You might want to check out a K Line S2 that was listed just yesterday, Oct. 22, on Ebay under the Marx heading. It is, of course, O gauge and is in Southern Pacific livery. There are several Marx S2's available. If it weren't for Ebay I probably wouldn't be in this hobby- shows and swap meets are practically unheard of in my area.
Like you I also love the December issues and by strange coincidence, I pulled out and started thumbing through all the ones I have just today! I have the "Winter 1989" issue, missed a few years but then got all of them from December 95 to 2011. I'm expecting my December 2012 to arrive in the next week or so.
Becky, I wish CTT would do a digital Archive like MRR did
new, at least to me, in the past 10 years...
USA Track - manufacturing the best traditional standard gauge track i've ever seen/ used and in large radius (57", 72", 84", 87" diameter). unfortunately with their name, a tough search to hit.
Joe's Trains - starting off making a few very good quality Marx 3/16" scale type freight cars.
I Believe Arizona trains is still around. This weekend the big O gauge show in York, Pa is going on. Basically if you can't find it there you probably can't find it lol.
On the comment about legacy I would agree its superior to the regular tmcc but " TMCC is almost obsolete now" I would say is false there is still a lot of folks using tmcc. Yes most engines now have legacy except if you get atlas or weaver as they still can only use the original tmcc and if you goto upgrade an engine to my knowledge you can only get tmcc. So it being almost obsolete not by any means. With that said at some point I will probably upgrade my system to legacy as it even makes tmcc engines run smoother from my understanding and able to do slower craws and take-off's.
Lionel is even reintroducing the cab1 and command base this year but its now cab1-L ( L for legacy) it from my understanding is a basic legacy or beginner legacy. From reading thou not sure if the cab1-L will work with the original command base or not as they don't say that.
Life's hard, even harder if your stupid John Wayne
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Thanks for the welcomes and responses, I actually bought the Lionel Trains the Golden Years 1950-1954; the very day I got the layout running, I went right down to Barnes and Noble's and bought the current issue of CTT and that was also on the newsstand. But I will keep my out for those other issues, especially the Layout one. Yea, I love the December issues, Christmas and trains...can't beat it.
I hear you about K Line. I only own 2 pieces of rolling stock, but the first CTT issue I got had a story about the K Line S2 switchers. Always wanted one, will get one one of these days!
Funny you should mention hobby shops. I live in the Boston area, so I used to go to Charles Ro (and still do, only stopped for a few months after someone was rude to me there). But when I was starting in the hobby, I used to get most of my trains from train shows and...train lists! I used send the SASE and would get back a list from a store or private collector. (btw, is Arizona Trains still around, I bought some things from them...and I bought a few things B&E junction too). I would use my saved allowance and snow shovel money to buy a caboose or set of Marx telephone poles or even....a small locomotive! The internet was still in it's infancy back then, so I never really used Ebay for O Gauge trains (although I used it recently to buy 2 locomotives). But besides Charles Ro, I never really bought trains from small stores because they were much more pricey and most didn't have used trains. Funnily enough though, one store I never bought much from back then, Duxbury Green, I have been buying more and more from now (in all 3 scales). In an interesting twist though, I have bought N and G scale trains often from Trainworld in NYC. However, lately I've bought less and less from them through mailorder and more from in person because I've started to visit the NYC area lately a few times a year. I'm a church organist, so I usually do at least 2 trips a year, after the "busy seasons" of Christmas and Easter. Maybe this Christmas I'll buy an O gauge item from them. I will say, I went to the area again at the end of the summer and visited the RR Museum of Long Island. Seeing the 2 Lionel layouts there I think pushed me to get the layout back running.
This will be great going to train shows again. I've noticed that train shows tend to be good for HO and O, but can be hit or miss for G and N. Since I've hit the circuit again, I usually have stayed to buying N scale because the G scale items (at least for locomotives) tend to be much more expensive. I remember one year, the gargantuate Springfield show, at least for my budget at the time was not so good for N, so now this gives more oppurtinity to buy.
I'll second the motion aboard!
The special issues of CTT are "must haves" in my opinion: 2005's All Star Electric Trains, Lionel's Showroom Layouts of 2011 and Lionel Trains The Golden Years 1950-54 which is on store shelves right now are jam packed with info and ideas.
Speaking of the hobby in general, the biggest change I've seen is the switch from local hobby shops (LHS) you can visit to net based retail you can't. Alot of hobby shops have gone out of business in the last 10 years including two of my favorites Ridge Road Station and Warren's Model Trains. Neither of those succumbed to pressure from internet sales though, in fact both thrived because of it, but they're just two examples I can think of.
Possibly the biggest improvement in the industry is Lionel's decision to start moving production back to the US. It's limited at the moment but there's hope!
Becky
Trains, trains, wonderful trains. The more you get, the more you toot!
Welcome to the forums! I witnessed all this happen, the saddest part was watching K-Line being spread every which way across the board. I'm not sure how long you've been away from the hobby, but TMCC is almost obsolete now, after the introduction of Legacy. You covered almost all of the major happenings, although I may have over looked something.
Trevor
So I know this may seem like a big topic but I've just rejoined the hobby after over a decade of absence. I am a young-ish fan in my late 20s who started the hobby in middle school with a few postwar Lionel items and a back issue of CTT that ballooned into many postwar and modern era locomotives, cars, Plasticville buildings, non-operating accessories and many more issues of CTT. and finally a small layout.. Not long after Lionel celebrated it's Centennial, my small 3'x3' layout (if you're a member of the Lionel LLC FB group, I just posted a picture of it) had to be stowed away to make room for college stuff storage. Over the years more "things" have built up and this year I've been slowly trying to clean everything out. In the process of cleaning, I finally realized a way I could set the layout back up and run my trains, and did so last month. It feels good to be back!
I did some research into what has been going on in the hobby since then (probably about 2002-3). I see that
Lionel went through a bankruptcy (as did other model trains producers) and settled the lawsuit with MTH and is out of bankruptcy
Williams is now being made by Bachmann
KLine is out of business, having been briefly made by Lionel and now some of the molds are being made by Ready Made Toys/Trains (in turn made by Aristo Craft). I do enjoy N and G scale too so I've seen their trains "out of the corner of my eye" at train shows. Indeed, during my college years, I sort of took a sabbatical from train shows (simply because I couldn't attend them because I didn't have the time), but upon graduation, I've returned.
Is that about everything? I only very simple analog on my layout, I'm sure much has been improved in terms of control technologies (such as Trainmaster), but that doesn't apply to me. It looks like I came back literally just in in time for CTT's 25th anniversary. I see too that CTT no longer does G scale articles, I'm assuming that stopped once GRR started doing indoor layouts. While the 20th anniversary is one I should probably track down and maybe some of the holiday ones (I used to love those), are there any others worth track down?
The last ten years I've had to "distance" myself from O gauge trains a bit, but not anymore! Again great to be back.
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