a Thank You to Athearn model trains

My very first Frontier Chemical came in a ? 1964 ? Athearn train set.

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A 1965 Boys Life magazine article showed how to make a small tank display. I could do a lot better now with a computer printer to make a paper wrap for those paper towel tubes. But it's been around all these years with magic marker and some rubber stamp lettering to mimic the tank car lettering.

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I bought this un-assembled kit in 2023,
and from the price on the box,
I am guessing it was new in the early 1960's.
And I assembled it and it runs great.

That old box also had the instructions and part numbers,
something that I didn't get in the 1960's because I bought my first rail cars in a SET.
Back when a whole Athearn train with two locomotives and 5 cars and a caboose came in one big box
with a beautiful big train picture like the little boxes had.
I should have kept that big box for the sake of the picture, it was about 20 x 30 ? inches.
But, during a move, I decided to just take a picture of it and then discard it.

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I know I smashed that first tank car really bad, maybe from a train wreck that crashed it on the floor. The platform split in two all the way across, and some stanchion supports broke off, too. The hobby shop suggested that I write direct to Athearn for parts. I didn't have a parts list at the time, but I described it well, and asked them for a price list. And lo and behold, in a month a brown paper envelope shows up with not a price list, but the entire part with the handrails. I can't thank them enough for helping a young guy keep the railroad running. I have bought plenty of Athearn locomotives and cars since then. Also, it was a small miracle it arrived in one piece, it wasn't in a box or bubble wrap, just a small brown envelope the size of the palm of my hand, through the US post office.

I know the tank car was repaired by 1972, when this wreck picture was taken on an old, now long-gone, layout.
The tank car is in white at the upper right of the picture.

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Now a-days, I install wreck prevention on parts of the railroad to keep cars from hitting the floor.

That can be done with good scenery like trees and pole lines.

A strip of cardboard that rises 3/8 inch above the ties is enough to stop a car from rolling over the edge,
yet allows viewing of most of the train cars while hugging the cliffs.

If I got energetic, I could print and glue on a paper strip with pictures of shrubbery or steel retaining wall or stone blocks.

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