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Somehow, we got on the subject of old toys at work the other day, which got me thinking. I know my Dad's old American Flyer trainset (he got it when he was just 8 years old in 1953) was in the basement somewhere, so on a whim I decided to see if I could find it.
Not only did I find it, but after a little grease and a squirt of gun oil into the works, the old locomotive started right up. After going through a couple scattered boxes, it looks like all the rolling stock has been accounted for too, a little dusty, but nothing's broken.
What you see there is pretty much the whole thing, the locomotive, tender, 4 freight cars, caboose. On the inner track is a baggage car and two coaches incase you want to run a "passenger" train instead.
American Flyer was always the second banana to the more popular Lionel trains from the same era, but, they have a very loyal and devoted fanbase who appreciated the extra detail and realism AF put into their trains, including using real railroad names, correct scaling, and more-realistic 2 rail track instead of 3 rail.
This particular engine, a 4-4-2 Atlantic, is painted for the Reading Lines, which was especially significant since my Grandfather worked for that very railroad as a boilermaker, and most likely either built or worked on the same engine the toy train is modeled after, so there's more than just a little family connection in that tiny little train.
I think I'll clear out some space in a corner somewhere so it can stay up and running instead of going back into the box.
The vast majority of AF stuff has survived from the same postwar period this one came from. You can find all kinds of engines/cars/goodies all over ebay for less than $50 a piece, some as little as $10.
I may have to get a tank car, no freight train is complete without one!
Somehow, we got on the subject of old toys at work the other day, which got me thinking. I know my Dad's old American Flyer trainset (he got it when he was just 8 years old in 1953) was in the basement somewhere, so on a whim I decided to see if I could find it.
Not only did I find it, but after a little grease and a squirt of gun oil into the works, the old locomotive started right up. After going through a couple scattered boxes, it looks like all the rolling stock has been accounted for too, a little dusty, but nothing's broken.
What you see there is pretty much the whole thing, the locomotive, tender, 4 freight cars, caboose. On the inner track is a baggage car and two coaches incase you want to run a "passenger" train instead.
American Flyer was always the second banana to the more popular Lionel trains from the same era, but, they have a very loyal and devoted fanbase who appreciated the extra detail and realism AF put into their trains, including using real railroad names, correct scaling, and more-realistic 2 rail track instead of 3 rail.
This particular engine, a 4-4-2 Atlantic, is painted for the Reading Lines, which was especially significant since my Grandfather worked for that very railroad as a boilermaker, and most likely either built or worked on the same engine the toy train is modeled after, so there's more than just a little family connection in that tiny little train.
I think I'll clear out some space in a corner somewhere so it can stay up and running instead of going back into the box.
The vast majority of AF stuff has survived from the same postwar period this one came from. You can find all kinds of engines/cars/goodies all over ebay for less than $50 a piece, some as little as $10.
I may have to get a tank car, no freight train is complete without one!
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