Expert: Rex Ransome - 3/18/2009

Question
When I was a kid my grandparents used to have a night light that sat on a table top like a lamp.  It stood approxiamately 12 to 18 inches high. If you looked down on it from the top the shape was oval with a hole in it.  On the inside it was just a light bulb and a shade sat over the whole thing.  On both sides of the light was a train engine, different trains.  Over the light bulb but under the shade was a plastic cylinder with slits in it.  When you put your finger in the hole from the top you could spin this cylinder and it made the trains look like they were moving and look like smoke was  coming out of the trains. The light would be atleast 40 years old now.  My question is do you know who made these lights and where I may be able to find one.  I was trying to look it up on the internet but I'm not having much luck.

Answer
Yeah, search on Ebay for "motion lamp" the heat of the bulb created the motion and the scene illusion. I have one with Niagra falls. some were made in the 1920s, but some were still being made by the 1950s. Do asearch and you might see one like you had. Thanks