Why I Oughta...

This is a car that runs on the Mantleburg line.  Built in 1999 by Lionel, it doesn't have a box and is very heavy.  The yellow and blue look sharp on the tracks. 

For my birthday earlier this year, I was given this MTH Burlington Line Steel-sided Reefer Car.  It is marked "Way of the Zephyrs" and has the vintage "Burlington Line" rectangular logo on the side.  Those of you who read the blog and follow along with the Mantleburg line model train posts (ummm...there can't be *that* many of you, right???) might be confused about this box and the mention of MTH.  This isn't a Lionel train, but is from the competing challenger brand:  Mike's Train House or MTH for short.  This is the third (I think) MTH train car that we have on the Mantleburg line.  The first one was a caboose and the other one is a Santa/Snowman handcar.  This Burlington line car is kinda neat because everyday now I ride the BNSF line on the Metra. 

Just yesterday, I posted a couple of photos of a boxcar that I picked up over the years at the annual Christmas Train Show in Wheaton.  It was from Hamm's Beer .  Today is another beer-related boxcar: one from Miller High Life.  It features the classic tagline: "The Champagne of Beers" and was made two years earlier than the Hamm's one - in 1973.  Similarly to the Hamm's car, this Lionel O Gauge 6-9852 billboard reefer car comes in the 1970's era Lionel Trains box and has the printed label on the side.   This Miller High Life one also has an orange price sticker that the price scratched out but says "Sporting Goods".  Not sure if that was the name of the store or the section of the store.  Either way....kinda strange.  I have a draw to vintage beer-related Lionel stuff.  In addition to these two (The Hamm's one and *this* Miller High Life one), I also run a Schlitz boxcar that I'll have to capture in a photo and post.  I ...

We were setting up the kids Christmas Train (the Mantleburg Line) in the basement and I came across a some rolling stock that I've picked up the past few years, but have not been run on the line due to the lack of operations.  Mostly because of our up-ended Christmas (moving between Elmhurst and Naperville) the past few years, the Mantleburg Line hasn't run, but this year, we picked up the foam boards from my parents house and I set up the train with the kids. There were a couple of beer-related boxcars that are still packaged up in plastic that I think I bought at the annual Christmas Train Show out in Wheaton one of the previous Winters. This one is from Hamm's and is called a "Billboard Reefer".  Lionel 6-9862. If you look closely at the photo at the top of this post, you'll see that it has a 1975 built date and is in this box that is of that era.  Those of you who know Lionel Trains Corporate history may know that in 1975, Lionel Trains were owne...

Earlier this week, I posted some photos of the new Elf the Movie Lionel O-Gauge Boxcar that we pre-ordered for this past Christmas, but just arrived in February.  Welp, here's the other one:  A National Lampoon's Christmas Vacation "Merry Clarkmas" boxcar. Both of these Lionel cars are made in the USA and have that special American flag box.  I was going to give this to one of my nephews who really loves this movie last year, but I swapped in something else because this didn't arrive.  I'll pack this one up too, and take it off to our storage unit for a few months.  There's light at the end of the tunnel, though.  Just four more months until we'll be in our place.  At least that's what I'm hoping for right now. The boxcar features the Griswold's house and station wagon with the huge tree strapped to the top, Cousin Eddie's RV, the tree out in the wild and a bit more. Including Clark, the squirrel and the flying Santa and Re...

Recently a box arrived from TrainWorld that included a few little surprises.  Why were they surprises?  Because I had pre-ordered a few things from the 2016 Lionel Catalog that had late fall delivery before Christmas last year.  Unfortunately, Lionel didn't make their deadlines, so these despite these boxcars having Christmas themes (I'll post the other one on a different day), came in February. (in other news, the 2017 catalog is up at Trainworld and they're accepting pre-orders .  There are a bunch of stuff that I'm keen to buy...but I wonder if I should wait for the new house??) This first one is from Elf the Movie.  It features Buddy the Elf and a few phrases like "Son of a nutcracker".  I don't love boxcars, but I do love a good Christmas train and love Elf, so this one was hard to pass up. Here's the side panel of the box showing the boxcar description.  These will go over to my Dad's house until we get moved into our place.  Once ...