My Once A Year Hometown

I got a set of Lionel Trains for Christmas one year. Along with that my parents also each year gave me some buildings to make a village. The company that made them was called Plasticville, which I think is still in business—at least I’ve seen some of those buildings on eBay and have been tempted to get some, purely out of nostalgia because I don’t have my electric trains anymore.

A few weeks before Christmas my dad would work on setting up a train platform, around which my trains would travel through the little village, Being an electrician, he took great delight in wiring the platform with lights over which the buildings would be placed. In the center of the platform would be our Christmas tree which we would have gotten in the Pine Barrens—a delightful smell of the long-needle white pine to come down to all through the Christmas season.

One year they added to my train collection by getting me a milk car which contained little milk containers that you could put on a platform merely by pushing a button. What fun!

My first Plasticville building was the train station; then after that came some houses, a police station, a fire house, a gas station, a frozen custard stand, a diner, a hospital, a bank, a grocery store.  It really was a wonder, especially at night with the lights around the village, and my imagination going to work, bringing it to life in my brain and heart. 

One year my dad brought home a timer from work and set the train to run automatically, stopping and starting all by itself. I give that mixed reviews based the fact that it was out of my control. But then i realized that the trains were as much his as they were mine. And that’s as it should have been! Why shouldn’t he have the joy of such a childhood treasure—especially since he used to tell me that the only thing he got for Christmas as a child when he was growing up was an orange. 

Alas I don’t have Lionel Trains anymore! I have often thought of getting some and maybe someday I will. But when our grandson comes over, he loves to play with the little wooden train set we have. His father, Pete, usually makes the track layout and I get to play along with Rowan.