I still remember quite clearly my very first train set. Christmas 1975, I was 7 years old. My family didn't have a lot of money and I had been begging for months for an electric train set for Christmas. My mother and father weren't sounding very positive about it every time I asked, but a few days before the big day my parents mood seemed to change about it and I felt pretty sure I was going to get my very own toy train set.
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Well the big day finally came and when I woke up I discovered next to the christmas tree the nicest, most spectacular, and beautiful toy train set I had ever seen! It was mine... and it didn't work!
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My father had picked the train set up from a lady who had an ad in the paper. He said the price was right and he knew when he bought it that it wasn't working properly. He said he figured he could fix it. I knew that he could. I wasn't too disappointed. I was happy to just to sit there looking at my own train! I could hardly believe it.
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We never did get that old electric train set working right, but it wasn't long after that my parents were able to buy me my first lionel train. It wasn't a big set, it fit on a 4 x 8 piece of plywood, but it came with trees and houses, cows and grass, fences and barns, and vehicle crossing gates that went up and down as the train came by, and real smoke coming out of the smokestack! Wow, what fun!
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I eventually wore that lionel train engine out. The train set was taken off the dining room table (I can hardly believe to this day they let me keep it there) and put in the garage. My older brother had a little car accident coming into the garage a short time later where he put the station wagon halfway through the back wall of the garage taking my train set with it. That was the end of that, but my love for toy trains never left.
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I suppose it's not too surprising that my first born son developed a fascination with trains and that I was more than happy to indulge him. We have a room in the basement that is absolutely stuffed with toy trains. Some work, many don't. It wasn't too long ago that I started spending more time in that room again and going through some of the old boxes full of electric train engines. I never realized how many lionel train engines we'd acquired over the years. I certainly wasn't going to throw them out.
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After a little bit of research I found a guy by the name of Frank Keenan who has put together what has to be the undisputed bible of Lionel Train Repair. It's aptly called "Lionel Trains Repair Service Manuals"
If you have any interest in toy train repair and restoration like I do it's a must have.
This Lionel Train Repair Manual Includes over 400 pictures and over 2000 pages of information and thousands of illustrations with diagrams, parts lists, pictures and blueprints.
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If you have any interest in toy train repair and restoration like I do it's a must have.
This Lionel Train Repair Manual Includes over 400 pictures and over 2000 pages of information and thousands of illustrations with diagrams, parts lists, pictures and blueprints.
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Thanks for reading
Sincerely,
Jack Folsgood
Sincerely,
Jack Folsgood