Hornby Shop

How nostalgic is this? The Swindon outlet centre has a Hornby shop. It's full of their stuff Scalextric, Airfix, but mostly Trains. I spent a glorious nostalgic hour looking through the stock,talking to the staff about my dublo kit, of course it's ancient by today's standards nevertheless they were interested enough to listen to my ramblings of youth, we had a good chuckle when I was asked had I seen the big engine on display,in the entrance to the centre?, I told them not only had I seen it I can remember being pulled by it going from Kemble to Stroud when I was at college. The modern stuff is well modelled, but, for me something is lacking, maybe it's because everything is there and to scale from trackside furniture to signal boxes stations and tunnels, there was very little of this available when my first train set arrived on my seventh birthday, Dad and I spent hours making things, as a child my imagination was running riot I could make tunnels from boxes a block of wood with small nails in it looked like a signal box,use small bits of coal in the coal wagon. I remember Dad spending hours making a station and a proper signal box. Dinkey cars were used to enhance the playability, so what if they weren't to scale, to my friends and I they looked fine, oh yes as I grew up so it was allowed to take over a spare bedroom, there we cobbled together tables and bits of timber to produce a surface to run on. For a short time we were using the loft until one of the lads put his foot through the ceiling covering Mum and Dads bed in plaster, we were none to popular that day. I never got into the modelling thing of the hobby but still had great fun from it until finally leaving home as a so called adult, part of  my youth was put away in a box and there it remains waiting for the day when one of my boys is ready for it.
Recently my two year old grandson somehow found the engines put safely in a cupboard, he has desperately wanted to play with them. I am thinking when he is older perhaps and I suspect he would respect the set more. The trouble is this new stuff is in some ways more realistic leastways, the track is, mine is all made from tin shaped and painted to look like ballast and sleepers As well as a third rail carrying the current, whereas this modern stuff has two rails the sleepers are attached to look like they are in their saddles much more as it should be really. How this would set with a boy of the twenties I have no idea, but if he has any feel for the past ????? Who's to say, after all this time I am loath to part with it.
Suffice it to say I would dearly love to see my trains running again.