Playing with trains

Ah, trains...some memories I've already shared about my family's connections with trains. Today let's remember playing with them.

Our train that ran under the Christmas tree in 1953 looked somewhat like this.

A Lionel train, which ran around in a circle over and over again, under the Christmas tree of course. It was fun for maybe the first 10 minutes to "drive the train." But then it would usually hop off the tracks and had to be returned to a special part of track (coupling?) which my father added, where the wheels would be easily corrected onto the tracks.

Fast forward to when my sons were very young, probably about 5 and 8. We turned the garage into a train table, which had a mountain in the middle where a child could easily stand, and the train was an HO gauge, rather than the bigger O gauge of the Lionel train set. We didn't have these buildings as are shown on the above layout. And it was only played with for a few months until the next interesting toys came along.

My great grandfather, Charles Herman Miller (who I never knew) was a conductor for the railroad that ran through San Antonio, TX. Here's a post about him (and the family) from a few years ago. (And here's another post about his coming from Germany to Texas.)  Since some of his daughters were born in other towns, it's likely he worked in those areas for some of the time. I find it interesting that his eldest daughter (my grandmother) wouldn't ever ride trains, but chose to fly instead in the 40s and 50s.

On the other hand, my mother, sister and I would go to San Antonio from St. Louis MO in the summertime...on a nice clean train with an observation car. I liked sitting up there all night, while my sis and mom took uncomfortable naps in their seats down below. I may have slept some of the time also. I think it was a 16 hour ride. And I don't remember anything about the trip coming home. That's the way this young person would be excited about arrivals, and disinterested in returning home.

Sepia Saturday this week has a big engine...one of those old steam locomotives.

Did my great grandfather perform his duties as a conductor on one of these in early Texas? I'm guessing yes.