strangest place you've found a train item

I found half of a Lionel postwar crane car (6460/6560) between the ties while walking on DL&W RR tracks.  (I know, I know, but it was 50 years ago.  What did I know?)  I was able to fit replacement trucks and cab to it, and gave it away.

 Found a Lionel 3665 missle launching car on the grass near the base of a tree in Central Park NYC about 1965. Some kid probably brought it to the park to play and left it behind. Thanks for bringing up this old but happy memory.

I know an odd place that has a Lionel scout set caboose.  The house I lived in when we lived in So Cal was cinder block construction. It had a set of windows high on a wall against the vaulted ceiling. I set my train up on the window bottom...not knowing the tops of the cinder blocks were left open. I bumped the caboose and it disappears! It fell down an open block.....I was never able to fish it out....the house is still there along with a Lionel caboose!

my LHS!

seriously though, mom and i were cleaning up grandpa's house as he's in an old folks home now and in a store room in the basement i found an old railroad lantern (like the ones that one forumite is selling). strange as gramps never had a thing to do with the railroad (even though it's mere yards from his house. read the inscription on the bottom, done with that red tape stuff and found out my great grandpa used to push coal cars in the 1930's for the CPR. same guy worked in an underground mine and hauled cut timbers 3 at a time over his shoulder down to the cutting face. almost 7 feet tall and 400 pounds easy. i remember seeing him walk sideways through a doorframe because his shoulders wouldn't fit. lantern is on my bookshelf. awesome stuff, thanks for the memory.

In a feed store along Broadway in Galveston TX.

I went to visit a loved ones grave. After I had my moment of silence I looked at a nearby grave and near the headstone was a N scale Santa Fe warbonnett engine and a little card that read "MISS YOU POP POP". I was very touched by what his grandchildren thought of him.

One night after teaching karate, I had a man come up to me and say he had something he wanted to show me. Well, in his car was a box labeled "1980's Playboys". I told him I was not interested in those sort of magazines (especially ones which are older than I am), and then he opened the box and it was filled with old track, transformers, and some Marx cars.

 

We also found an old railroad inspection lantern in my great-grandmother's garage. I imagine it came home from the NJ Zinc Co.