Toy Train Fans' Paradise --- A Diary (1)

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Christmas has been put away into its drawer until next December. Yet, I was reminded of it when I chanced upon a rather original present when I was looking for something. I'd like to tell you about it in different instalments fitting for the way in which it's been done. It was definitely the nicest present we got and deserves to be honoured here. It came in a parcel from England. The senders are a family of four: Father Brian, Mother Pam and the 13-year-old twins Nick and Debbie. --- We had met and befriended them last summer at a ‘Hock’ in a Swabian village in the south of Germany ('Hock' meaning ‘sitting‘ in the local dialect). This is a festivity during which the people of a village put tables and benches into the streets. They sit together, chat and eat and drink the local specialities. We learnt that Brian had been stationed in Germany with the British army, travelled a bit at that time, fell in love with the landscape of the Land Baden-Württemberg in the southwest of Germany and decided to show it to his family one day. The day had come. They had put their tent on the camping site of a town between Stuttgart and Ulm, and were exploring the area. As Pam wrote in her foreword, they had decided that each member of the family should write a text on what had impressed them most. As you can imagine, the accounts differ widely from each other. I’ve edited them a bit and hope that I haven’t introduced any mistakes. BRIAN: TRAINS AND TECHNOLOGY. I must admit I wasn’t completely honest when I talked my family into these holidays. I raved about the beauty of the Swabian Alb. It’s not that it isn’t beautiful, it is, what with the gentle mountains and the woods, but what I was really interested in was the Märklin Museum in Göppingen. When I was a boy, I used to go to a neighbour’s and play with his Märklin model railway. I loved it! Later I somehow forgot about it, but then I chanced upon a newspaper article describing the museum and my childhood memories came back. I simply had to go there! I didn’t tell Nick about it, so that it was a surprise when we went there, and what a surprise! Boys will be boys (no matter their age!) We bought a mini club locomotive and some wagons as a souvenir and start for our own collection. We train freaks will be back for the biannual meeting of the friends of Märklin model railways, count on us! I’ve learnt in the museum that the average number of participants is 40.000 (in a town of 50.000 inhabitants!), that train-maniacs come even from Japan and that Christie’s once auctioned off an old locomotive for 100.000 pounds! P.S. I’ve started playing the lottery. --- If you are interested in the other installments, click on the green bar at the top of the site.