(Yesterday I spent a couple of hours writing this and it got vanished before I could post it. Hope this works today)
I might never have been bitten by the model railway bug if it had not been for two influences that made a deeep impression on me.
First was Richard Bird's (son of Petbow owner Bird - Fred will know about this reference) professionally built Trix Twin layout with working semaphore signals and points all controlled from a magnificent control panel like a 1950's version of .Cape Canaveral. It bristled with coloured indicator lights, switches, buttons, dials etc and the train controller knobs. I wasn't allowed to touch it but just looking was enough for me.
My second influence was a school based prewar clockwork 0 gauge layout with locos so realistic you'd have to see them to believe how good they were. Names like Fulgurex, Bassett Lowke and more, the layout had been built and was owned by the staff members that ran an exclusive Club for senior boys and the occasional junior whose dad had deep pockets!
This was as close to scale as possible, it had a real lever frame in a signal box that controlled the points and signals via linkages and trackside rodding just like the real thing. You felt you could have steppd inside the carriages they were so well made and detailed and all the rolling stock had real screw link couplings.
This too was a look but don't touch example.
These formative impressions remained deeply embedded in my memory and combined with later influences such as the spectacular scenery of the Swiss Alps and the Cornish Riviera route (especially Dawlish )
https://commons.wikimedia.org/wiki/File:The_Cornish_Riviera_Express,_near_Dawlish,_Great_Western_Railway.jpg
such that in my minds eye I could already build my dream layout!
So having left the days of my youth and Dad's garage firmly behind me as I went to America, I had to struggle for quite a few years to get to the point where i could begin to build my layout. However having a flat in Valley Stream, L.I. I had the good fortune to be close to that paradise for train nuts, Trainland in Lynbrook
where, on payday, I made my weekly pilgrimage to gloat over the splendours therein which is how I fell in love with Lionel and also met its then CEO Jerry Calabrese, a real gentleman, who courteously thanked me for becoming a Lionel enthusiast after having patiently listened to a lot of what I wrote about in Part 1 of this. Cynics may s###### all they like but Mr. Calabrese's courtesy made a deep impression on both my wife and I and she is as cynical and sceptical as they come.
More time passed until my next foray into trains for the benefit of my late son Daniel who was always the closest to me of my two boys. This was the first iteration of the sadly brief Faller Play train set which went perfectly with their Playmobil figures of which I am still fond myself!
I have never really cared for Lego minifigs, they are too stiff and robotic but Faller have always had a sort of bright, colourful, happy feeling about their Playmobil range which is typically Teutonically 'in ordnung' and yet somehow all the more charming for it.
https://www.flickr.com/photos/45131642@N00/49935528411
I'm saving the best for last!
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