In my childhood we had Lionel and Hornby. I kept the majority and my son and I played with it all when he was very young.
He started out, at the age of two perhaps, with wooden Thomas trains which he retains to this day. We went to "Thomas" at the Strasburg Railroad for a number of years; he was enamoured of the original videos that featured models acting out the original Awdry stories (rather than the CGI crap of today and the garbage written by the American women who made it a franchise).
Awdry's books are here as well; bedtime reading back in the day. Any time I saw track at a jumble sale, I'd buy it. Some of the railways we built were absolutely huge, elaborate to the extreme, always featured traffic patterns so the sidings made sense, yards, quaysides, and dominated the front room.
When my father was still with us, he made a very elegant 8x4 table for him as a birthday gift, and we pulled out my old Lionel, Hornby, Meccano, and Erector, mingled more Lionel in that had been my uncle's, a few pieces from my wife's side of the family, and some we bought for him such as a Thomas set, Hogwarts, and Polar Express. Although the Meccano yielded to Lego, we had many years of pleasure together during his childhood building and running that.
He was very interested in what I was doing, too. Sometimes he'd run the scale stuff, always very careful and fastidious. Now, the interest has receded as he enters adulthood, but its still there. He kept pretty much everything of his, the toy-trains are still here as well, and one day perhaps his children will play with it all in turn. Meanwhile, he has a rekindled interest in Lego though as an adult hobbiest. It's really nice to see him interested in building something tangible as a pastime.
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