Here's my story and I'm sticking' to it.
Well, it seems there are a few of us from Philadelphia on the forum with some similarities in our experiences. Dad bought a Lionel 2153WS set for me in 1952(?) along with a KW transformer. The set was priced at $49.95 which doesn’t seem like much now but for a blue collar worker in 1951 what was probably a week’s salary. I’m pretty sure Dad bought the set at Levin’s on Kensington Avenue, in the Harrowgate section where we lived. I still have that set at my house, although it has officially passed on to my oldest son.
Of course, it was a Christmas gift; and, OH, what a Christmas gift. Dad worked in the paperbox industry which meant lots of overtime during the Christmas period. But on Christmas Eve each year, AFTER I went to bed, magic happened. Dad put up the tree and he and Mom decorated it. Then he carried all the components from the cellar (we didn’t have “basements”) and assembled a magical 4x8 train layout with the 2163WS cruising around in the morning when I came down the stairs. He had Plasticville houses, school, station, church, firehouse, store and hand spread gravel roads and walkways. Dad drilled holes in the platform beneath each Plasticville structure, then he inserted special, vampire C-7 sockets through the holes and connected them to the wire beneath the layout. It was mesmerizing for a small boy. Just be careful to keep the Plasticville pieces centered over the bulb or you have melted Plasticville. We lost a few pieces that way.
Back then, I never really appreciated the sacrifices my parents made so that I would have that magic at Christmas. I'm sorry that I never did tell Dad just how much that meant to me. It did, Dad.
Usually, the layout stayed up long after Christmas.
As I got a little older, I started running the trains faster and faster to the point where sometimes the #736 locomotive would launch off the end of the layout. But Dad had a solution. He nailed a 5” strip of masonite up at the end of the layout to contain high speed derailments.
Model trains were not the only trains of interest. I spent many, many hours playing around the Pennsylvania Railroad Mainline tracks at Frankford Junction. Frankford Junction was the point where the PRR mainline turned north towards New York and the Pennsylvania-Reading Seashore Line split to head off to the east into New Jersey. It was a busy, entertaining place for a young boy. Watching the diesels pulling the seashore passenger consist right next to the station platform or going through the tunnel to the platform that was positioned between tracks and allowed you get closer to the thundering magnificence of the GG-1s. What a sight. At night the brakes on those babies glowed almost white hot as they slowed down to start the left hand turn to the north.
If you were VERY lucky, you could put a nickel on the track and after the GG-1 passed, that nickel would be the size of a dollar bill. The luck was in finding it after those monsters rumbled past.
In the late ’50’s and early ’60’s, the layout remained a Christmas standard but the trains became HO; a Rivarossi steamer, a little rubber band driven plymouth switcher and some others. Then came girls and the trains faded.
Off to the military, but even there I found trains; from base to Frankfurt and, on one occasion, the US troop train through East Germany to Berlin.
When my sons were born we were back into trains both O gauge (the MPC Blue Comet) and, then G gauge, with several set as gifts from my wife. Still have those too.
Eventually, I settled back on O gauge and have been there since. When we moved house to closer to our children and grandchildren (8), our new house had a “conservatory” which my wife kindly allocated to me as my Train Room. Well, after two years, I finally have a barren 9’x12’ layout with a 10’ extension. Progress is slow but coming.
I guess the genes passed because both of my sons have a growing interest in O gauge. And, my two year old granddaughter is constantly asking to go see Pop’s big gold one (the PE). She’s getting a Lionchief Plus Thomas set for Christmas.
Thanks for all of the wonderful and engaging stories. They are most heartwarming and bring back many similar, lovely memories. Heh, all of “youz guys” from Philly, a big shout out. We’re in Valley Forge now but still travel to “Wanamaker’s”, now a Macy’s, to see the light show and visit the DIcken’s Village. Any of you ever ride the ceiling monorail at Wanamaker’s toy department?
Merry Christmas, Ron from K&A.