American flyer 1218

I don't have a layout yet, I've just started collecting. I already have quite a few vintage Lionels and American Flyers in my modest collection, mainly prewar, and some postwar items. This what got me into collecting and restoring vintage trans  just recently. I found this 1920s American Flyer 1218 engine on Ebay for pretty cheap. It was missing parts, dirty, and it didn't run. So i thought I'd buy and see what i can do with it. I  took it apart, cleaned it up, put power to it and it ran!   I later found a few of the missing parts on Ebay (still missing a bell for it)  and the 2 cars for it, those were  also on Ebay, $17.99 for both!   After that, i started buying and fixing up more cheap train projects. Everything in my my collection is something I've fixed up, or cleaned up.