My parents never understood my fascination with trains.  I would make them wait at railroad crossings if I knew a train was coming, and cry if they didn't wait.  I didn't understand why they didn't share the same feeling about  wanting to watch trains.  I could look at signals and know if a train was coming.  They couldn't figure that one out. The longer the train the happier I was.  Now that I drive, I understand why they didn't want to wait.

I got my first electric train when I was 7 years old.  My parents bought me a Mantua HO Scale Santa Fe Locomotive pictured above and put it around the tree for Christmas. I was always partial to locomotives and didn't like diesels.  I knew I was getting a train, because they put the track around the tree and it wasn't the same size track as the old American Flyer my dad put around the tree.

After 30 years, the train still runs and is my favorite. I'm slowing restoring the original train set  to the way it was when I received it.  Some of the cars are missing wheels and connectors and I'm trying to replace the parts. I'm looking for old Mantua cars at garage sales and flea markets to dissect and use the parts for my train set.

For my twelfth birthday they bought me an N scale train. This time it was a diesel.   I liked the smaller version.  I  always like the smaller versions of things.  I actually had the train set up on the top shelf of my clothes closet.   I had to stand a stool to play with the train on the shelf.  When my brother got married and moved out, I turned his room into my train room.  My dad help me get a piece of plywood and we placed it over his bed.  I worked on the train layout, it had a downtown area, and also mountains with streams.  Today all that layout now sits in a Xerox box in the basement.  I'm waiting to set up the train again. (currently working on the basement.)  I seem to have gone back to the H.O. scale and spending most of my energy working on that layout and constructing buildings.

When I was young, my dad use to have his American Flyer train under the tree. Ever since they bought me my first train set, my dad never displayed it anymore.   He bought the train back in 1948 and he use to see how fast it could go and make it jump the track. Today we cringe at that type of abuse.  The train was always promised to my older brother, but it is now going to be my nephew.  I started my own collection of American Flyer trains in Mid 90's. I'm up to four sets.  I get them out at Christmas time and place around the tree.  I'm still looking for set's from the late 1940's and one day I'll have a set just like my father owned.

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