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Post by Adam on Nov 29, 2023 13:31:47 GMT
These historic photos are fascinating!
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Post by Adam on Nov 29, 2023 13:35:10 GMT
This guy on YouTube restores historic footage. www.youtube.com/@nass_0Here is a great video of Union Station in Washington DC from the 1930s. This one includes great 1940s NY subway footage. |
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Post by healey36 on Nov 29, 2023 14:29:57 GMT
Great videos, especially the New York City bit. Look at that and recall it's after the Great Depression and Second World War...amazing.
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Post by steveoncattailcreek on Nov 29, 2023 20:45:36 GMT
. . . or even earlier, pre-1906 earthquake San Francisco:
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Post by healey36 on Nov 29, 2023 21:39:31 GMT
Went to San Francisco on my honeymoon (that was a few years after the earthquake). A great town, but I understand it's changed a bit over the last four decades, and not necessarily for the better. The Top of the Mark, one of the greatest bars ever. Here's Elizabeth and J. Hamilton Fish III showing with their Christmas train in 1930:  Looks like a Lionel 258 with a mixed consist...let's get some track down kids! Courtesy of the Library of Congress. |
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Post by mrmeep on Nov 30, 2023 4:14:07 GMT
My Grandfather's 1929 Christmas Layout. The Lionel #253 is in the lower right. There are two other trains behind the tree. Sorry for the quality, but this is a copy of an OLD photo. (But it IS 'vintage'! And it IS Christmas! And it IS trains!) I now own two of his three original trains. My cousin owns the other one. They are all still in the family three generations later. And running like new!  Click image to enlarge
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Post by dennym57 on Nov 30, 2023 16:08:14 GMT
It was a different world back then.
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Post by healey36 on Nov 30, 2023 17:35:23 GMT
Wow, MrMeep, that's an extensive under-tree toy train display (and a massive Christmas tree, by the looks of it); your grandfather must have been a fun guy! Glad to hear the trains are still in the family after so many years...even better that they are in running condition. A guy down the street from me dropped off a box of stuff he found in his parents' house while cleaning out the attic before putting the house on the market. Rather than chuck it, he dropped it off on my doorstep. There was a bunch of stuff in the box, including a 253 along with the rest of its set (no. 96, 1926-1927), really rough shape. This might be the set your grandfather had (although his loco's color looks much lighter). After giving it some thought, we soldered the loco's shell back together, then gave it a cosmetic refurbishment while replacing any missing bits. Here's where it ended up:  I'm not one for stripping/repainting originals, but when you have to solder it back together, you're not left with many options. Anyway, it could stand to be rewired, but for now it's good enough. I'm hoping the three passenger cars can just be straightened, polished up, and returned to service. Anyway, great stuff...thanks for posting! |
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Post by healey36 on Nov 30, 2023 19:07:07 GMT
Christmas 1948:  Can't see the locomotive, but if it's 1948 and a postwar set, I'm guessing a Lionel 671 Turbine...they must have sold a bzillion of those things. Nice homemade buildings, some putz houses, a 1045 Flagman, a 151 semaphore, a set of street-lamps, a nice truss bridge, bottle-brush evergreens, and the Nativity set. Yup, this is a classic. Edit :: Looking at this picture again and marveling at the application of tinsel to that tree. That may be the most impressive thing seen here, lol. |
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Post by healey36 on Dec 1, 2023 22:03:15 GMT
The Christmas tree lots are full around here, prices are high. I'm going to forego the "real" tree and use our old artificial. This year was terribly dry, so a cut tree is likely to last a relatively brief period of time (at least that's been our experience the last 3-4 years, whether we bought it off a lot or cut it ourselves). Here's a photo of trees for sale in Woonsocket, Rhode Island in December 1940...brings back a lot of memories of the annual trek and the seemingly endless task of finding a nice one:  Fourteen cents a gallon...outrageous! Courtesy of the Library of Congress. |
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Post by steveoncattailcreek on Dec 1, 2023 23:14:07 GMT
Here's a photo of trees for sale in Woonsocket, Rhode Island in December 1940...brings back a lot of memories of the annual trek and the seemingly endless task of finding a nice one: Fourteen cents a gallon...outrageous! Courtesy of the Library of Congress. Ah, the pic brought back memories of pumping Sunoco gas on Sunburst Highway in Cambridge, MD during and after college, nearly sixty years ago. By that time, the per-gallon had crept up to just under 30 cents (for the bottom 190 grade -- the super high test 260 was about 37 cents!). Since we were located on Route 50 between Ocean City and the Baltimore-Washington areas, we regularly set records as the highest-volume two-pump station in our distribution area, and during the summer peak, we'd have lines out to the highway of customers waiting. We got good at queuing the cars up on both sides of the pumps, so we could pass the hoses to the other side to start those customers running, while collecting the amount due. It was quite the choreography, all while washing windshields and offering to check the oil!
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Post by healey36 on Dec 2, 2023 22:56:52 GMT
Daughter went to a choose-and-cut farm today to buy a tree...$185 for seven-foot Frazier fir. Nope, went to Michael's and bought a nice seven-and-one-half-foot pre-lit artificial for $90. Craziness...
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Post by Adam on Dec 2, 2023 23:07:30 GMT
Daughter went to a choose-and-cut farm today to buy a tree...$185 for seven-foot Frazier fir. Nope, went to Michael's and bought a nice seven-and-one-half-foot pre-lit artificial for $90. Craziness... Wow! Crazy how much things are costing today. You can grow a Christmas tree in a few years. Evergreens grow fast. |
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Post by josef on Dec 2, 2023 23:19:43 GMT
When we had our first Christmas, we bought our first 6 foot tree, which were your choice for 3.75. Last time we bought a real tree the cost was 15.00 and it was a 7 footer for our entrance.
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Post by Bill on Dec 3, 2023 8:32:06 GMT
WOW !
Speechless
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