It's been a while for this writer and she lives a black away Union Pacific North rail line and often commutes downtown on Metra. Even if you don't use the train on a regular basis, there's something romantic about locomotives. This writer enjoys seeing the conductors in their starched white shirts, crisp navy pants, squarish matching hats, making change with the old-fashioned coin changers strapped on their belts.

So it was beyond cool to discover Walthers, a site dedicated to model railroads. We don't have a mini rail line downstairs, but if we did would most definitely bring the legendary Empire Builder to our layout, to quote the advertisement on the homepage. Walthers just started selling the 60-seat coach last month, and you can get a new car every 30 days until June. Just think - your HO scale model replica will come graffiti-free! Wow! We'll get a man to buy the train, we'll just pretend to get off and on a spring day in 1955 with our hat boxes, D'Orsay pumps, and white gloves. What do you think?