Setting up the tree and the train

Although some of the people in our neighborhood had their Christmas stuff up well in advance of Thanksgiving, my wife and I did the traditional thing, setting the tree up the day after Thanksgiving. We use a pre-lit artificial tree. Growing up, I remember stringing lights on the tree and taking them back down was always the most tedious part of the job, so I decided that if someone didn’t invent it before me, I’d invent the pre-lit Christmas tree.

Someone else did, of course. The next time I get a great idea I need to move on it more quickly.

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Lionel trains at Target, 2006

Lionel sold starter sets at Target in 2006 and again in 2008, though the arrangement only lasted a couple of years. The sets were priced at $249.

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My $8 secondhand Lionel

I hear stories all the time about the Lionel train that someone found at a garage sale for $10. Or sometimes it’s a Marx. The one that bothered me the most was the story about a 65-year-old American Flyer locomotive for $10, and the guy who got it didn’t even like O gauge.

Whatever. Today was my day. I found a Lionel starter set from 1999. The price marked on it: $8. I didn’t haggle. I handed over Alexander Hamilton, scooped up the train set, grabbed a couple of Washingtons, and headed to the car with a train set under my arm.For $8, I didn’t expect much. But I knew the locomotive alone was worth that. I got it home this afternoon and looked it over.

It was a set Lionel made for Keebler: The Keebler Elfin Express. Nope, no real railroad names on this set. The locomotive was cast from the same Scout mold that Lionel has been using for its starter sets since the early 1950s. But this one had a 4-wheel truck up front, making it a 4-4-2 Atlantic.

The cars are traditional 6464-sized: a boxcar and a flat car. The boxcar advertises Keebler products, and the flat has a cardboard load of, you guessed it, Pillsbury products. Nope, more Keebler.

The same traditional SP-style caboose that Lionel has been using since the early ’50s brings up the rear.

It didn’t look like the set had seen much use. The instructions were long gone, but a lot of the accessories are still on the plastic sprue. The lockon was on the track and the transformer was wired to it, so I knew it had been used a little. I set it up on a loop of O27 track and let it rip. It ran nicely. To my surprise, the locomotive has smoke, and the tender has a whistle, so the train smokes and whistles. Not bad for 8 bucks.

A couple of the track pieces were bent, as if they’d been stepped on. I can fix them. For the price I paid, I’m not going to complain. I’d be able to get clean used O27 curves for a dime or a quarter each at the Boeing Employee Model Railroad Club show in September. But I’ve got plenty of O27 curves in my basement. Those things breed.

It took me forever to find the lockout switch for the reverse on the bottom of the locomotive. At first I figured it had no reverse, but looking at the underside, I noticed it had a lot of electronics in it–far more than would be needed just to convert the AC current from the transformer to the DC current the can motor needed. (Yes, Lionel builds a lot of inefficiencies into its modern equipment to keep it compatible with the old stuff–and that drives up cost.) Finally I found the switch, unlocked it, and the locomotive gained neutral and reverse capabilities.

I don’t mess around with modern-issue Lionel much. I like the old stuff. But for 8 bucks, I won’t be picky.

Aliens on my train layout

I bought a couple of aliens for my train consist today. At the annual TCA Ozark Division train show at Lutheran South that happens every December, I spotted some lonely American Flyer bodies sitting neglected on a table. There were two steam locomotives, a gondola, a boxcar, and a caboose. I looked at the locomotives but there wasn’t any way I could remotor them with parts I had available. I did buy the boxcar, and then came back for the gondola.

I spent a total of $3 for these artifacts from 1958. Not bad.The problem for me is, they’re from 1958. American Flyer was doing S gauge in 1958. I’m into O gauge.

But that’s OK.  S gauge is 1:64 scale. O27 (which is the flavor of O I like, because it’s what I grew up with) is supposed to be 1:64 scale. Hold an American Flyer S gauge gondola up next to a Lionel or Marx O27 gondola, and they’re awfully close to the same size. Sure, there’s some difference, but when you look at real trains, not every boxcar is exactly the same height, and not every gondola is exactly the same height and length either.

K-Line took some criticism when it dusted off the old Marx O27 molds, outfitted them with S gauge trucks, and tried to market them to S gaugers because the Marx boxcars are taller than the American Flyers, and when you measure the Marx car with a scale ruler, it’s a funny length. But most people don’t notice. When I put a Marx O27 boxcar next to my Flyer 805 with O27 trucks on it, the difference wasn’t as pronounced. You can tell the Flyer is shorter, but something about the O gauge trucks makes the difference harder to notice.

It took me about 10 minutes to outfit the Flyer gondola with some spare Lionel trucks I had kicking around. Then I decided I wanted a conversion car, so I put a Marx truck on one end and a Lionel on the other. It looks good with my Marx and Lionel gondolas.

It took me considerably longer to get the boxcar in running order, since I had to fashion a frame for it. So I grabbed a bunch of junk from the scrap box and I fashioned a frame. That ended up taking me a couple of hours to do (I can do it a lot faster when I’m doing several at once and I have all my tools and materials in order). For what I make per hour, I could have bought several nice boxcars, I know. But this was more fun than what I get paid to do, and besides, nobody was offering to pay me to do anything today. And besides, rescuing a lonely boxcar off the scrap heap is a whole lot more meaningful than just plunking down some cash.

Once it was all together, I grabbed Dad’s old Lionel 2037 and put it on a loop of track on the floor with the Flyer 803 and 805 and a Marx boxcar that I rescued from a similar fate about a year ago. I had to work out a few kinks of course, but it wasn’t long before the consist was running smoothly.

I know a lot of people who run 1950s trains tend to do so homogeneously. It tends to be all Flyer or all Lionel or all Marx. But all of them have their strengths. For one, all of them did cars that the others didn’t. While American Flyer’s locomotives are amazingly smooth runners–even their cheapies–I don’t think American Flyer made anything that has all of the positive attributes of the Lionel 2037: It’s no slouch in the smooth running department itself, it’s a great puller, it’s reliable, and it’s common as dirt so you can easily find a good one for around $70. And as much as I like Marx, Marx never made anything quite like the 2037 either. The Marx 333 can’t pull with a 2037, it’s nowhere near as common, and these days it’s more expensive too.

But Marx and American Flyer made plenty of cars in plenty of roadnames and paint schemes Lionel never made. And when they did overlap, there tended to be some differences, just like you see in real life. So turning some dilapidated American Flyer cars into O27s was a nice way to add some unique rolling stock to my roster.

I’m happy. I’ll definitely keep an eye out for more American Flyer cars that need running gear.

I\’m published again

It was a small-time gig, but if it helps pay the bills, that’s all that matters. I published a guide to refurbishing 1950s Lionel, Marx, and American Flyer trains over at Associated Content.I guess it’s ironic that I used a picture of an American Flyer train, seeing as I only owned a postwar Flyer S gauge train for about two weeks before I traded it for some Marx stuff. But it was the only picture I had handy.

A compelling toy train layout with animations done on the cheap

Layouts featuring Lionel, American Flyer, and other O or S gauge trains don’t have to be expensive. Joe Rampola has lots of ideas for creating a good-looking layout with lots of animation (aside from the trains) using mostly inexpensive items. His site has lots of pictures and video clips.

His work has been featured in both Classic Toy Trains and O Gauge Railroading magazines.Among his better ideas: Lay a loop of HO gauge track, then put 0-4-0 mechanisms from cheap HO scale locomotives in the frames of 1:43 scale die-cast cars and make streets for the layout. This is a similar approach to K-Line’s new Superstreets, but Rampola did it years earlier, and his approach is a lot less expensive for those who can live without instant gratification. His approach also allows you to use any vehicle you want, so long as you’re willing to modify it.

He also has plans and instructions posted for lots of inexpensive animations he did using the cheap unpainted (and unfortunately, discontinued) K-Line figures from the classic Marx molds of the 1950s. Sometimes you can still get lucky and find a box of unpainted K-Line figures hiding on hobby shop shelves.

He even has his animations controlled by an old Timex Sinclair 1000 computer. He gives enough detail that I suspect someone good with homebrew circuits could adapt his circuit and his program to another computer, such as an Apple or Commodore. Even a 3.5K unexpanded VIC-20 ought to be up to the task, let alone a behemoth Commodore 64.

I’ve always bristled at the thought of adding electronics to my traditional layout, because my trains are my escape from computers. But using a real computer–real men only need 8 bits–to control parts of a layout does have some appeal to me.

The government exists to protect and serve its citizens, not the other way around

“If I had to choose between government without newspapers, and newspapers without government, I wouldn’t hesitate to choose the latter.” — Thomas Jefferson

Today, half of U.S. high school students surveyed believe newspaper stories should require government approval. Pravda, anyone?We shouldn’t be surprised. Freedom of the press died in the U.S. schoolroom on January 13, 1988 when the Supreme Court ruled that high schools can censor student newspapers.

As an outspoken high school newspaper editor in the early 1990s, I argued that in the 1950s the biggest problems were kids running in the halls and chewing gum in class. By the 1990s, teen pregnancy wasn’t even in the top two. Drugs and guns had pushed it out.

I argued that high school journalists should be permited to pursue tough issues. Their chances of solving any of those issues approaches zero, but their chances of helping their readers to feel less alone were pretty good. And I wouldn’t have minded if the newspapers made the administration a bit more accountable too–this was only a year or two after Pump up the Volume came out, after all.

I also argued that school’s job was to teach kids how to operate in the real world, and if they spent their late teens in a totalitarian regime, then they wouldn’t know what to do with their freedom when they turned 18.

Does this new study prove I was right?

Democrats and Republicans both agree that the government’s job is to protect its citizens from thugs. Where they disagree is on the definition of the word “thugs,” and, to a lesser degree, on how to go about doing the protecting.

But that’s irrelevant. The government’s job is to protect its citizens from thugs is turning into Citizens’ job is to protect the government from thugs. That’s backwards.

Maybe we need to worry less about test scores and start making sure we teach the basics. I knew what libel was when I was in the seventh grade. We re-enacted the Trial of John Peter Zenger. I don’t know how many of my classmates remember it, but we were presented with the concept and we all knew, if only for a moment, why it was important. Chances are even if the names and dates and other details are forgotten, one who studied the case in school will at least be left with the gut feeling that government censorship of newspapers is wrong.

I don’t know what history and civics teachers are being told to teach today, but obviously the constitution is lacking in the curriculum.

And that’s a problem, because once the First Amendment falls, most of the others will fall right with it, and the few that manage to remain won’t be worth having anymore anyway. I suspect that’s why Jefferson, who couldn’t open a newspaper without reading someone blasting something he’d done or not done, still considered newspapers more important than government.

Gatermann captured me demonstrating how to run a steam locomotive

Tom Gatermann caught me hard at work this past weekend at the National Museum of Transport in St. Louis, inside the cab of a UP Big Boy.

I know the real reason why railroads made the transition to diesel locomotives in the 1950s and scrapped those huge, magnificent-looking steamers. The chairs in the diesel locomotives are much, much more comfortable.

When in St. Louis, don’t miss the City Museum

So, not wanting to celebrate the Anheuser-Busch-mandated holiday of New Year’s Eve but not wanting to sit around at home on a Friday night either, a good idea came up: Go to the City Museum.

It claims to be unlike any other museum you’ve ever seen. While that may be debatable, it does have something for everyone.It’s a very hands-on museum designed for exploration. The first level is almost like a catacombs, with secret passages and the like. Wear comfortable tennis shoes. You’ll need them.

The other two levels are a bit more museum-like but still hands-on. Each level has a large slide that goes down to the lobby. Yes, adults can fit in the slides too. I know because I went down each of them about three times.

You’ll find a level of art and artifacts and various activities. Included is a very large, elaborate, and critically acclaimed HO-scale model railroad that was built by St. Louisan Pete Fordyce in the 1950s. Fordyce was a frequent contributor to Model Railroader magazine and the layout is reasonably famous, as far as model railroads go. Anyone who ever built a plastic model kit as a child will be impressed with it; a model railroader could probably stand there for hours studying the techniques.

The top floor has a very large exhibit dedicated to architecture. The artifacts include doors, windows, cornices, and even entire storefronts. Most artifacts have signs telling where they came from and why the building was demolished–sadly, usually for something stupid and generic like a chain store or a gas station. There are exhibits about the histories of door hinges and doorknobs. How can hinges and knobs be interesting? They weren’t always the boring, bland mass-produced affairs you see at Home Depot today.

Outside, there are lots of things for kids (big and small) to climb on. I didn’t climb much; as much as I would have liked to climb up to that airplane and go inside it, climbing up three stories on semi-open girders to get there is more than my nerves can take. Judging from the number of people climbing on it, I’m in the minority and that’s a good thing.

I absolutely recommend it. At night when the admission is only $5, not only is it cheaper than going to the movies, but you’ll get some exercise and if you’re not careful you just might learn something. During the day it’s far less expensive than going to an amusement park.

Incoming link: http://trainboard.com/grapevine/showthread.php?t=56703

Now that’s customer service

In this day and age, I’ve come to expect lousy customer service. Even when my employer pays thousands of dollars a year for customer service, I’m used to getting someone halfway around the world with questionable knowledge of the product, even less command of the English language, and I’m used to being kept on the phone half the day trying things that I’ve already tried.

And then there’s Lionel.I am one of the few who ordered my Polar Express train set early. And on Monday I got it. Happy early birthday to Dave. Woo hoo! I excitedly unboxed it, forgot about everything else I was going to do that night, and set up the loop of track around my living room. I loved it. The locomotive smoked, it whistled, and it was the smoothest running train I’ve ever seen.

I ran it for half an hour. Then I made dinner. Then I ran it for another half hour before I realized I was just watching a train go around and around in a circle. So I did other things for a while. Then before I went to bed, I wanted to run it one more time. I plugged in the transformer and… uh oh. Where’s my green light that tells me it’s plugged in and on? I tried it without an extension cord. Nothing. I tried a different outlet. Nothing. Dead.

I grabbed a transformer from the 1950s I had laying around and plugged it in. It was great.

My brand spanking new Lionel CW-80 transformer was dead.

So I e-mailed Lionel. I told them what I had done. I said the set worked fine with a postwar transformer. I asked if there was anything else I could try. This was about 11:30 at night.

First thing the next morning, I had a terse response: Mr. Farquhar, please send us your address and we’ll send you a new transformer. Reference this e-mail. –Lionel

I was expecting it to take a week to get back to me, and then to have to do all sorts of pointless things, but no. Send ’em my address, and they’ll send me a transformer.

Three days later, the transformer showed up. I opened up the box and found a transformer box inside. It was already opened. I guess they tested it for me before they sent it. Inside was an invoice with my problem description and the words "no charge." I plugged it in and it worked.

This used to be the way every company acted. Now it seems like most companies have legions of managers who try to dream up ways to torque off customers while saving four cents a day. I guess Lionel figures that while they’re pinching pennies, pinching pennies on customer service isn’t wise because chances are if people get good service, they’ll buy something else from you.

If that’s what they’re thinking, they were right about me. I was disappointed that the train didn’t work, but they didn’t waste much time making it right.