On February 18th, 1994  my Grandson was born, what an event!   By Jacob's first Christmas, after watching Thomas the Train on TV, he loved trains.  I thought it would be a great idea to setup a train around the christmas tree for him.   When I look back,  it was a great success. I had taken a small diesel switcher, painted it powder blue, glued the face off a toy Thomas on the front, a small circle of track, and some wax candle buildings.  Christmas morning Jacob ran up to the tree, stopped dead in his tracks. Stood there, mouth open, frozen as the train circled the tree. About the 3rd loop around the tree, like lightning he reached out and snatched the engine and hollered "THOMAS !".

It was a wonderful Christmas.  Jacob, myself, adults and other children , like my Nephew Davey (7 yrs at the time) shown  had a great time playing with the trainset.  Santa had left me a Model Railroader magazine and by the time Christmas was over I was hooked and ready to build a larger  layout.