So I went at lunch to pick up the train, and the guy who gave me back my engine and tender (not the repairman who looked at the cars for the estimate) told me "yeah, these old trains are getting harder to repair and getting harder to find parts for". The guy looked maybe 20.. I wanted to say to him, have you heard of the internet? I know the parts are out there for this train, and from talking to many of you, I know that this train is repairable and not too painfully by someone who works with them regularly. It feels to me like the repair guy simply looked at it and said "this is gonna take me more than 15 min to get up and running- I'll bail on it now."
So to get me through the Holidays, I purchased the Lionel C&O Dockside Switcher. It has whistle and steam functions, and I think my daughter will love it.
VG