First of all allow me to extend a warm holiday greeting to everyone. I sincerely hope you all are enjoying a blessed time of the year. This is a special time of the year for me as I have brought out of moth balls the Lionel 2055 train set I was given for Christmas when I was 7 years old in 1953.

I have restored the engine and have traded my old worn-out tender for a rebuilt one and have the train running on a small layout on my dining room table. Here's my dilema...

My wife is giving me an L & N train for Christmas (O Guage) and I would like to be able to run the trains in an extra (small) bedroom, but I don't think I want anything perminent or fancy.

Would any of you have suggestions as to what trackage I should use, especially if I wanted just to run the trains on the carpeted floor. I understand some of the newer solid-backed tracks are capable of handling this.

I received mine American Flyer for Chanukah in 1954 when I was 4. I have it around still after getting it 'out of the mothballs'...

I recommend laying your set up out on the rug for a while, and/or for a few play sessions. It helped(s) me get some three dimensional experience in how I want to set uo the equipment permanently. I have a small HO and "n" layouts too. The HO is now tacked to a 4x8 board after I experimented with various shapes and sidings and, well - just played with it and got a sense of what I liked and wanted.) You can always make it permanent to a board after that.

My son - recently turned 6 - and I love to go to garage sales and find train setrs of various gauges. We have a lot of HO and American Flyer and "N" stuff now so we do a lot of mixing of scales too before we decide to add to the permanent set ups.