Why I Oughta...

There I was...sitting at a railroad crossing of the BNSF when this Christmas train pulls up.  Did I just get lucky?  I think so .  Below are a number of pics - but they're not great.  Granted...the train was flying by!  You can see the lights, the garland and even...a tree.   Well done, Metra .  Well done.  Here, below is an animated gif of the train:

It has been a number of years since I lasted added a post about a new (to me) Lionel train car to the blog, but today I'm sharing a car that I've had for a couple of years (I think), but since I just cleaned out a closet, I found it.  It is: 6-39391:  U.S. ARMY MADE IN USA FLATCAR.  The listing on Lionel says that it was from the 2016 catalog - which means that I likely received it in 2017.  The listing says that there's one of these for each of the branches of the military - this one is for the US Army.  It has a separate 'load' from the flatcar that you can see in the box below. I mentioned in January that we *did* set up our Christmas train this year , but we didn't run this car.  It will go into the tubs and maybe get a shot at the layout next Christmas.  

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. 

One of my Christmas traditions is going to the annual Dupage County Train Show with my Dad, my nephew and my kids.  I've posted about it the past few years and have done a little show-and-tell in posts of the items that we've added to the Mantleburg line.  Last year, I posted photos of the Plasticville Drug Store , a Schlitz Beer Lionel Billboard , an American Flyer Lackawanna Bridge , and a 70's or 80's era Lionel Flag Pole .  In 2016, we added an operating car or two .  This year, I ended up buying just one thing:  this Marx Tin Plate Pre-War trackside sign.  It was just $2 and I liked the looks of it, so I made the deal.  It doesn't operate or animate and it isn't exactly in line with the kids Mantleburg line (with our FasTrack and all), but that's just fine.  I've added it to our Christmas Train layout and I think it adds a nice, vintage touch. One of the things at the show that I was talking to my Dad and Nephew about was the f...

I go through Union Station everyday that I'm downtown for work, but I very rarely go through the Great Hall.  Most of Union Station is gross, but it is slowly improving - starting with the unveiling of the renovation to the Great Hall.  I took this photo last week showing off the new (costly!) skylight and you can see a little bit of scaffolding in the upper reaches of the Hall.  From the Tribune : Union Station’s Great Hall, a stopping point for millions of travelers since 1925, is a lot brighter this holiday season, thanks to a $22 million renovation of its skylight and decorative walls and ceiling.  The centerpiece of the Great Hall is the 219-foot-long skylight rising 115 feet above the floor.  For almost a year, the skylight has been obscured by a suspended working deck as Berglund Construction and architect Goettsch Partners repaired it and added another modern, protective skylight 5 feet above the original. Natural light in the Great Hall has no...

Just yesterday, I posted about with the kid's Christmas Train (the Mantleburg Line) set up in the basement, we're using more of our cars that we've picked up in the past few years while the trains were in storage.  The operating barrel car that I shared yesterday was, as I noted, in a weird color gold and brown box from Lionel .  In that post, I showed the components of the operating car - including the barrels, the car and just the simple tray to 'collect' the barrels once they're pushed out of the car.  We run FasTrack from Lionel, so *that* setup is easy to use.  Meaning...you don't need to modify any of the track/trackside in any way.   The little tray just sits next to a segment of operating FasTrack and the car simply "works".  Nice and easy - especially for us with the kids at the controls.  Today's post is about a different operating car:  The 3356 Santa Fe Operating Horse Car and Corral.  Lionel part 6-19895.  The ...

With our Christmas Train (The Mantleburg Line) set up down in the basement for the first time in a few years, I've been able to go a little deeper into the archives of Lionel O Gauge cars and accessories than before.  One of the cars that I picked up over the years is this Operating Barrel Car.  It is in this weird gold and brown Lionel box listed as "Limited Edition Series".  This is the only car that is in *this* style of box. It runs on the Union Pacific line and is Lionel #6-9290. Inside the box is the car.  Along with six barrels and the little tray that the barrels land in when you operate the car. In the most ideal situation, you wouldn't use that little tray, but instead have a barrel loader accessory (which we don't have!).  To give you a sense for how it would work together, here's a video showing the operating car (that we have!) along with the loader. We're going to get this car up and running on the Mantleburg line tonight, so...

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 ...

Another of the new items that Menards is showing in their O Gauge train section in stores this year is a series of gondola cars like this Santa Fe one you see above.  I've written before about how my Dad runs a vintage (Post War) Santa Fe F3 locomotive and over the years I've gifted him a few Santa Fe cars from Lionel .  I've never given him one from Menards, but I've bought a few on my own and while I LOVE the prices (see above..$20), I don't like two things: 1.  the boxes that Menards sells these in.  The packaging is NOT very re-usable.  2.  the couplers.  They're not great. #1 in the list above is really the biggest thing for me.  We're Christmas train people.  That means that we pack away our train for 10 months a year and then bring it out for the holidays.  The boxes that Lionel ships their cars in are a big part of that storage process and the orange boxes have meaning to me whenever we get them out.  These Menards ...

Over the years, I've posted a series of photos of various, interesting train cars that I've come across on my rides on Metra.  The first one was this MTA Metro North car from New York that I saw on the Union Pacific West line in 2012 .  Then in 2015, I saw these neat passenger cars from Union Pacific sitting in the Proviso Yard .  Today, I'm adding a bunch of interesting cars to the collection here on the blog.  And all of these were in one long line sitting in the yard just south of Union Station.  They are all passenger cars starting with the two you see at the top:  a Pennsylvania passenger car called the "Frank Thomson" and a The Milwaukee Road baggage (I think) car.  Here's a closer look at the car from The Milwaukee Road: You can see in the photo above another passenger car with a maroon horizontal strip in line next to The Milwaukee Road baggage car, but I didn't get a better picture of it.  Also note that these photos are...

I picked up this pair of flat cars with Chicago and Northwestern trailers a while back at the train show, but it has not made it out of the box yet.  I'm a sucker for Chicago and Northwestern (or North Western) train cars.  My oldest sister worked at the C&NW before it was gobbled up by the Union Pacific.  If you look closely around town, you'll still see signs for this line on bridges, buildings , stations and what-have-you. Maybe this is the year we get the full Mantleburg line out and running on a table?

I've written about the Carolwood Pacific Railroad twice before on the blog here.  First, was in 2016 when we stayed at the Wilderness Lodge Villas - which has a Carolwood Pacific Room adjacent to the lobby .  In the room, there's a bunch of Carolwood Pacific stuff, but the centerpiece is pair of actual cars that came from rolling stock.  Then in December, I posted a photograph from that same room that showed Walt himself operating the locomotive (Steam!) with a few folks on board the Carolwood Pacific.  This post features a photo that I took inside of One Man's Dream at Hollywood Studios .  The description accompanying the photo of Walt oiling the steam locomotive metions that that their home was in HOlmby Hills.  Here's a Curbed LA post about the property (which, I think has a house that was built in 2001 and NOT the home that Walt lived in.  But...does mention the Carolwood Pacific).  I've been fascinated by model trains (thanks, Dad!...

Yesterday, I posted about an operating chicken-sounds boxcar which is the first of a few of my potential pre-orders from the 2018 Lionel O-Gauge catalog.  Today, I'm sharing the second item that I am eyeing in this year's catalog:  the Moe & Joe Lumber Flatcar.  Note...in the image above from the catalog the red "NEW!", which the chicken-sweeping car from yesterday didn't have . Trainworld has this one up on their pre-order site for $20 less than the listed price above and includes this description: "Moe & Joe figures unload boards at the touch of a button".  The Trainworld image and description also includes the unloading bin, which is absent in the image above from the catalog. I poked around YouTube and came across this same car, but the description says that the last time it was made was 2004.  So, this will be the first one in 14 years?  Watching the video (I've embedded it below), I'm surprised that Moe & Joe unload jus...

The folks over at Lionel Trains have recently released their 2018 catalog or 'Big Book' as they call it.  You can find it here in this magazine-style viewer.   Or you can download it as a pdf here .  I've been thumbing through it and like a kid with the old Sears Catalog, I've been circling the items that I'm interested in and will likely pre-order.  The catalog is split between O-Scale and O-Gauge. O-Scale is Lionel's premium product.  And it isn't meant for kids.  The locomotives and cars come with high-end features, are more realistic - meaning they are true 1:48 scale, all have built-in bluetooth/other power controls and cost quite a bit more.  We're talking about $700 to $900 for a locomotive. O-Gauge is where we play.  They now call it 'traditional O-Gauge'.  The pieces are smaller than O-Scale (not by much) but still run on the same 3 rail track that Lionel is famous for.  This is also where they seem to have more fun with t...

I was packing up my train stuff for the year (btw....we finally got around to putting out our Christmas Train, yeah!) and I came across this Plasticville Pharmacy and Hardware Store that I picked up at the 2017 Christmas Train Show in Wheaton.  This is a piece that we bought for $1 and goes along with the other items that I've already posted here including the Plasticville Town Hall , the Schlitz beer billboard , the American Flyer Lackawanna girder bridge and Lionel flag pole .  According to the fine folks at Tandem Associates - who have chronicled Plasticville - this piece you see above is the 1853 Tan Version.  From their site, we find out when this was released : Bachmann introduced the No. 1853 in 1974 in a Bicentennial box, they had redesigned the front wall that was now TAN in color. As you can see in the version I bought, there are two big open windows up front.  Turns out, those are for little cardboard inserts.  Again....Tandem comes to...

More buildings and accessories are springing up on the Mantleburg line.  In addition to the American Flyer bridge that I posted about yesterday and the Plasticville Town Hall that we bought at the Christmas Train Show out in Wheaton, we also bought this Lionel Flag pole that features both the American flag and a Lionel flag standing at attention.  As you can see on the box, they are showing a red Lionel pennant under the American Flag, but when we opened it up, it was flying a blue Lionel pennant.  Just poking around on the web, it seems that's common?  Here's a listing showing the exact setup with red on the box and blue inside .  Seems like the new Mantleburg Town Hall could use a flagpole outside, right?  Wonder if we can make up a little "Village of Mantleburg" flag and run it right under the Lionel flag?  Of course, we'd follow Roman Mars lead and be good vexillologists and come up with a quality flag with no words on it, right? 

I picked up this Lackawanna girder bridge at the same Christmas train show that I bought the Plasticville Town Hall building earlier this month and we are going to add it to the Mantleburg line this week.  This isn't a Lionel part, but rather this is made by American Flyer .  I think this might be the first American Flyer part that we've acquired.  It was just $5, but looking at the various listings on Ebay and Etsy , they're mostly listed for between $40 and $50.  So...thinking we scored a deal. The sticker itself is cool, right?  Shows it was made by The A.C. Gilbert Company in New Haven, Connecticut, USA.  Who knew...but...The Gilbert Company invented the erector set !  They owned American Flyer from 1938 to 1966 , but I can't quite figure out when they put out this bridge.  From the sounds of it, I would guess it happened sometime after the 1946 post-war startup and like the mid-1950's when things slowed down before their founder die...

Last week, I posted a photo of the Schlitz Lionel O Gauge billboard that I scored at the Christmas Train Show out in Wheaton and hinted that we bought a few more things.  Today, you see one of those:  Plasticville Hall.  The version that I bought was fully assembled as you see it here and decorated by someone with some garland and a wreath over the front door.  It is all doll'd up for Christmas time.  And that's part of the appeal here for me:  we only set up the Mantleburg Line as our traditional Christmas train.  We have enough cars and rolling stock for Mantleburg, but we don't have that many accessories or buildings or structures, so that's what I've been focusing on at the show.  I've come across some of these Plasticville structures and they never appealed to me.  But for some reason (I'm pretty sure it is the garland and wreath!?!?), this one called out to me.  Five dollars later, it was coming home with us.  Turns out,...