What did they use to talk about in the postwar days?

Chris,

The waters were not as muddy as they are today. The hobbiests were happy with what they bought. The talk was of rolling stock and accessories as you stated and how to make our power units more prototypical. What I remember most is all the talk about the "Good ol' Days".

Conversations were centered around collectability of items, condition and price of those items. 

I would say that in the postwar era, most of us generally saw and played with the trains around the Christmas holiday season. There were a lot of floor layouts around and extending out from the tree, and some on tables that were set up during that time. I didn't have any acquaintances that had a year round setup. Most houses were smaller back then.

As for engines , they all said Lionel Lines except for a few that had Pennsylvania on the tender. Four and six drive wheel engines were common and it didn't make much difference which one you had. O gauge was always more desirable than O27 and the steam engines we wished we had were the turbine because it had a lot of wheels , and the Berkshire because it was the biggest. A lot of us had prewar equipment as well.

Other than steam engines, everyone wanted a GG1 with three Madison cars and a Santa Fe F-3. You had to have a cattle car and a Milk car operating on your layout. Also a crane car and work caboose. The coal elevator was quite popular as well . Not many had a bascule bridge because it was expensive.

On your layout, you had to have at least one pair of switches. Some kids had more than one pair and I don't remember crossings being popular. You could cover the table with grass cloth or loose grass in bags . We could get paper rolls that looked like rocks and stones, to make mountains when crumbled and spread out again. We called it Mountain paper. Crossing Gates were popular.Buildings were usually Plasticville or the Dime store cardboard buildings. They were cheaper than anything you could buy from the Lionel catalog.

As for scale modeling, well it just wasn't all that popular with three rail trains. The one thing I remember kids wanting to do was to get a pair of Lionel Madison cars, power one of then , put pantographs on them , add a headlight and cut circular windows in the car end. We wanted to create a MP54 car train like the PRR operated in real life and something that did not exist in the Lionel catalog. I think that's why the RDCs Budd cars were a success when Lionel first made those.

As for power , we all wanted to have a ZW simply because it could run 4 trains (we seldom had more than 2 tracks) and it was powerful so that there were fewer voltage drops on the track.

I think Pappy got it just about right. As I remember it all we ever spoke about was better accessories and scale items.

As far as electronic control systems I never even heard about Lionel's electronic train until something around the early nineties. Things like that was not even on my radar back in the fifties and sixties. I guess it was so expensive my dad made sure I never heard of it.

Perhaps that is what I am wondering about, I figured the TCA was formed in the 50's and it wasn't by 12 year old boys. Granted there was no internet but there was still the US Mail, club meetings and even York, so given the real lack of difference in what I can see on my postwar collection and human nature being what it is, I am sure there were discussion like what we have now. But when looking at the somewhat limted features and details of postwar items. I was just wondering what they did talk about

I do like  of the response so far though

My friends and I used to argue about the relative merits of Lionel and American Flyer, occasionally nearly to the point of physical violence -  much like the Lionel vs MTH fights now.

We played trains, plain and simple.  We didn't even give a thought to some of the "stuff" that seems to preoccupy the minds of so many hobbyists today.  Of course, we were kids then and we saw things through a kid's eyes (which are infinitely sharper and clearer than those of most adults).

Back then "imagination" was a big part of how we enjoyed our trains.  Lionel's catalogs provided the spark, and our own minds fanned the flames.  Even a simple oval of track could provide the stage for a wide variety of scenarios filled with adventure.

Any discussions we had relating to trains were usually of the Lionel vs. Flyer variety, and those were mostly good-natured jabs taken at one another in our circle of friends and neighbors who had trains of their own.  The communications we received--mostly one-sided--came from the catalogs and from "Toy Trains" and other magazines.  

The local hobby shop--and there were plenty around--was Mecca to us.  That was where dreams came true, and that was where the service person would take care of any problems we might have with our trains (yes, postwar trains were not immune to having problems, although they were far easier to correct). 

It was a VERY different time for children who played with these toys, and it was a different time for what was, back then, a segment of the hobby that was in its relative infancy.

So very true, and in so many ways!

One aspect not mentioned so far is that quite a few of the original founding TCA members were into trains that pre-date Post War Lionel quite a bit. 

The concept of post war Lionel (side topic - anyone know when that term came to be?) was only on the order of a decade old when the TCA was founded in 1954.

Many of the items in the TCA museum with founding members names on the tags in front of them are older turn of the century (or earlier) items.  Clockwork, wooden floor toys, European from that era, etc.

I'm not suggesting none of the founding members were into Lionel PW(It's a fair bet some or even many were).  It's probably not a stretch though to consider many of them from that time would be analogous to the PW collectors now.  The "serious" discussions were more likely related to older items, researching their origins, etc.

-Dave

As Frank53 and a couple of others have noted most of us were kids and just played with the trains.  The biggest "arguements" were over AF vs Lionel.  The "serious" modelers were more likely to be members of clubs that had communal spaces and very large detailed layouts, e.g. NY Society of Model Engineers.  There are still clubs like this, e.g. N.J. Hi Railers and Angels Gate as well as modular clubs like Glancy.  

There was no internet, computers were literally house sized and consumed as much power as a home.  The telephone company didn't even have direct long distance dialing.  If you wanted to meet to discuss trains you had to go meet somewhere.  As the interstate highway was still in its infancy and air travel just starting to "take off" you probably went to any meetings by train.

The weather?

Not in my world were things all rosy.  We all view the times of our childhood (few here were older than late adolescence them) through "Norman Rockwell" glasses, but people are people, it is the nature of humans to want more and to grouse and complain.  On m any days I think this is what our species does best.  People complained about toy trains then, too.

I was five to ten years old in the early fifties, but my Dad included me in a lot of "adult" technical talks and all in the workshop, and I recall my Dad and my best friend Brian's dad talking about toy trains.  They talked endlessly about the things they wishes and tried to improve.  They did not like the way the sliding center pickup on Marx locos wore and broke and my dad was always working on those.  I recall they discussed/complained about the relative merits of tinplate, cast, and plastic - plastic in the new F3s, etc., was, they thought, both good (an insulator) and bad (cheap, prone to crack and warp).  Marx power supplies were a constant point of complaint, although I can't recall why (I still have one from the early 50s that, with a replaced cord, works fine - well, as good as it ever did.)

If you really want to know what people talked about, try looking at old Model Railroad magazines, especially the letters to the editor.

Recently I happen to have been looking at some 1952 issues of Railroad Model Craftsman. Some folks were writing about scratch building locomotives and cars. A big advancement appears to have been working headlights in HO. Some folks were complaining about the move from wood based kits to plastic based kits. Others were complaining about kits being too easy. (So I guess there always has to someone complaining).

I like having all the reference materials that are available today, but in some respects collecting was a lot more fun before they were available and before EBay.

Folks had to do their own research and compare notes. We had to beat the bushes and trade with each other to build a collection.

I remember that besides playing with our trains, a lot of us learned how to 'duck and cover'. At my school we practiced air-raid drills at least once a term. But I still believe that the world in general was a better place to be a kid back then. Life was simpler and the summers were longer. 

The kid next door had o27 and I had regular O.  We used to argue about which was better.  The answer was O (LOL).  He had an F-3 and I had serious F-3 envy.

Those "duck and cover" drills are one of the two strongest memories I have of elementary school.  Have you seen the movie Atomic Café?  All about that period - it has the cartoon of the turtle we all watched ducking and covering, etc.  Bizarre period now, in retrospect, but wow, we practiced a lot!

Things were different, maybe better, maybe not - I imagine someday my grandkids will talk about these 'good ole' days."  Anyway, I would not trade my childhood memories for any other - I loved it.    I recall that I played all though those long summers with a set of very realistic Roy Rodgers Colt six-guns (can't do that today) and wore a coon-skin cap (can't do that either - animal cruelty), and built models of big winged rockets that would take me on adventures to far off planets (nobody seems to care about space exploration anymore).

quote:

Those "duck and cover" drills are one of the two strongest memories I have of elementary school.  Have you seen the movie Atomic Café?  All about that period - it has the cartoon of the turtle we all watched ducking and covering, etc.  Bizarre period now, in retrospect, but wow, we practiced a lot!

Folks interested in Atomic warfare and such might be interest in the following two places:

http://www.nationalatomictestingmuseum.org/

http://www.titanmissilemuseum.org/

So when is the postwar era going to end? 

It ended with Annette's death.

And it sort of ended the first time with her beginning.

Gerry

"Do you know how many more engines and sets we could afford to buy if this stuff were made in China??"

- Mike

As Alan M. stated "imagination" was a big part. Well, it's still alive and kickin'

as my great-grandson and I experienced recently. 5yrs and 70+yrs !!

I remember it this way -- for three seasons of the year, we didn't talk about anything, we played outside, all the time.

In the winter, when it was dark out, we played with our toys.  As Thanksgiving neared, the Lionel's came out, the layout set up, and we ran trains.  We talked about what additional train items, and other toys, Santa might bring on Christmas morning.

After New Years, when school started back up, we longed for Spring, and to be outside more and more.

And yes, there was Annette, and Darlene, and many more.

Good thread.

Since my Lionel train recollection only goes back to the early 70s, I can echo what JohnsGG1 has said.  Little was even thought of as trains were concerned until November.

Then it was all out.  I used to look at 50s catalogs and was thinking I could still pick stuff out.  Didn't care about whether it was correct or not as we just played with them.  My immediate family was the only train conversations I really had.

In the 1950's, collecting toy trains as we came to know it after the 1970's and onward was not really that popular. Folks that were doing it were looking for Blue Comets , State Sets, Hiawathas, the 700E Hudson from Lionel, Ives Standard and O gauge, there was a nice electric locomotive I recall, American Flyer Wide Gauge, Pre Gilbert era American Flyer O gauge, Bing Carrette, Haffner,and Dorfan items. Before TCA and York, These folks met up at Ed Alexanders Barn in Pennsylvania and spread the trains on a Blanket. I think there was a lot of trading then.

If you wanted Lionel O Gauge and even some Pre-war O gauge , You could still buy it new well after it was dropped from the line from places like Madison Hardware. There were only a handful of Lionel Postwar items that were considered collectable in those days and most kids didn't know much about them or even having a desire to have these items, save for the Madison cars.There was much more playing then collecting.

In the postwar period, ie 1950s or so, it was about Imagination. When Lionel more or less stopped making the trains about 1970 or so and General Mills came along and started to do it again, the postwar collecting began to build in popularity because it was those kids from the 1950s that wanted to have play with those trains once again. When new and like new examples were obtained, they started staying in the box. Some New stuff from the early 1970s , especially the accessories were made in very small quantities. The collecting hobby sort of heated up from the 70's into the 90s when trains had more operating features and we began to play with trains once again. And that sort of brings us to where we are today.

I think there were only two or three kids that I knew that had electric trains when I was growing up.  If they didn't live within walking distance the only thing you did was talk about the trains which wasn't that much fun. 

Very few people had trains and even fewer had a sheet of plywood for a "permanent" layout.  If the plywood was painted green or had some died saw dust on it you were very, very lucky and would have been considered a "master" modeler in those days.

What did "we" talk about back then re this hobby??...]

My neighborhood buddies and I argued about Lionel and American Flyer merits/accessories.  But, after seeing photos and articles about this guy named John Allen and his incredible HO layout, the Gorre & Daphetid, we started to wonder whether we were in the 'wrong' scale!!!???!!!

THEN, this guy, Gordon Varney, started posting advertisements about his HO products on the back cover of Model Railroader magazine featured in scenic vignettes from John Allen's model railroad.  The mind started to numb.  The satisfaction with the 2343, 736, 2332, etc. started to fade.  The application of math indicating that trains 1/2 the size we were used to would result in twice as much layout/scenery as we had been familiar with.

Then, we started seeing these incredible BRASS steam engine models from early importers...M.B. Austin, Akane, Gem, et al.  So much for zamac diecastings!!!....the 'bar' had been raised, detail was IN.

And, so, HO won out.

Of course, college, marriage, job, family, ...life...mitigated all that for quite a while.

About 40 years later I came to my senses, realized that manual and ocular dexterity was not what it once was, and...at least for trains...bigger WAS, indeed, better.  By then, too, I realized that no matter how small the scale, you'd never be able to model a transcontinental railroad in half a basement!!  (Duh.)

So, in the 'executive summary' version....it was all about HO.

IMHO, of course...

KD

We rarely talked about the trains back in the 50's. we just ran them and had fun. Got back into the trains in the 70's and it has been fun since. 

As a small child, I remember my first train set (acquired second hand) was assembled by my grandfather, and a one-armed friend of his, on the floor of his finished attic bedroom.  Kind of hot in the summers of Columbus, Ohio, but still fun.  Eventually a 4x10 train board was constructed in the basement and placed on wooden horses whenever I visited in the summer.  I, and my friends, would build and rebuild layouts whenever it rained or was just too hot outside.  My friends and I would bike to the local Columbus hobby shop (on Cleveland Avenue in Linden neighborhood) and discuss what I should ask to supplement "our" railroad for ****.

Eventually, all that equipment made it to our house basement, soon to be boxed up until I married. Once stably married (another long story), we bought our first house (with a basement), brought the trains there (still boxed) and had children.  Still only run around an **** tree, but bought **** cars for each child and grandchild.  So, consist is Lionel 2056, 6 **** cars and caboose, and all the little kids loved to operate the whistle.  Subsequently acquired (by gift) my brother-in-law's postwar set and stored it in boxes.

Recently, my mother gave up her home and I acquired the old train board.  Hope to clear some space in basement to put up board on those wooden horses and run some trains soon.

The issues as I recall back in the day:

1. Why couldn't Lionel O-gauge look the same as HO? Model Railroader had some terrific night shots of trains that blew me away. Especially John Allen.

2. I went to Madison Hardware in 1971 to look at a J-746 N&W loco, which had been $50 in 1958 and the price had escalated to $400. I also saw a SP GS-4 at Wanamaker's for $400.00 in 1977 and wondered why it wasn't $50 like its N&W cousin. Thus: price became an issue (for me). 

3. Lionel symbolized childhood and I had to have a period of denial, as, starting in 1966 I dated, went to college and law school and traveled (Europe via Euro-rail; back-packing and hitch-hiking around the continent-4 times in four years; visiting the then-Communist countries, etc. etc. etc). Then one day I awoke and said "I want my Lionel trains." This was after I married in 1973. I went through an HO period, which was not satisfactory and then went full-blast into Lionel in 1976. The issue, therefore, was youth, adulthood, rebirth of youth. I am now 63 and am very much still young. So, the third issue was, that I struggled with integrating Lionel into my (then) nascent adulthood.

4. These issues resolved themselves. A (then) $400 locomotive amortized over many decades is really cheap, considering the satisfaction derived. Hi-rail entered the equation, with "old school" post-war style trains earning (and deserving) new respect. I integrated childhood and adulthood into one package.  

As a child in the 50's, the only time I ever gave any thought whatsoever to the weather was wondering if it would snow enough for us kids to make tunnels to crawl through, or enough to mean we were in-business shoveling neighbors' sidewalks and porches, enough to go sled riding, or enough to close school.

Otherwise, we were too busy to notice anything as mundane as the weather.

Oh, except for during the summer. If a particular day was going to be really hot, then we knew we needed to take bottles (glass) or "army-style" canteens along w/ us for the many hikes we took into adventureland around our new post-war neighborhoods.

Plus, we were always on the lookout for mud/dirt piles to wrestle/wallow in or turn into turnpikes to push our cars-n-trucks throughout, on our hands-n-knees. For real.

FRankM

P.S.Wait. I just realized, I'm still doing that! But instead of dirt piles, I'm making landscapes out of lumber, arranging vehicles on roadways (never pushing them around, o'course) and still crawling around on my hands-n-knees messin' with train stuff!!! Man, still playing with trains, after all these years. And I know I am not alone in that regard.

I was in a neighborhood in the 60's where I was the only kid with "model trains" and therefore really had no one to talk to. In the early 60s, I was very young and was allowed to watch my uncle's (he was 7 years older) Lionel train run on a large set-up in my grandfather's basement. I loved that train and the set. My uncle went on to HO trains, then girls and a band.

My parents surprised me one Christmas with that very train set, refurbished. My dad bought me 2 pieces of 4x8 plywood and all of the brad nails I could carry, and off I went to our basement. No hobby shop, nor were my parents well-off enough to support my hobby or take me to a hobby shop, so I really had no idea that there were things like F3s and Bascule Bridges. I was happy that my mom let me set up the trains after Christmas for 2 months (winter in New England) and let me set up my crossing lights and operating milk car with my train set (I think I had a tunnel once, but no grass or other scenery).

We mostly played baseball (Little League), fished, rode bikes, and went to school. Played hockey on a ice rink with the "big kids." My wish was for slot cars, which I got and played with my brother. I liked the slot cars because the Lionel set had tubular track that had to be nailed down; my mom did NOT want it to be even semi-permanently set up (I had a about a week from the deadline to "get that stuff out of my basement!").

The slot cars - I have no idea where they are. The train set (from 1951, I think) still runs and is on my layout now, along with my mother's cousin's train from 1954. My wife suggested O gauge as a hobby; I warned her... I have always loved Lionel trains, even though I don't know much about trains and never had the time or money to devote a lot to them (I at least have a little money now). Like Frank (Moonson) I'm still doing what I did when I was 8; except when I have to work.

They used to talk about how the trains nowadays aren't as good as those from the Pre-War Era.

Jerry

In my neck of the woods we spoke about not being able to pull enough cars, not being able to get the Lionel item back in the box because the liner was complicated, and how Madison Hardware had stock piles of trains in a back room.

What did we used to talk about in the 1950's?

!. Communism

2. The "Bomb."

3. "Getting a Life"

Later in the 1960's? You could always start a conversation about: sex. drugs & of course R&R. O gauge trains? Whether or not you were going to sell all or part of your collection.

The topics you have alluded did not arise until the Greenberg buyer's guide era, or post the arrival of Mike Wolf & Scott Mann onto the scene (ie. 1995). It is also important to recognize that the "social aspect" of O gauge trains is a very late (post Y2K) hobby development and still not wildly embraced by many.

The big topic was who was the better center fielder - Willie, Mickey, or the Duke. Willie was the best, hands down. 

Sputnik.

And how the kitchen trash can wasn't big enough to hold the boxes those Lionel trains came in.