AsburySkinsFan Posted February 9, 2007 Share Posted February 9, 2007 Lionel's Polar Express starter set; MSRP $289, bought through Charles Ro in Mass; http://www.charlesro.com/featuredproduct.htm for a cool $217 shipped via FedEx. This train is a beauty and is a great way to start off my train set. Passing the tradition on to the next generation which is now 5 generations strong. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Larry Posted February 9, 2007 Share Posted February 9, 2007 I just sent a Disney Lionell set to by brother's five-year-old for Christmas. (I was a bit surprised. I'd figured the odds were about 75% that he'd max the throttle and the thing would derail on the first curve, and after that all he'd want to do was crash it. But either he's not as destructive as I feared, or Lionell has got the transformer built so that top speed really isn't much.) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AsburySkinsFan Posted February 9, 2007 Author Share Posted February 9, 2007 I just sent a Disney Lionell set to by brother's five-year-old for Christmas. (I was a bit surprised. I'd figured the odds were about 75% that he'd max the throttle and the thing would derail on the first curve, and after that all he'd want to do was crash it. But either he's not as destructive as I feared, or Lionell has got the transformer built so that top speed really isn't much.) LOL, that's awesome! But from my experience they WILL go off the rail when throttled. I had mine up to 80% and could tell that enough speed would send it over, but even at 80% it ran quick and yet pretty stable. I forgot to post the google video that I made and uploaded. Check it out here. http://video.google.com/videoplay?docid=5969518093419601343 Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
Pete Posted February 9, 2007 Share Posted February 9, 2007 Too cool........... I love model trains. I've always wanted an O gauge set, but don't have the space, or time these days Glad to see you keeping the tradition going. I had an American Flyer "S" gauge set from the 50's that I pulled out of an old farm house that we going to be demolished in the early 80's. Loco / tender, 2 boxcars, 2 passanger cars, a tank car, a flat car, and a work car which were all in sound condition, but the paint left a bit to be desired. There was a ton of track, but the transformer was shot. A friend hooked me up with a transformer, and after some work on the loco, it worked great. I was able to restore them to almost new condition. I had about 60+ hours into them, and came out extremely well. I had about 40 bucks into the project, and sold the set for 250.oo These pics aren't of my set, but these are exact the cars I had. Here's the Loco/ tender I had. Here's the boxcars Here's the passanger cars Here's the tank car Here's the flat car Here's the work car Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AsburySkinsFan Posted February 9, 2007 Author Share Posted February 9, 2007 Too cool........... I love model trains. I've always wanted an O gauge set, but don't have the space, or time these days Glad to see you keeping the tradition going. I had an American Flyer "S" gauge set from the 50's that I pulled out of an old farm house that we going to be demolished in the early 80's. Loco / tender, 2 boxcars, 2 passanger cars, a tank car, a flat car, and a work car which were all in sound condition, but the paint left a bit to be desired. There was a ton of track, but the transformer was shot. A friend hooked me up with a transformer, and after some work on the loco, it worked great. I was able to restore them to almost new condition. I had about 60+ hours into them, and came out extremely well. I had about 40 bucks into the project, and sold the set for 250.oo That's a very nice return on investment. Those old loco's seem to have really nice resale value, some of those things go for some crazy money on ebay. For years I've been planning to buy a set and never quite got around to it; well this Christmas I just couldn't stand it any more. My son is 5 and that's about how old I was when I was first really introduced to the family tradition. My grandfather used to set up a train under the Christmas tree every year and I can still remember those times watching that old Berkshire locomotive running under his tree. To this day when I smell a real Christmas tree I go straight back to laying on my stomach watching that train run. The O gauge is also part of our tradition, not to mention that I just love the way those things run and look, and they are big. The Berkshire on the Polar Express set is a full foot long, and weighs at least 4 or 5 pounds. My plan is to complete two different layouts, one Christmas layout for under the tree, and then a permanent 4x8 or 5x8 layout. I won't be doing much scenery, because I really just want to see the trains run. This set came with the Fastrack system which is nice, but its twice as expensive or more than the aluminum tubular rail. I'm really looking forward to building up my set, I just know that this is going to be the start of great memories. I was talking with my wife about this tonight, and she looks at me and says "You're glad we had a boy, huh?" It's like they say, "Trains make boys feel like men, and men feel like boys." True words........ Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AsburySkinsFan Posted February 10, 2007 Author Share Posted February 10, 2007 bump, 'cause I wanna. ;-) Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
RLeVan Posted February 10, 2007 Share Posted February 10, 2007 Looks pretty sharp Asbury. I'm sure your kid loves it. My old man is a huge rail buff. We're talking on the verge of being a fanatic. His old man was a conductor on the B&O so it rubbed off on him and then it rubbed off on me a bit. I don't collect, but he does. Most of his modeling is in HO scale, but his collectables are all in O. The detail in O scale is just amazing. Anyways, since he didn't want us kids playing with all of his "good stuff", he built us our own simple HO layout and got us a couple of locomotives as well as cars. Your post brought back memories of those days. The great part about the layout he built was it was 4x8 with no scenery, therefore when we weren't playing with the train, we could set up our Tyco slot car track inside the railroad track. About 6 years ago, we had a young family move into the neighborhood with kids about your sons age. My old man decided every kid needs to play with trains at least once so he goes out and buys a couple of Bachmann G scale kits to set up around the house. The kids never wanted to go home. :laugh: One thing led to another and now he has tons of G scale trains, a watertower, etc. If you get the chance, check out the B&O railroad museum up in Baltimore, MD. Plenty for you and the kid to do. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
AsburySkinsFan Posted February 10, 2007 Author Share Posted February 10, 2007 Looks pretty sharp Asbury. I'm sure your kid loves it. My old man is a huge rail buff. We're talking on the verge of being a fanatic. His old man was a conductor on the B&O so it rubbed off on him and then it rubbed off on me a bit. I don't collect, but he does. Most of his modeling is in HO scale, but his collectables are all in O. The detail in O scale is just amazing. Yeah, I love the O gauge trains, they are awesome and sooo fun to run around the track. O gauge is the size that my great-grandfather had, my grandfather had, my father had, and now what I have; and its the size that I will pass on to my son. I took my son to a model train museum about 30 minutes from here, and it was all HO and it was incredible. HO really seems to be about the best balance between size, detail, cost and square footage. In other words with HO you can get a very active layout, with great detail, while not taking up a HUGE amount of space, and without costing a large fortune. Now that's not to say that you can't pour the money into it. As for me, I'm more into the trains, and not so much the scenery so I of course love the O gauge. Anyways, since he didn't want us kids playing with all of his "good stuff", he built us our own simple HO layout and got us a couple of locomotives as well as cars. Your post brought back memories of those days. The great part about the layout he built was it was 4x8 with no scenery, therefore when we weren't playing with the train, we could set up our Tyco slot car track inside the railroad track. That sounds like a lot of fun! And it is amazing that once you start getting around model trains again how much you start remembering those old times. BTW, I'm putting together a permanent 4x8 display for the downstairs and I'll also be putting together a Christmas display for under the tree. (That's where most of my memories come from.) About 6 years ago, we had a young family move into the neighborhood with kids about your sons age. My old man decided every kid needs to play with trains at least once so he goes out and buys a couple of Bachmann G scale kits to set up around the house. The kids never wanted to go home. :laugh: One thing led to another and now he has tons of G scale trains, a watertower, etc.If you get the chance, check out the B&O railroad museum up in Baltimore, MD. Plenty for you and the kid to do. WOW, G guage trains are HUGE! And they take a football field to operate, but they sure are fun to watch. Sounds like the kids really enjoyed themselves. I haven't been to B&O yet, but I might make a trip this summer. I will be taking my son to see the Kentucky railroad museum this Spring, its about an hour from me and they have both real steamers and diesel locomotives as well as model trains. That should be a lot of fun. Link to comment Share on other sites More sharing options...
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