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"Maple
Grove Scale Models" |
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How Did I Get Started? Like many children growing up in the 1950's, I had a train set. Mine was a Stream Line Steam Type Electrical Train made by Louis Marx and Company. The locomotive, a 0-4-0 was lettered for Southern Pacific Lines. The set also included a Baltimore and Ohio boxcar, a Pennsylvania gondola and a Southern Pacific caboose . I spent many enjoyable hours amusing myself by running that train set. Now flash forward to the mid 1970's. I am now married and living in an apartment with my wife. My parents have just sold their home and will be moving into an apartment as well so ask if I want any of my stuff still at home. A visit home finds me retrieving several boxes and a quick peek reveals my MARX train set, a road race set, a Meccano set and other childhood memories. Back they all go into the boxes and the boxes stored in a closet. Christmas rolls around and a christmas tree is placed in the living room. My wife suggests we put the train around the tree and I claim that it probably doesn't even work. None the less, I retrieve the train set, make a circle of track around the tree and attempt to run the locomotive. Sure enough it doesn't work and I say "See, it doesn't work" and pack it up again. By the way, I still have the set and a recent google search revealed The Robert Grossman Company who are a major manufacturer of parts to restore and repair MARX trains. But wait, I'm getting ahead of myself and this story isn't finished. As I mentioned, I had placed the train set back in the closet and had forgotten about it but the next day my wife comes home from work and offers me a pre-Christmas present of an HO scale train set to put around the tree. Of course I never put that train set away, and the rest, for me, is model railroad history. |