In the late 1950s back home, a pharmacy on Main Street had an American Flyer train sitting out on a shelf in the display window. This was in the period of time between my Lionel train set and starting in HO a couple of years later, there were about three train free years. There was the Hudson steam engine, a car or two, and that 4 window Northeastern caboose they all seemed to make. I’d see that stuff every time I’d walk home from the barbershop, which was next-door, and I wanted it bad. It actually kept a model railroad spark alive in those train-free three years when I had to put my Lionel train away for multiple bad reasons. One day it was gone and I always wondered what happened to it, if someone had finally bought it or if they just pitched it.
