in collecting were the operating cars and accessories!

Spence, I love seeing those old photos of juvenile train lovers!

Ringo Starr, the White Album, he said this after several takes of Helter Skelter when he literally had blisters on his fingers from playing.

My first memories of trains is very fuzzy but here it goes: I remember going around the corner inback of us and up the street about half a block and my father getting a Marx engine from the guy in a house there. Some how my memory says my father had said the guy had fixxed the engine. the next memory is seeing that Marx engine pulling a Marx train on a low table lay-out in a back room of the our house. I also remember the gentleman that lived two doors down from us having a Christmas lay-out in his Livingroom during the Holidays. When we moved to our new house, when I was seven, Dad purchased a Ping-Pong table and I received another Marx set [militery train] for Christmas. The Ping-Pong table became the base for a lay-out. Every year during the Holiday Season we would go to my Uncles Farm House and he had a lay-out in the basement for my cousins that I would drull over. My Uncle brought a Lionel Set one Christmas and my father found out from my Uncle where He got it and brought me the same set. From that point on I was HOOKED!!!!! Every year I would get a Lionel Catalog and would pick out what I would want and receive some kind of Lionel product [not always what I had picked out though] for Christmas. Look at my Profile for the rest of the story.

J Daddy, it was American Flyer that got me also. My Uncle Sal took me in the basement and WOW, that was it for me.

My first was that Christmas morning when I came downstairs and there was a figure 8 of lionel track w/ a freight train. It was set up on a 4x8 board near the tree in the living room....The transformer was still warm when I got to it .

 

(btw, I believe it was Paul McCartney who made that quote @ the end of Helter Skelter)

artyoung and KevinB, you've won a new Car. I also have a Bridge I like to give the both of you for your layouts.It's in Brooklyn. LOL. I'am not sure which of the Fab Four seed it.I'am lucky that I remember anything from the 60's.

My first was a Lionel 2026, in 1951.  I was three years old.  And I still remember it clearly, because for some reason, I couldn't see it!  There must be a psychological term for it, because a train was absolutely the last thing I ever imagined I would get for Christmas (we had very little money at the time).  My parents kept prodding me to check out the special present that Santa had left under the tree.  But although I looked and looked, I just couldn't see anything unusual.  Maybe because it was black; I don't know.

 

Finally, I did see it.  And I've been seeing it ever since.  It lives in honored retirement on our coffee table today.

 

Yes,  it was actually Ringo.

Turn me on dead man.

wasn't helter skelter a stones tune?

LOL, Helter Skelter was the first thing that came to mind when I read the title of this thread.

 

And at the risk of further thread drift, yes, it was a Beatles song (featured on the White Album), not the Stones, and it was Ringo and not Paul that shouted the blisters on his fingers comment at the end.

My recently married daughter is a vocalist and a harpist.  When she is practicing for a vocal performance, she concentrates solely on that, so that when she gets back to the harp she says she gets blisters on her fingers.

 

She and her husband are huge Beatles fans, needing only one more record, can you believe those are back in vogue, for their collection.  And when we were listening to the Beatles back in the '60s, my mother said that music would never last.  I think Ringo has a better following than Perry Como.

 

That said, I never got a train for Christmas.  Dad told me to save my quarters, and after reading so many Model Railroader magazines, I was drawn to a Tyco Penn Central F3 HO set for $19.95.  That was without a power pack.  I bought a Lionel DC power pack that I still have, Type 100 or 101 (I would have to check).  It works great running my On30 Climax.  All I have left from the train is the WM olive green flatcar without load and brake wheel.  All the rest were damaged beyond saving due to heat in storage when I was in my 20s.  My guess is the plastic didn't warp on the flatcar because it was tight on the metal frame.

what was i thinking of???  

Spence, that is a great photo. So tell us. WHAT THE HECK HAPPEN?…..lol

Ah, ok, it was Ringo who said it, thought it was Paul but I guess he was just the walrus, koo koo kachoo....