A Martinsburg Boy's Memories and Stories from the 1950s

John Bush was raised in Martinsburg and graduated from Central High in 1961. He spent most of his adult life in the Pacific Northwest. He has many memories as a boy in the 1950s that give some insight to the people and culture of Martinsburg in the 1950s.

John likes to tell stories and over the years he has repeated the stories of his youth many times. His belief is that those years in Martinsburg influenced him all of his life. Some of the stories are historical in nature, some are colorful, and some are personal. He wishes that you enjoy them.

The 1950s were the golden years of model trains. Lionel, American Flyer, and Marx were the three most common model trains on the market then.

American Flyers sold by A.C. Gilbert were to scale and ran on two rails. Marx trains produced by Louis Marx and Company were the least expensive and ran on three rails. Lionel dealt mostly in trains and accessories. Their trains ran on three rails and were sold in both O27 and O scales. They were not to scale but dominated the market, particularly in Martinsburg.

Model trains were mostly made of tinplate or die-cast iron in pre-WW II days. The shortage of metal created in shutdowns of production. The introduction of both good and cheap plastic train engines and cars came after the end of the war. Marx continued making some metal tinplate cars while American Flyer and Lionel began to produce plastic cars. All three companies still used die-cast for their steam engines. Lionel cars were solid, ran well and had knuckle couplers which could be uncoupled by pushing a button in certain spots along the rails. They also had realistic horns and many accessories that could be operated by buttons. Many boys would play for hours, just uncoupling and coupling the cars.

Lionel attempted to get girls interested by putting out a train set in 1957 with a pink engine and tender. It did not sell well and many unsold boxes remained unopened for years. Thirty years later, the pink train set became one of the most sought-after by collectors. One unopened set sold for $30,000.

American Flyer produced competitive choices, but Lionel had more options and getting their catalog was the envy of many boys. American Flyer also had yearly catalogs but Marx generally only advertised in Sears and Montgomery Ward catalogs along with American Flyer and Lionel. I wore out the pages of my grandmothers’ Sears catalogs.

Dad bought me a Marx metal 3/16-scale set with Engine 999 in 1951 for $5. The best thing about the metal Marx trains was that they ran forever, could be dropped, run off the table, and did not break. In comparison to Lionel and American Flyer, they reversed without a resting position and had forklike metal couplers. I still have an original set made at the same time, with the same engine and cars.

Christmas was model train time for both boys and their fathers. Many parents had grown up in the 1930s and they, in most cases, did not have good train sets or they had had none at all as boys. I had four uncles on my mother’s side of the family who were raised on a farm alongside Potter Creek. I was told that one Christmas they got a windup train with just a circular track. All four boys had to share playtime with that one train. They did not have electricity so a windup was the only option. In the 1950s, with the exception of a few less-fortunate families, everyone had at least one train under the Christmas tree along with Plasticville or cardboard houses. The thing to do on Christmas Day or on the day after Christmas was to visit friends, see their new train presents, and have your friend or his father run the trains. The most expensive models were Lionel and American Flyer Santa Fe passenger sets that had A and B snub-nose engines.

Their passenger cars had interior lights which, along with the Christmas tree lights and lights inside the model houses, made quite a sight when the living room lights were turned off.

Jim Eicher ran wires on plastic telephone poles and had Christmas lights strung out alongside the entire track which circled around the tree. I had many uncles and male cousins on the Bush side of the family. Everyone of those households had Christmas trains set up, so in my case I saw more trains than most of the other boys in town. Part of my parents’ Christmas tradition was to visit each family over Christmas.

The most elaborate setup in town was at Cal Lingenfelter’s home. All of the furniture was cleared out of their living room, and as I recall, there were eight circles that accommodated mostly Lionel steam engines with whistles and smokers pulling a variety of freight cars. Two sons, Don and Roy, along with their father, would get all the trains running at the same time. What a display of noise, smoke and trains! Young visitors thrilled to the sight. I think my dad also enjoyed them because we went there several times over the holidays. Years later I realized many of the dads bought their sons model trains because they never had them growing up in the Depression.

Stump’s grocery store in Roaring Spring and Dilling’s store in Martinsburg carried some Lionel trains. I became interested in the Army switcher No. 50 displayed at Dilling’s. I do not know how many times I asked Mrs. Dilling to set it up on the counter for me to examine. When I finally came in to buy it, the switcher had been sold. Someone told me there was one at Stump’s. So I rode my bicycle to Roaring Spring and bought the one they had on display.

Lionel engines could pull more cars than Marx engines could. I figured out a way to convert one Marx car so its coupler could attach to the coupler on a Lionel engine and made a long train of lightweight Marx metal cars. Now with the switcher and my 999 Marx engine, I was able to run two trains at once. Dad had built a plywood table for me in the basement to which my mom relegated all model train activity, and I could play there anytime throughout the year.

The real model train mecca was Altoona, which was called by some the ‘Iron Horse’ capital of the world. At Christmas time, Gable’s Department Store set up a large display of Lionel trains.

Also, the five-and-dime stores and hardware stores sold model trains in the weeks before Christmas. Some of the clothing and shoe stores had model trains running beneath Christmas trees in their display windows. In 1958 at Western Auto in Altoona, I put down a payment on a Lionel train set that featured a red-and-black Seaboard switcher with several cars. The set was put on layaway, and every time I was in Altoona, I made additional payments and always asked to see the set. The clerk finally told me it would be stored away until it was paid in full. I made money from summer jobs and a newspaper route, but I was not a good saver. Fortunately for me, many newspaper customers would give me Christmas tips beginning after Thanksgiving. I soon got the set out of hock and added it to my layout in the basement.

In 1958, I was a sophomore in high school and the other boys my age seemed content with setting up their trains at Christmas but not playing with them much. Possibly they were becoming more interested in girls before I was. For whatever reason, I enjoyed trips to Altoona to look at trains until the time I headed off to college and I still play with trains. Up until I was in my late 70s, I collected model trains and a one time had over 2,000 items.

Fascination with Altoona over Christmas began with many trips there with my parents and sister Jolene. Several of Dad’s and Mom’s sisters and brothers did not drive or did not want to drive into Altoona which over Christmas was crowded: the downtown was packed with traffic, parking was scarce, and sidewalks were full of shoppers.

Mom did a lot of shopping for relatives and sometimes they came along. Jolene and I would be left in front of the train display or in line to see Santa Claus at Gable’s. When I got older, I roamed the main street, lit by Christmas lights on the street poles, on shops and in store display windows. Looking in Gable’s windows was just like the movies showing kids and their parents looking in Macy’s windows in New York City.

Most kids were not aware that Altoona was a famous railroad city at its peak in the 1940s and 1950s. My memories may be exaggerated, but were somewhat confirmed by an article I read in an old national magazine that referred to Altoona as ‘Little New York City.’ Comedian George Burns once noted that Altoona was on the vaudeville circuit.