A Lionel Christmas

[Penny Trains]

OK.  I know it's March.  But this wouldn't sit till next fall!    You have got to see this website: https://www.cardboardchristmas.com/papateds/Christmas1920s.html

Remember this pic?

This site has the info that goes along with it!  :

"A Keen Christmas - 1920:" The Christmas tree of Mrs. A.M.Keen, ca. 1920. Washington, D.C.- Harris & Ewing glass negative.
We have Howard Lamey to thank for spotting this one among the Shorpy.com photo archives. A remarkable display! The trains, telegraph poles and lamp posts are German. It appears to be a small Bing or Karl Bubb 0 gauge set of charming European style. Of particular interest is the lower track down on the floor. Enclosed within another charming Dent cast-iron fence, this type of two-rail track with wooden ties is characteristic of the very earliest kind of electric trains. Setting them up was not for kids!You got a box of pre-cut ties with slits in them and flexible strips of steel rail which you had to push down into the slits. Lionel's earliest trains -between 1902 and about 1908 used this kind of track 2 7/8" wide. This track is narrower at 2", and marked an advance in that it came sectional, as I have just been informed, and that is definitely not a Lionel engine on it. I have never seen that little steeple-cab engine. I guessed Bing or Bubb or even Maerklin, but I just don't know. All the train stuff is pre WW I. In those early times, several manufacurers made running models of the strange little mining trains - now extremely rare - that hauled coal out of the ground, and so a mine is what we have here - complete with croquet players? Is that real dirt on the floor? It's not unheard of in early putzing ....

This one is probably my favorite:

 

Make sure you click on the links in the green boxes at the bottoms of the pages.  You'll find this pic under the WW2 section:

This website is primarily devoted to the "putz" tradition of building villages around the Christmas tree so not all images show toy trains.  Of course to many people "putz" means these:

Naturally these sites link to ones that tell you how to make your own little glitter houses.  There are also some handy building fronts there and siding and shingle patterns.

Enjoy!  And remember....Christmas is coming! 

 

[Flintlock76]

Hey, if the Hallmark Channel can have Christmas all year long why can't we?

I was floored looking at that storefron in the website's second photo, wow, them's real guns in that display!

Looks like a (left to right) a Mauser automatic, a Smith and Wessen M&P, and a Colt automatic. All of which cost as much, or close to it, as those Lionel sets!

[Nationwidelines]

Penny Trains

OK.  I know it's March.  

LOL!  That reminds me of when I visited Cleveland about 10 years ago and stopped to visit the late Don Speidel and his wife in mid to late March (about a week before Easter) and their house was still decorated for Christmas, with several loops of track circling a live Christmas tree that was barely retaining its needles.

When asked about the tree, Don replied that he had cut it from a neighbors lawn, and when asked about the decorations, Don replied that his wife collected Christmas ornaments.  

I still laugh when thinking about seeing their Christmas decorations up in March.

NWL

[ADCX Rob]