10-15 years ago when my grandma was in the early stages of dementia, my dad and I pulled my grandpa's pre-war Lionel train set down from the attic. I thought it would put a smile on my grandma's face to see the old train set going after 50ish years.
After maybe 10 years of replacing wires, motor brushes, etc, one Chritmas at a time, it's mostly functional. My daughter and I set it up under the tree tonight with the MSU game on in the background. Not sure how much longer it will last, but the kids still get excited to play with it, and it's a nice little Christmas tradition that brings joy to three generations of our family. Just thought I'd share a little joy in preperation for tomorrow!
Really cool! I have an old Lionel train set but the engine needs a lot of repairs. Maybe I should look into it. Sacramento has big model train community so I think there must be some people who do repairs.
This is all late 30s/early 40s. It's amazing what engineers put in to a toy almost 100 years ago. Find me at a game and I'll talk your ear off for hours about copper oxide rectifiers and stacked plate switches.