Train "stuff"

Train “stuff”

My interests in toy and real trains both evolved simultaneously, and went hand-in-hand. While I could spend hours watching the Baltimore & Ohio switchers shunt cars around the Hamilton, Ohio yard, I was always wary of them. Reportedly when I was three or four a switcher crew offered to ride me around a bit. I was later told that every time I got out of view of my father, my eyes filled with water and they sensed panic was near. I don’t believe it of course. Running my Lionel set in the basement, I was a master at running trains. Timid? Not me!

As time passed, I discovered railroad magazines (Trains and Railroad) which contained ads for “stuff.” Books, photos, timetables, you name it, someone had it and would sell it. Other than a few books, the accumulation of “stuff” didn’t start until a day in maybe 1968.

A family friend, Jane Apfeld, was the Postmistress in the town of Somerville. She sent me some labels from bulk mail bundles that had both Railway Post Office and even Highway Post Office stamps on them. Cool.

Then about 1969, I was visiting my grandparents in Hamilton and I slick-talked someone to taking me to both the Penn Central (ex-Pennsylvania) depot and then over to the B&O station (then branded C&O/B&O). There, I discovered timetable racks! I mean, it was pre-Amtrak and before the final mega-mergers. Everyone had a timetable and some had multiple versions! And they were free! I made sure not to take the last one, either. Someone might have needed to plan a trip on the Northern Pacific to Seattle, or go to Los Angles via the Southern Pacific. Suffice it to say I had quite a handful when I flew back to Florida.

 Next up?

A gift from my uncle, Fred Shelton.

Uncle Fred was cool because he once fired on Camelbacks on the Lackawanna (strangely, he didn’t exactly remember that job as a romantic one, and his recounting the glory of feeding the steel beasts was a harrowing one. It was the only time I ever heard him cuss!). In the 40s and 50s he ran the switcher at the General Machinery Corp. shop in Hamilton. General Machinery was the “Hamilton” in  Baldwin-Lima-Hamilton.

So at least a decade after the Hamilton unit closed, he gave me a B&O switch key for the siding that they exchanged empties and loads.

Now having a 50 cent a week allowance, and a mother that barely tolerated my accumulation of comic books, severely limited by tracking down railroadiana. But once I was all grown up, and going to train shows I could see there was no limit to what I could collect. Just as thankfully, I knew my storage limitations.

I never got into oil cans or signal lanterns or trainman uniforms. I generally limited it to paper (and you can guess how much of that there is), functional coffee cups (meaning Fallen Flag mugs I use, not collectible dining car china), and later branched out to builder’s plates and trust plates (trust plates identifies which bank owns the car, not the merely the railroad that bought it).

Alas, the crowning piece of my collection was … well, let’s just say a big hunk of steel with a bullet hole in it. That thing travelled with me from Ohio to Texas to Arizona to Texas again, to New York to Oklahoma to Washington State. The last time I saw it was when the Air Force shipped my household goods to Wisconsin in 1996.

The moving van driver grunted, held it up with both hands and asked “Where you want this?”

I looked up, saw it, checked off the inventory line and number for “Big hunk of steel” and replied “Put it anywhere.”

I’m guessing that is exactly what he did.

Still makes me wince when I think about it. I figure the second family he was delivering to later that day got a great garden ornament. Seeing the going rate on eBay, however, I know I won’t be buying one.

Unless, of course, I see one with a bullet hole in the right spot.

So you collect (or accumulate) railroad “stuff?”

If so, by railroad, era, or by whatever strikes your fancy?

Or is it just toy train-related goodies?

What is your best find, personal favorite, or the most unusual item you’ve acquired?

Are there any great stories that go along with your “stuff?”