As children my brother and I spent many hours driving our electric
trains through mountains, crossings, tunnels, cows,herds, milkmaids.
The set was given away, my brother has gone away, and I have Lupus so
am inside almost always, Now I can play with trains again, but my
brother was the buyer/designer. I can do it, I know I can. Please tell
me where I can shop online for mountains, signals, and a brass steam
engine. I'd like to see some designs of existing systems. I have
several cars and some track. I do want to hear that lonesome whistle
blow, and I want horses in the pastures, and milkmaids and ordinary
citizens, Can you help me?             Jean Bancroft

What it sounds like you are looking for is Lionel Trains. They are the
number one supplier and producer of model train products (or at least
they were 10 years ago when I was introduced to the trains). I myself
loved these as well. Their website is here: [ http://www.lionel.com/
].

If you are like the majority of model train users, it is likely that
you used the common "o gauge" of track and trains.  Gauge is explained
here: [ http://www.lionel.com/GettingStarted/Guides/AboutGuage.cfm ].

For track layouts, Lionel has a diverse set of track layouts that you
might use for beginners and experts [
http://www.lionel.com/GettingStarted/Guides/TrackLayouts.cfm ],
complete with where to put switches, crossovers, track, and other
pertinant information.

To find all those wonderful trains, signals, switches, scenery, and
everything else, I suggest you look at the Lionel catalog, which is
available online here: [
http://www.lionel.com/Products/Catalogs/index.cfm ]. They literally
have hundreds of trains and train related products.

These products are sold through authorized Lionel dealers [
http://www.lionel.com/Dealers/Index.cfm ], and through the Lionel
online store [ http://www.lionel.com/Store/index.asp ].

For some designs of existing model train layouts, I found several
attractive designs. One [
http://www.electrictrainoutlet.com/gallery.cfm?show=gallery&pic=1 ] is
from electric train outlet [ http://www.electrictrainoutlet.com/ ]
which claims to ship their train products anywhere. The Lionell
operators train society's conventions page [
http://www.lots-trains.org/html/2001_convention.html ] and [
http://www.lots-trains.org/html/title_page.htm ] has some nice looking
pictures of their layouts also. Toy train review online [
http://www.toytrainrevue.com/ ], has several nice layouts featured
such as this one: [ http://www.toytrainrevue.com/super-o.htm ]

I trust this covers all the information you requested. If you feel
this answer is lacking in any way however, please feel free to request
a clarification.

Finally, thank you for using google answers and thank you for giving
me the opportunity to be nostalgic about model trains.