Our Lionel Town

Josh and I took a ride over to Glen's train shop over in Akron yesterday and bought a few accessories for his (our) train. It almost seems like one would need to open up a home equity loan to buy some of this stuff...and as it is turning out...the locomotive is the cheap part of this hobby. Josh had some Christmas money that he was wanting to spend, so he picked out the gray/blue country house, the Harley Davidson billboard, a couple of extra 8" tracks, and some people to populate his town. With the little guys being $25, the billboard $35, and the house $30...he went through his dough pretty quick. I had wanted to get some trees for the layout, but this particular shop doesn't carry them. Oh yeah...a typical 6" tree will run you about $15.

As I conveyed to Josh...and myself...this will be a hobby or ours that we can add pieces slowly over time, as the cash flow permits. The old black water tower and coal station are both from my collection as a kid (Josh doesn't know that yet...) The grass mat came just today, so with Josh off at a buddy's house for a sleepover and Sarah Kay snoozing away upstairs...I meticulously disassembled everything to lay the landscaping mat. It would have been a whole lot easier had this come prior to Santa's arrival last week, but the postal system didn't exactly cooperate.

Our next investment- next to the trees of course- is a trestle-bridge. Donations can be sent over to Barberton for anyone who would like to buy some stock in this layout.