The Three-Rail Rambler

e*Train Issue: Jul 2021 | Posted in: Collecting

**Lionel 394 beacon and Erector set house make an illuminated fire-watch tower**

By John W. Coniglio TCA 79-14629 (aka the Three Rail Rambler!) Summer 2021

In 1952 as Christmas approached, I was one sickly seven-year-old. I was at home for six months of restricted activity after spending a month in the hospital. My entertainment was the Lionel 2036 freight set that Santa Claus left under the Christmas tree two years earlier. One evening after the holidays, dad came home with leftovers from a post-holiday sale. He hooked up a Marx crossing gate, Lionel 145 Gateman that was missing the crossbuck, and a red beacon. My world improved instantly! Eventually I recovered, and we moved the house and the train and the accessories to a 4 x 8 plywood board until high school. That’s when I had a brief and ill-fated affair with HO gauge and rubber band drive diesels.

As operators of postwar Lionel know, the operating mechanism of the 394 is a tipsy lantern that dances in a dimpled bulb. Warm air from the bulb rose through angled vanes in the lantern and caused it to turn slowly like an aircraft beacon. The lanterns were delicate and would melt into the lamp housing when the power was turned up too high.

The beacon cap

The beacon cap lasted until the train was packed up in the mid-1960s. I started my latest layout by moving a 6 x 3 foot tabletop over a wood and tool storage rack in the garage. I found two beacons and one cap in a box of accessories. My old one was faded and scratched so I began looking for creative re-use for it. In the bottom of the box was an Erector house, the last surviving part from a 1.5 Erector set I had as a child.

Bingo! I glued semitransparent plastic sheeting in the house and drilled the beacon for a mounting bolt.

Meet the No. 394 Illuminated Watch Tower!

Shop Amazon and Help TCA

TCA members who shop at Amazon.com can have each of their normal purchases generate a modest payment to TCA! And it won’t cost you anything!

The Train Collectors Association is now a participant with AmazonSmile, which is a special website operated by Amazon that lets customers enjoy the same wide selection of products, low prices and convenient shopping features as on Amazon.com.

The difference is that when customers shop at AmazonSmile (smile.amazon.com), the AmazonSmile Foundation donates 0.5% of the price of eligible purchases to the charitable organizations selected by customers.

The process is simple. Just search for and select Train Collectors Association when you sign up and shop at smile.amazon.com.

You use your regular Amazon.com username and password, but when you log in to smile.amazon.com, you’ll see that you are supporting TCA with your purchases:

Note that if you just log in to the regular amazon.com, this benefit does not operate.

There are no costs to either you or TCA, but TCA benefits!

This is a great way for TCA to earn extra cash to offset costs, so sign up today to help support TCA.

* Note: TCA is not a party to any of your Amazon transactions, and does not endorse any products or vendors.

Helping TCA with your ebay purchases when you use PayPal

If you’re an ebay user and have a PayPal account you use to make payments, you can designate a donation for TCA when you’re checking out — any amount, small or large.
If you’re a regular seller on ebay, you can pre-designate a percentage of your sales to be donated automatically in your name to TCA as long as the purchaser pays with their PayPal account.

In both cases, you will receive a donation receipt from the PayPal Giving Fund, and enjoy applicable tax advantages.

How to do it:

Click on the image above, or use this link. This will take you to ebay, where you will see the following page (log in to ebay if you are not already):

This offers TCA as an option. Click on the “Add to My Charities” button where indicated with the red arrow. Thereafter, when you make a purchase, at checkout you will be offered the option to make a donation to TCA in any amount of your choosing. Small amounts add up, larger ones are great! It’s always up to you!

The option will appear at the lower part of your checkout page, something like this:

If you’re a regular seller on ebay, you can allocate a portion of your sales proceeds to be donated to TCA. Look at the green arrow marked “Optional” above to see how to do it. Details on how ebay calculates the donation may be read here. This is a wonderful way to share the financial benefits of your hobby with the organization that promotes it!

An added benefit to TCA is that these donations are not subject to normal processing fees, so that makes your donation work harder!

* Note. TCA is not a party to any of your eBay transactions, and does not endorse any products or vendors. PayPal issues the receipts to you for your donation, not TCA.

The Three-Rail Rambler

Search By:

Sort By:

Have Train Stories to Share?