MY LIONEL

On Christmas Day 1976 when I was two years old, my parents gave me a present that sparked a life-long love and interest in me. They gave me my Lionel train set, sparking a love of trains that lasts to this day.

It came with:

A and B unit set of Santa Fe Alco diesels (#8020 and #8021)

Northern Pacific flatcar with trailers (#9122)

Penn Central log dump car (#9300)

TA&G hopper (#9012)

Burlington Northern gondola with canisters (#9141)

Southern boxcar (#9700)

Santa Fe SP-type caboose (#9061)

Figure-8 of track and a transformer.

That following Christmas (1977), my Lionel train grew. My parents got me a Mickey Mouse Express Hi-cube boxcar (#9660).

They also got me a Tropicana reefer (#9861) and a Santa Fe boxcar (#9784).

My train now had eight cars, two locomotives, and a caboose.

But there were two more additions to my small collection.

In the early- or mid-80s, our neighbor's son, who was incidentally born exactly six years before me and is also into trains, gave me a couple older Lionel train cars. One was a Sunoco 2-dome tank car (#2465), and the other was a Lionel Lines stock car (#6656).

Over the summer of 1999, I did some research on these cars, as well as the rest of my trains, and while I'd known that these two cars were old, I didn't know how old. The tank car dates back to 1946, and the stock car dates back to 1953.

From the late-70s through about the mid-80s, we had a table set up in our basement for the Lionel train to run on.

It was around 1980 when I got started in HO-scale model trains. After the last layout in my parents' house was constructed around 1986, my interest in the Lionel train had pretty much deminished, and it was usually boxed up except for when I would occasionally get it out once or twice a year.

Sadly, that's how it remained for several years.

During the summer and fall of 1997, I was in grad school and got to thinking about the Lionel train. The last time I had even seen it out of the box was sometime in high school.

That Thanksgiving, I went home to visit my family, and that afternoon, I went down to the basement to check my train.

In the past few years, I'd seen the boxes on top of the basement refrigerator and freezer in the food pantry.

However, they were gone!

I searched the basement, and I was shocked to find the boxes in a cold, damp, and dirty crawlspace.

I pulled the boxes out. I opened the box of track. The moisture had taken its toll. There was a solid coat of rust on each section of track.

I was then worried about what condition the train itself would be in, but upon opening the box, I discovered that it was still in excellent condition, just as it had been several years before.

I took the train and track (which I later threw away and replaced) back to school with me. I got a small oval of track at a local hobby store, which had a ton of Lionel supplies.

I hooked the transformer up to a 5-foot section of track, put the locomotive on the track, and turned up the power, not sure of what to expect.

The engine started right up, although it ran a little jerky. After cleaning up the motor and wheels and applying some fresh lubrication oil to the gears, it ran like new.

In a few days, I had a large oval of track in my living room. When I'd gotten the train from home, I also grabbed some old cardboard boxes, cut them into strips, and put them under the track to keep the carpet from interfering.

That following January, I got a little ambitious and got some more track, expanding my loop from the living room into my bedroom. Not counting the 90-degree crossover, I now had 76 pieces of track or 57 feet of track. The train at a moderate speed took about a minute to circle the apartment.

During the summer of 1998, while living at home with my parents, the Lionel train was boxed up in storage since I didn't have any real place to set it up. However, not long after moving into my apartment in Ashland, a loop of track was set up in my living room. The train was boxed up again in late October 1999 when I moved back home with my parents. However, in July 2001, I moved into a townhouse close to my job at the time and set the train up on a loop around my living room. In late-September 2002, the Lionel was packed up again when I moved to Hilliard, Ohio, to be closer to my job in Columbus. A couple weeks after moving, the train was back up and running on a loop of track in my living room.

While my main model railroading focus is on my HO-scale trains, I still have a great renewed interest in Lionel trains. I'm currently planning a new HO-scale layout, but in time, I'll probably also get some more track and perhaps a couple more cars for my Lionel train. Several of my friends have enjoyed seeing it run, and it brings a smile to my face everytime I see it running.

Sadly, on Thursday, January 30, 2003, my Uncle Wilber ("Web") passed away. He was my grandma's brother. Being into collecting trains for as long as anybody can remember, he was the one who had gotten my parents the Lionel train set that they gave me back in 1976. I can remember how every time we were at his house down the road from us while growing up, he was always wanting to show us what he was working on with his trains. When up to our house, he always enjoyed seeing my trains and loved seeing what new train cars and stuff I'd gotten at Christmas. Needless to say, Uncle Web will be missed.

My family allowed me to have the first look at my Uncle Web's train collection, and from his estate, I purchased more Lionel trains, including a Lionel GP9 and eight more freight cars. I then purchased a matching Conrail caboose off E-bay.

Below are two video clips of my Lionel running in my living room. Enjoy!

Kevin L. Wagner

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