Catspaw: Thanks for that vignette of your father, and for sparking memories of the Christmas train set. For my father and my brothers, it was American Flyer trains (remember them?) The ritual for putting up the layout was much the same: take down the antique bed in the spare bedroom after Thanksgiving and put up the green-painted plywood table that took up most of the bedroom, and leave it up till late January or so. My father was quite the handyman in his more-able days; he built the table, and for one end of the table built a two-level tunnel through a "mountain" with ramps up to the second level. Aside from that it was all tracks, engines and railroad cars, except for a few free-standing trees and a building or three.

I remember a lighted station building that had a tiny record inside it that would play engine sounds and a conductor's voice. I also recall a platform that would move "people" (figures) along its length by vibration. Of course, I (the baby sister) was restricted to watching the setup run, for the most part, or once in a while to operating a train with LOTS of supervision!

Sure wish my brother would take those trains out of storage and set them up at his place, but I can only imagine how much work it would be to get the engines to run again. I don't suppose the parts would be easy to come by, these days.