Retro uh....Monday??!

Sorry, it has been a busy weekend here. The always talented B. has a wonderful post on the toys of our youth. I too had almost everything Mattel could crank out in those years. Major Matt Mason was in full attendance in the house.

I was amazed when she did not bring up these:
(Click on picture to enlarge)

Lionel trains! This is the one from my youth. It is a "uncatalogued set" meaning that the hobby store owner just had the odds and ends laying around and cobbled up a set for my Mother. No matter to me then or now, it is highly prized and returns to active duty every year around the Christmas tree. It ran over green army men and other various obstacles then. It has retired from hazardous duty!

So I started to collect Lionel in later life. I need to smell the ozone and have pre Consumer Product Safety Commission stuff. Stuff you can electroweld with!  

So here is the collection of post war transformers. 190 and 275 watts:

They dwarf the small 30 watt transformer that my parents got with the set. No matter. It still finds duty as auxiliary power for a bell/whistle switch I built that is far superior to the disk rectifiers in these gentle giants. They have been rebuilt true to original condition. I think that there are few toys produced today that will survive and still hold interest 30, 50, 100 years from now.    

I cherish this train.

Thanks B.!