Doug
Indeed it is; like (probably) most of us, I have trains in several scales. And (also probably like most of us) S scale seems to be the "perfect" size. Just a shame it never really "caught on". I have some pretty nice early (immediate post-war) examples; the engines run REALLY well, and are very easy to work on... 
Mark in Oregon
Yes, I ended up with all the trains we ever had and I have the same hopper which is part of the train set my dad got for my oldest brother in 1949 when my brother was 7 months old (my dad liked railroads, too \:^). It also had the 639 "reefer", red 638 caboose, and 300 Atlantic which I have recently restored. My brothers and I would spend hours just watching that train go around an oval my dad put on a 4X8 sheet of plywood. The sight and sounds of those big trains are magic.
I was the only one of us whose fascination with model trains persisted.
Doug
