I shouldn't get started. I was a train kid before I was a car guy. In 1956 at the age of 2, that Christmas, we got among other things, an American Flyer S gauge set. Black steam locomotive with the smoke fluid,yellow box car, flat car with load, silver tank car,and a red caboose with the little brakeman on the back step that would move when the train started. We ran that thing a lot that year. Subsequent years brought with them a black and orange single diesel with the three silver and orange passenger cars. That would have been 1957.Two years later, a green,black and red old fashioned steam locomotive with two yellow coaches came, American Flyer between 1954 to about 1960 was a very good quality,excellent running line of trains that were in actuality, half scale models and half toy trains. All that stuff got put in boxes,we moved to green southern Oregon in 1962 when I was 7, and we had no room to set up the trains,so it all was bored in a storage room on the side of the house. My father passed in 1966, there was no work up there for a single woman with two kids, so we wound up moving back down to So Cal where life resumed right at the start of junior high school. Problem was,Mom gave the trains away to a relative who came up to help us move,and never told me. I was at school that day. She never asked me first, just told me after the fact. Never really trusted her again,either. After my uncle died, I got the one set back. He'd set it all up and run it, at least someone enjoyed it. I did get the 1959 set back, it's sitting on a shelf 10 feet behind me as I write this. I bought elsewhere the two sets I had, then went on a collecting binge about 25 years ago, now I have about a 100 piece collection. Some stuff takes on a life of itself. Also, I got into collecting brass HO scale steam locomotives and a bunch of cars and HO track, but I have no idea on earth where I would build a layout. It seems that online sources and Ebay seem to be the place to go anymore,the town train and hobby stores are all gone anymore. Yes, it's an expensive hobby. So is everything else.
....but not at present.......no room for it ......
I love the Train ride, in Switzerland. Will never get there in person, but I guess this is second best.