My father collected trains all his life. As a boy, I put in many hours playing with them alone and with my friends. Now that I am much older (60) I am interested in finding out the background of each engine and car that I own. I do have Lionel from the standard guage olive drab tin ones, one O-guage tin set (259E) and many pre-and post-war models, most purchased before the 1960's. I also have American Flyer models and a bunch of HO trains that I haven't looked at too closely yet.
I have been looking for web sites that have some paragraphs on the history and description of specific train models. But I find mostly auctions and E-Bay sales. I did find a nice site with a discussion of my GG-1 at http://www.postwarlionel.com/cgi-bin/postwar?ITEM=2332, but pre-war has been more difficult.
Any good leads for pre-war models like my tin 259E or my die-cast 225E?
This site http://hoseeker.net/ has quite a bit on HO.
This site has links to many American Flyer sites http://www.trainweb.org/crocon/saf.html
Happy Hunting
Paul
Well for the Lionel / American Flyer trains you could check with the Train Collector's Association:
http://traincollectors.org/
There are many books (and videos) available about Lionel history, and Lionel and American Flyer price guides are common too. The books and videos by Tom McComas and James Tuohy are a good source of information:
http://www.tmbv.com/
...and of course, this websites "Classic Toy Trains" forum and magazine:
http://www.trains.com/trccs/forums/95/ShowForum.aspx