[WyoBob]

My dad and I built quite a setup over several years after I joined Cub Scouts when I lived in Kansas City. He loved trains and he and my granddad had a free pass from the U.P. anywhere in the country because they shipped so many cattle by rail, mainly to the K.C. stockyards. They also took many Shrine trips in those days by rail.

We had an "O" gauge setup with two transformers and two rows of switches. We had a Streamliner (?) locomotive and steam loco you dropped a pill into the smokestack to make smoke. We made plaster "lakes", had tunnels, grass, trees, a depot, town, cows grazing the hillsides, etc. It was all mounted on four 4x8 sheets of plywood.

We had a logging setup where you could dump and convey logs, a coal setup, a milk car where the doors on the milk car opened and a little guy pushed milk cans onto a platform, a "barrel" car that conveyed and dumped barrels and my favorite--- a cattle car with little rubber bovines inside. You pulled up to the stockyards, hit a switch, the doors came open on the stock car and the little beeves vibrated out of the car onto the platform. You could corral them and then open a gate and load 'em back up. What a hoot.

I'm glad I came across this thread as it took me back many years (1950's) to a great time in my life.

When I finally had a house big enough to set up the train set, I went over to my mom's to retrieve it. Mom said my brother had picked it up several years earlier. He never had a danged thing to do with it, ever. He sold it. Probably for booze and drugs. I still get burned when I think about it. I've got twin grandson's, now. I'd love to have that train set in my downstairs to amaze them (though they might be a bit young at 13 months).

WyoBob