Hello all. This is Charlie in Western NC, joining after seeing the flyer in an Ebay purchase. My first set of Lionel was for Christmas in 1957, which I still have and run. Of course as a kid I 'modified' the loco, which I did not put back right until 1980 or so when I could find the pilot truck I had removed for some odd kid reason. When my closest childhood friends moved away...to Brazil when I was 7, I found in their backyard, the only turnout I ever owned, and a Sunoco tank car in the dirt, have them still. I never knew one of my uncles was into Lionel until he called one day and said he was sending me his trains. I received a large lot of 1950's O gauge track, turnouts, cross overs, locos, steam and diesel, and freight cars, plus some LCCA specialty cars, all shipped via the Greyhound bus, in their original Lionel shipping boxes. By this time I had 2 sons and the dining room floor was the 'train room' where we could leave it set up except for Easter, Thanksgiving, and Christmas, where a smaller version went around the tree. I've never owned a house with a garage or basement, but, when all my kids finally moved on and made their own lives, I laid claim to an 11X14 playroom with dormer ceiling that is 6'3" in the middle and about 60" around the long sides, I built over my 'garage'. I don't consider the room called the garage on this house a garage, unless this was 1922 where I could park my Model T in it, because that is about how big it is. I can only stand up in the middle of the room, otherwise, I scoot around on a wheel stool. So, I have an around the wall double track layout still in various phases of completion and maybe one day will post it here. Not really a collector, like to run them, and really like to find the things I want, without the boxes. I watch the various sell sites, use Greenberg's and what things have sold for to figure out if the seller is anywhere near realistic, many are not.
