Christmas Cars on TCA e-Train
By Jim Alexander, TCA Webmaster Winter 2015
When the above Christmas-themed photo came across our desk for placement in this edition’s update to Bob Mintz’s long-running Windows Display article, three things occurred to us.
First, with Bob having been at the helm of e-Train since its inception over a decade ago, he’s now on his third webmaster. Long term persistence in the voluntary service to TCA is not unique, but Bob’s efforts are a noteworthy contribution to the understanding of toy trains. We might add, too, that the degree of accuracy he demands of webmasters in laying out his articles is eclipsed by the commitment to excellence of content that he imposes on himself while searching for topics, writing articles, encouraging authors, taking photos, and updating content repeatedly over the years.
Second, when a casual search of e-Train’s articles turned up dozens of articles, it brought home the realization of how central the Christmas season has been to the hobby. (Enter “Christmas” in the Google Site Search box at the left, and see all that’s been written by so many TCA members over the years.)
Third, it became apparent that e-Train has featured Christmas trains in its seasonal issues over the years (see the December 2002 cover above), so we thought we’d dig through the e-Train archives and show you some that have been used over the years.
We ran some of these in 2012, but this lot is even larger. Fortunately, whether it’s Christmas, Hanukkah, or Happy Holidays, the number keeps growing, as does the happiness they bring to train collectors of all ages.
Enjoy!
