I have found a set of my childhood Lionel trains in a mislabeled storage box in my parents' attic. These date from approximately 1956-1958, and so they have not been run for about 60 years. Unfortunately my steam engine (Lionel 2035) survived only in fragments. What happened to my track, switches, and structures remains a mystery. 
Replies sorted oldest to newest
The cars appear to be in good shape. Often hot attics degrade the plastic.
Sorry to here about the Lionel 2035 which is a great engine. You can replace it easily for a reasonable price if you want to make the old set whole.
Charlie
My grandfather always kept his in his attic, and he moved to Texas in 1980 (which was the hottest summer on record for DFW). I'm still amazed that nothing was damaged when he gave everything to me
Awesome feeling regaining a bit of the childhood collection; isn't it?
I've had those too, but only the tanker and gondolas survived from that grouping, and not in so nice a condition. (I wore my 2-6-4 engine out twice, it shows in the looseness and scratches of the surviving cars too 
)
Great find do you have the operating accessories to go with the milk car and cattle/horse car?
Those cars appear to be from the early 1950’s, not the later ones. The 2035 was an early-fifties loco, too. Nice find!
What a fine set of cars!!
Andre
Luckily the attic was in Maine. I have the milk cans and the little cows but not the two operating stands. As seen in pictures I have added loads to the gondolas and hopper. I also found the automatic lumber car (#3451) with logs but it's broken.
Rick
You have the foundation of a great train layout. All you need is track, transformer and engine.
Please keep us posted on your progress. Have fun and enjoy.
What a fun surprise. Fortunately, you can round out this collection inexpensively on eBay. It's a buyer's market. Very little competitive bidding now with the stock market crash.
Alan
Access to this requires an OGR Forum Supporting Membership
