Any model railroad guys here? I need some advice on a Christmas gift.

[BladesNBarrels]

My guess is that she will remain enthusiastic. She loves to build. We've tried model airplanes, RC trucks, dinosaurs, etc. she enjoyed them all, but none quite hit her in the breadbasket.

I pulled out my old Lionel train from when I was a kid and she fell in love. Kept asking about buildings and people. I already have a 4'x8' play table I built the kids. It's about 24" high, and I cut an 18" circle in the middle so they can sit in the midst of their empires. Should be perfect for a new RR enthusiast. Honestly, I think she likes all the extras more than the trains, but that's fine. I expect she will rearrange all the buildings and create new layouts pretty regularly.

Great!
It sounds like you have your answer.
On-line there are a lot of accessories available for what you already have.
In the 50's, when I lived in Sacramento, a neighbor had converted his entire attic to a train set mounted on plywood about 3 feet off the deck.
You crawled under the layout to a position in the center and were surrounded by different scenarios including a train yard, a mountain and river scene, a depot, and a rural set depending on what direction you faced.
The neighborhood kids, under his guidance, were individually allowed to control everything.
He also was the neighbor that bought fireworks on the 4th and supervised the kids to safely blow up firecrackers, cherry bombs, sky rockets, etc (well, as safely as we knew in the 50's)

[sniper7]

Kids don't generally have the greatest attention spans, but I hope it works out well. I'd suggest just getting a basic train set, and see if the motivation is really there for all the extra stuff.....just saying.

Mizzell might have been the place you were thinking of, Sniper. Off of Federal and about 74th?

Yep that’s the one.

[fly boy]

I inherited some old train pieces parts, engines, etc.

Where would be a good place to get it appraised and maybe even donate/sell to someone who would use it? it's all HO, N-Gage stuff I believe. It's the quality 5-lb engines, and steel cars

[Tim K]

Like an idiot, I sold a ton of old HO stuff from when I was a kid a few years ago. Never dreamed my kids might want it. I got good money for it on ebay. Now I wish I had it all back.