Re: childhood crazes
First train set I received (age 8) was a late-1950s Flyer Mountaineer, purchased for Christmas second-hand from the Joe-the-Motorists-Friend store here in town. Still have most of it, and it still runs (although the smoke element could stand a rewind). From there I moved onto N-scale, building a decent-sized layout. Most of the gear was Atlas, and it ran poorly (likely through my tracklaying ineptitude). Kept at it for twenty years, then got interested in prewar tinplate. True toy trains are "conceptual", a lot of pretend involved, which suits me fine. I got to leave all the baggage of scale behind; now I just run stuff that's supposed to look like something, sort of, and I'm okay with that.
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