I think I've told this story here before, but it was a looooong time ago... apologies if you've heard it.
When I was like 14 or 15, I had a shoebox full of slot cars ranging from AFX nonmags to early 440s. I loved to run them, but I didn't have a permanent layout, and the track I had was old TycoPro circa 1973 and more and more pieces were losing their tabs every time I set it up.
I was in a hobby store one day that specialized in trains and I noticed this cool-looking gray track, and there was a sign that said it was on clearance. I asked about it, and the guy essentially gave me a big shopping bag full of the stuff, I think it was all he had left, for five bucks. I remember it stunk trying to ride my bike home carrying that bag, but there was enough in it that I got my dad to help me put together a 4x8 table and built a decent-sized amateur-landscaped layout on it--one end went through the mountains, and the other had a little town (you've seen the buildings--7-11, Roadside Inn restaurant, Freezees Ice Cream, like that).
I remember thinking the track was very clicky-clacky with some of my cars, and noticing the little raised traction ridges for Thunderjet-width cars, but I only had two Tjets at the time and neither ran. The funny part was that the longest straights I had were something like 6-inchers... apparently the shop had already sold out of the longer pieces when I got there. No wonder it was noisy with all those joints. Since we didn't have the wonders of teh intarwebs back then, I never knew anything else about Faller and it never even occurred to me that they made longer track pieces.
Then I turned 16 and got my license... all that stuff got taken down and put away in boxes. Luckily, it escaped the yard sale monster--I still have all the track in a box in the basement. (The buildings are on my current layout.) I actually found a really neat little box of Faller track pieces at an antique store a couple years ago and added it to the collection... some weird little 30 and 45 and 60 degree curves and a two piece hairpin and I think an intersection...
Also, it's interesting that when I got back into the hobby around 2000 and discovered Atlas/Lionel track, I loved it because of the connection system which is the same as Faller (though the lane spacing is different). I actually have used lots of my Faller track connectors on my current Atlas/Lionel layout...
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--rick