Lionel Heirloom - Part 1 2/19/22
As I noted in my 2/3/19 Blog entry, my maternal grandfather, Henry C. Layer (1884-1964), was “A Railroad Man,” as was his father before him (Charles Armond Layer, 1845-1935). Both worked for the West Jersey and Seashore Railroad (WJ&S), which was owned by the Pennsylvania Railroad (PRR). Henry worked for the PRR for 54 years, 50 of those as a steam locomotive engineer.
Henry also was a model railroader. I remember the O-Guage layout in his basement during the 1950s – a Lionel 2-6-2 steam engine #224, coal tender #2224W, three load-carrying cars and a caboose made in 1940. After his passing, the layout came to our basement, where my brothers and I enjoyed it. Sometime after I left for college, the layout was boxed up and put in the attic.
Twenty-some years later the major parts of the layout was unexpectedly sent by my mother to our home in Carbondale. After we moved to State College in 1984. I set up the layout in our basement, where it initially captured our children's attention. Over time, however, our children were much more interested in computer games. Over time the train itself became part of a display of mainly O-Gauge Lionel model trains and a PRR lantern on a family room wall. A doll house Henry made for my mother in the late 1920s that sat in the middle of the layout was passed onto my brother’s daughter.
Though our son was never a model railroader, as an adult he expressed interested in the train as an heirloom. We plan to downsize within the next year, putting Lionel #224 in a display case became the perfect Christmas Gift idea. The needed materials were a couple of pieces of red oak from Home Depot; 5 ft of Lionel "fast track" available on eBay; plexiglass cut to measure by a locally glass business; and screws, stain, polyurethane etc. that I had in my workshop. The following are a few photos taken as the project progressed, starting with detailing the trail:
Dry-fitting the cut pieces oak and track, and taking measurements for the plexiglass front, ends and top:
Assembly of the major pieces with screws after the sanding, staining, applying the polyurethane finish to the oak, and pre-drilling the screw hole:
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