It seems like for my entire life I've always had a fascination with trains, it's mostly been model trains though.  It's probably because I've been around them my entire life. My Great Grandpa Eckersell had built a huge model railroad in the basement of the Funeral Home where he and my Great Grandma also lived.  When we'd go visit it always had to include a visit to the basement to see the trains.  I loved spending the time down there with him and seeing how he could just flip a few switches and they'd magically start moving around the basement.  He even had one that went behind all of the mechanical equipment and came out the other side. He had a story for everything.  He even had one car that would sit near the front and wasn't attached to any of the engines.  You can see the car in the photo below (Yes, the little pudgy guy in his pajamas is me, the older gentleman is of course Grandpa).  It's the little yellow one just above the control panel.  He'd tell us this story about how he'd been working and had left his hat on the seat.  He'd also tell you about how his Secretary was in the shower in the car too.  I was too young back then to really care about the secretary, I just thought that it was really cool that he was magic and could fit in this tiny little train car.  Grandpa really was magic and we all miss him and grandma very much. There was also a reel to reel tape that had all kinds of train sounds on it.  He'd play that in certain spots on the tape when he ran the trains, so that it would make all kinds of chugs, whistles, etc. Imagine my complete shock when just a year or two ago, I was browsing a former co-workers web site and I see photos of he and his family visiting my Great Grandpa's trains.  It was actually kind of cool.

In the third grade I was completely enamored with trains.  I liked to think that I was a budding artist, and I would draw pictures of trains all the time.  I would also check picture books of trains out of the school library.  Trains were cool and it didn't matter what anyone else said. One year for Christmas all I wanted was a train set, but given my track record on the care of the Race Car set that I had received a year or two before, I think that Santa thought that a Train Set wasn't the best of choices.  Santa was wise beyond his years. I even had a friend in High School who's dad was a model railroader and had built a large railroad in his basement.  Every time I went over to her house I'd have to check out the trains and the things that her dad was working on. The first Christmas I was serving my mission, I met a guy who also loved trains.  He had collected several engines and cars.  One of them that he had was a locomotive that said "Pennsylvania" on the side.  I thought that was the coolest thing, especially since I was serving in Pennsylvania. When I was to transfer from that area (Bloomsburg, PA - my first area) he gave that locomotive to me.  I still have it to this day.  It's in my basement still in the box.  Someday I will get it out and put it in a display case. The second Christmas that I was in Pennsylvania, my companion purchased a model train to go around our Christmas Tree, probably after much of my talk about how cool it would have been to have one around our tree had convinced him that it would indeed be cool.  I was also looking for one but never found one that I truly liked.  We filled the ore cars with the vitamins that had been provided to us in the MTC and race the train around the track as fast as it would go until the train would crash and we'd have a vitamins flying all over the apartment. Several years ago, my Dad received an LGB Circus train to go under his Christmas tree.  Each year he puts it up and the grand kids love to see it.  I won't lie, I love to see it too and I've always wanted to get one.  So yes, I've been jealous for all of these years. That is until tonight.  We had a family dinner and celebrated extended family birthdays.  After everyone had opened their gifts, my parents brought out these large gift wrapped boxes and put them in front of my sisters and I. My first impression was "They got me a train!?" (no lie).  It was like I was 10 years old again.  All four of us opened our gifts together and sure enough there in a large box was an LGB G Scale train to go under one (we have four, but more on that at a later date) of our Christmas trees.  They also gave us some extra track segments to make an oval instead of a circle. I was am so excited, I finally have my own train set (I know I'm 34 and excited about a Train Set, but hey it's Christmas).  As soon as I got home tonight, I set it up around the Christmas Tree in our living room and laid on the floor with my daughter and watched it go around and around the tree.  She has been a wild one today and it was the only thing that would get her to sit still for longer than 2 seconds.  It was great she ran over me to and cuddled up next to me and just kept watching the train.  Each time it would come around it was like she was seeing it for the first time. The coolest thing about it is that it too is a Pennsylvania Railroad train.  It has the engine, a tender and two passenger cars.  Sometime in the future I'll buy more cars for it, but for now it's perfect.