My father bought an American Flyer train to be setup at Christmas. It was on a 4' x 8' plywood plarform. The whole thing suddenly appeared on Christmas mornings when I was growing up. In my early teen years, I took over setting the trains up. It grew to 8' x 8' then 10' x 8' with 2 trains and handcar and 1 or 2 operating cars.

When I about 20, everything went into attic storage and the platforms were cut-up. Seventeen years and 3 attics later, I started again. The platform grew to 8' x 16' (and still only for Christmas. Eleven years later and this was a yearly project for me and my son.

Then the bad times came and it was back to the attic for 23 years. Now I have a grandson and I'm starting over to surprise him with a small portion of the collection.

I've forgotten a lot and I'm no longer young. So I'm now going to (what I hope) the community.