Toy Train Mania.....

 

Toy trains are magical.  I brought my light booth out and gave all of my train engines a proper photograph. This train is a replica of the one that is in the first "Narnia" movie. The scene of the train taking the children away from the war torn bombed big city and into the beautiful countryside, It is a marvelous sight as it curves through the trees and over the bridges of an English countryside.  

This locomotives was included in a train set that was given to me and my late brother Dwight. Santa wrote on the box to be sure that there was no doubt that it belonged to the two of us. It was probably Christmas of 1957 and we played with it for years. 

My very first train that I received from Santa was this thin metal one.  It had a key to use to wind up the spring mechanism.  It was probably four years old then and I still remember that one winding of the engine only took it around the small circle track one time around. I have only two cars left with that set.  I don't remember what other cars that it might have had.

One Christmas my second to oldest brother, Rex, sent to my then older dad two train sets as a gift.  They were made to that smaller scale of models and came with many cars and two cabooses. Each set has a time difference in style as you can see one is an old locomotive and the other is the modern Santa Fe. My dad didn't play with them but he enjoyed seeing his two grandsons playing with them when they came to visit.

The antique engine came from a bucket of toys that sit right next to John and Iva's refrigerator and the wall.  The were an older couple we visited who were related to my Grandmother by marriage.  The history of it is unknown other than there were four boys. The youngest is still living at 90 years old. One of the sons who probably played with it was killed on the Normandy Beach during the invasion. I knew a librarian friend that said she had a whole set of this train set but this one is all that I have.  I painted it when I was in high school. 

My last train to share is this glass one. It is one that was sold in the 1930's to children.  It originally held small candy bits in its hollow body.  We were in my wife's farm home attic, which also had been her grandparents house and I discovered it.  I was walking around in a very trashed up attic and stepped on this and looked down seeing I was standing on it. I had a collection of them already from my mom so I knew exactly what I had. I didn't break anything by standing on it but it did have a broken part on the back side of the square cabin. 

I did take pictures of all of my coal cars and also the cabooses of all other the trains.  I won't share them for a while as this is too much.  Thanks for stopping by today.