I’ll never forget the Lionel train set my Uncle Hubert started for me when I was 10 years old.
The first box I found under the lights of our Christmas tree was heavier than my metal box full of pennies. I opened the box and pulled out a black beauty of a locomotive with six silver wheels that reflected the lights of the tree. Other boxes contained a tender, small transformer, and enough 027-gauge track to encircle the tree.
I remember my grandmother asking my uncle if he felt I was old enough to have such an expensive gift. My always calm and logical uncle said I was certainly old enough to own and operate a model train. He instructed me on how to set up the transformer and warned me about touching the live wires. My grandmother still appeared uncertain, even skeptical, about my operating the train, but she trusted her son’s judgment.
Well, the tree didn’t burn down, and I didn’t get electrocuted, so my grandmother’s fears diminished and my uncle continued to give me a car every Christmas for six years.
I would run the train for hours, pulling freight under tunnels of chairs and bridges of blocks, steaming past the tall forest of the Christmas tree with the train howling like a wolf in the night while the sharp, warm scent of electricity filled my nostrils.
I waited five years to receive the car I really wanted — the refrigerator milk car. It was white, like the milk it delivered, with seven miniature silver milk cars, which could load into the hinged roof hatch.
I would pull the car onto the remote-control track and buzz the little man to deliver the milk. Watching the little man was like watching the cuckoo pop out of our kitchen clock without having to wait an hour for the pop-out. I reloaded that can so often, my right thumb showed the dark indentations of the milk cans.
The last car I received from my uncle was the caboose, the last car on a train.
By the time I was 16, I decided I needed more room for my train set because I planned to add buildings and trees to the setting.
As luck would have it, our next-door neighbors were moving and were going to discard their two ping pong tables, which I knew would be perfect for my additional tracks and the other additions to the setting. I asked for the tables, got them and set them up in the basement.
I now made a few visits to Reyff’s Toy Shop on Oak Park Avenue to buy some buildings and trees.
Mr. Reyff, an avid model-train enthusiast, fixed me up with the additions I needed to complete my set up, which I kept in operation until I was 19, and then I gave the train set up and the tables to the 12-year-old boy who lived next door to us.
Even now when I see a model train set up, I happily remember my Lionel years, and all the fun I had when I was an engineer.