Märklin

I was 7 or 8 years old. I made a new friend at school and he invited me to a playdate at his home. Oh, the adventure! He lived not too far from my home, but long enough my mom had to drive me there.

We played lots of things, but I only remember one toy: a Märklin set. My father told me about watching “Marklin trains” on shop windows. He could never afford them, but here I was seeing one and playing with one. It was so impactful, I never forgot.

My friend owned one of those starter sets: a small 0-6-0 steam engine, and a couple cars. He had tracks for a small oval and one switch.

It was fascinating to see it all working. We’d build tunnels with cushions. We’d turn off the lights of his bedroom and marvel at the tiny headlights of the engine as it made it’s way to the infinite loop that led to nowhere, except the stations of our imagination.

Several years later, my parents gifted me my very first train set. A Lima starter set. It also came with a tiny steam engine (a 0-4-0) and few cars. And the spark for trains never disappeared. Over many years I took over our entire garage, and built a large layout inch by inch. I bought and got several models over time. Some where Christmas presents, some I got from the paper equivalent to Craigslist, which was aptly called “Segundamano” (“Second Hand”).

The base table for my layout was left by the previous (German) owner of the house we moved into. He’d removed all tracks and components, but the table still had the marks of where the original tracks where. And, being German, it had been a Märklin set. Only vastly larger than my friend’s. But I could only see vestiges of it.

I built my layout on top if it. And it was a permanent work in progress for YEARS. As, Penelope, I did and un-did. Created new scenery, new houses, new branch lines. In my world, it snowed, sun shined, and there were barren areas like the Argentinean Patagonia. All coexisted in the same 5 square meters of my kingdom. I had TONS of curved tracks, so my father suggested using them all to build a loop. And it became one of the most fascinating sections of the layout.

Regrettably, I only have a single picture of it, which my mom found for me, which barely shows anything, except one of the biggest features: the large mountain with a track looping around it. But you get a sense of the dimensions it had.

Despite the single picture, I remember every corner of it, every tricky curve where cars would derail more often, every tree, every house, every bridge, stream, lake, coal pile, public square. It was my world.

Every month I would ride my bike to a bookstore 2.5 km away from my home, and buy Ferromania, the local model railway magazine. I still have the collection. I marveled at the incredible models it showcased. The American magazines: Model Railroader and Railroad Model Craftsman where incredibly expensive for me, and I would only get editions which were months old.

One day, I decided to try my luck, get a $20 (dollars) cashier check from a local bank and mailed it for a 1 year subscription. $20 was a LOT of money then. MONTHS later my first issue arrived home and I could not believe it. It was a miracle. I could not buy anything advertised in the magazine, but I got a lot of ideas which I implemented in my models.

Years later, I met my first girlfriend and she gifted me a locomotive which was compatible with my train. A small diesel shunter made by Rivarossi. I decided to speed up the inauguration, and with a big ceremony my trains “cut the ribbon” (a real one) and I declared the project “done”.

A few years (and girlfriends) later, I dismantled the whole thing and parts and pieces stayed in storage and some I brought with me to the US.

I married, had kids, they grew up. I bought trains for them of course. I bought a wooden Thomas in Reading, UK for my son. I then built a very simple layout for them. But it was a poor shadow of mine. And it never really took off. I scrapped it and used the board to build a working table for my boat.

My older son still loves trains today though, real ones more than models. So we visit museums, see real trains in trips and generally enjoy the subject. He now knows more than I do about history of trains.

This year, I searched in eBay for the Märklin starter set that set all this in motion. And of course there it was. The 3000 tank engine was just waiting there for me, so I brought it home where it belonged all this time. And I experienced the same happiness and awe I felt 40 years ago, as its wheels turned and its headlights illuminated once again the track that led to nowhere in real life, and everywhere in our imagination.