TRAIN TIME: 2018 Memorial Day Parade on The New Layout

I like to set up  Memorial Day parade's on my layout as a small way to pay tribute to our fallen war heroes and as a way to break out and display toys that otherwise sit in boxes most of the year. This year's parade on the New Layout wasn't as big as last year's but was still fun to put together. This year I pulled out a vintage Marx Canadian Pacific No. 500 Army Supply Train engine and tender along with vintage 6" 4-wheel cars. None of these have been run for years so it was time for them to 'stretch their legs". Enjoy! Opa Fritz and Oma Bettina

The Marxville City Council elected to turn the site of the previous 'catastrophe' (see our series "Bad Day in Marxville') into a park.

Some action shots

The parade consisted of Auburn, Sun Rubber, Ideal, Marx, Payton, Processed Plastics, and Thomas Toys vehicles with Marx and Payton figures. 

Playing With My Toys - Military Convoy 14 Oct 2017

Soooo, I've got all these toys I've been blogging just sittin' around doing nothing! In a rare period of  'me' time last week I decided to pull out most of my smaller military vehicles and see what I could do. Using the display base originally built for my American Civil War toys, I re-purposed it into a convoy route. There's approximately 135+ vehicles shown here (I didn't even bother to include the larger MPC stuff) and, using the photos, decided to put together a short video as well. It was fun being able to pull these out of boxes and off shelves and just play for a change - I mean, looking at 'em is cool and all that, but sometimes even collector's just wanna play! Enjoy! Opa Fritz and Oma Bettina