How Stupid Are They?

[MurphOnMillerAve]

Murph,
It is good that you have such remembrances. All are not so fortunate.

Tell us some of your remembrances, Roger, if you would like to.

Or should Roy or I start a new thread, something like: "The Parents Who Made Us Us".
or
"Dads
or
"Dads and Moms."

[Rufus T. Firefly]

..... should I start a new thread, something like: "The Parents Who Made Us Us".
or
"Dads
or
"Dads and Moms."

Sure. I need all the depression I can get....

[MurphOnMillerAve]

Well, if that's the only answer I get, I have my answer.....NEXT idea!!!

[Rufus T. Firefly]

Well, if that's the only answer I get, I have my answer.....NEXT idea!!!

I am a ray of sunshine.............

[MurphOnMillerAve]

Yes, you have saved us from a wallow in sentimentality, apparently. Let's just stick to hotpantsed vinyl-clad hotbabes, and talk of beers and bridges. This is a model train forum, afterall, not an outpost of Dr. Phil, huh, so Rock-on, bro. I'm witcha.

[Roy]

So Murph, did your father have anything to do with your interest in trains?

[MurphOnMillerAve]

So Murph, did your father have anything to do with your interest in trains?

Thanks, Roy. Yes, he built this control-center so I could have easy access to "assisting" him in the operation of his trains without my crawling up on the layout to mess around. Mother, he , and I played trains together.

Of course, I assume his working in the steel mill exposed him to plenty of trains, and I imagine it would have been difficult to be so close to their majesty and power and not get beguiled by them. Trains were omnipresent in everyday life in and around the steel mills of the Pittsburgh area, too, so many people liked and even loved trains during my childhood.
Thanks, again.
Murph
P.S. The little houses in these photos, on the layout, were scratch-built by him and my mother, as was the out-of-scale fencing border around the layout, out of wood from deconstructed fruit crates fruit used to be delivered in (like the ones you and George drew attention to in the "Homewtown" thread).

[healey36]

Is that a Christmas display, Murph, or a permanent layout? Love the “brick” skirting...The Old Man used that when assembling the “Christmas Garden”...brings back some good memories.

Healey

[MurphOnMillerAve]

Is that a Christmas display, Murph, or a permanent layout? Love the “brick” skirting...The Old Man used that when assembling the “Christmas Garden”...brings back some good memories.

Healey

Christmastime, only. I don't know where it hid-out from my adventuresome hands when it wasn't Christmas, but sure enough, each Holiday, it magically reappeared (now that you mention it and make me think about that!) Maybe, they disassembled the whole conglomeration, stored the platform (as we called the plywood sheet in those days) and produced that special kind of magic annually.

P.S. That brick paper skirting , besides being a finishing-touch, was intended to mark the territory where I was not allowed to venture - under the layout. But of course, true to both my parents' indulgence, and to my nature, that was precisely where I went as soon as the trains were running. So, they let me enter that magical cave, shuffling in on my back, somehow managing never to tear the paper (I think), looking and listening upward as the trains rumbled around their loops, with the lighted houses aglow amidst them. What magic! I can still smell the fragrance and hear the heaven of it all.
Murph

[rogruth]

WOW. Inner loop has TWO reversing loops and is O-27.
Can't tell for sure about the outer loop.
Lots of fun there.

Oh yeah. You haven't changed at all.

[Rufus T. Firefly]

You haven't changed at all.

He has acquired a case of arkoudaphobia

[HONDO74]

Murph
Looks to be a pre-war Lionel train set. Do you still have it ??

How the heck did this conservation get into the thread " How Stupid Are They" There is nothing STUPID about it....

[MurphOnMillerAve]

WOW. Inner loop has TWO reversing loops and is O-27.
Can't tell for sure about the outer loop.
Lots of fun there.

Oh yeah. You haven't changed at all.

Yes, those reversing loops provided plenty o f variety in operation. The outer loop was a continuous loop, with no switches or turnoffs. That's why the Lionel Scout is on it, since there has never (?) been a more fussy, finicky locomotive than the Scout, seemingly always at the ready to derail.

[MurphOnMillerAve]

Murph
Looks to be a pre-war Lionel train set. Do you still have it ??

How the heck did this conservation get into the thread " How Stupid Are They" There is nothing STUPID about it....

Yes, that's a 1666, and I still have it (on display in my bookcase.) It has my favorite horn ever, and runs well, though a bit fussy about traversing switches. It also never liked going too fast around tight curves. It goes in my hands in my coffin, my wife has assured me.

[healey36]

Definitely late-prewar on the inner loop, possibly a postwar Scout set on the outer loop. Pretty nice to realize the contents of your basement today was inspired by this, so many years ago...

Healey