When I was a kid in the mid-80's I was CRAZY about trains. It started with my father's vintage Lionel trains. My grandfather stoked the fire with a HO scale setup and before we knew it my dad and I started spending our weekends making train sounds in our basement.
At some point my father's friend's father was moving. He had told my father that he had 5 boxes of old trains he wanted to get rid. My father gave him $500 for the lot (a lot for a social worker in the 80's). We had no idea what we were in for. The 5 boxes were full of old Marklins that utilized a 3rd rail. Many locomotives and cars were from the late '30's with the rest just post war from what I can tell. I remember my father trying to figure out all the wiring for t he switch tracks and signals as all the directions were in German.
At some point in middle school ,y father decided it was time to reclaim his space in the basement and the setup came down. At the end of its days the setup was a 4x8 sheet of plywood with 2 foot extensions on all sides, all built on an old pool table. We had 3 Marklin tracks around the outside followed by a Lionel,setup, HO setup with a turn table, an N gauge, another elevated Lionel track and finally another N gauge on top of one of the tunnels. My father had years into this setup, I don't know how he brought himself to take it down.
I dream of setting up my HO trains in my basement but I have no room for the unfortunately. Every now and then I take my father to a train show, it's almost as if we were back in the basement planning our layout decades ago.
Here are some Polaroids from back in the day:
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sicklyscott, on Flickr
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sicklyscott, on Flickr
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sicklyscott, on Flickr
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sicklyscott, on Flickr
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sicklyscott, on Flickr
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sicklyscott, on Flickr