Thank you guys for the replies, as I said, other than a fascination my knowledge of model trains is limit at best.  My father recently passed away and while going through his storage I came across it. I remembered playing with it as a kid so being that is was 12 in 1989 so that fits. The loco itself and all the cars are pristine, I think the only actually broken piece is a small wheel handle on the tanker car and one cross tie in a section of track. I would really love to get this thing running, it makes me feel a little better after the recent passing of my father.

I have included some pictures, the box isn't in the greatest condition but not bad for minimum of 16 years in storage as my grandfather passed in 2000.

Hi everyone, I'm new here and I admittedly don't know that much about model trains, but I found an old set that was my grandfather's.  I remember him having it when I was a little kid in the early 80's.  I was wondering if there was anyway to identify exactly what it is.  Also I want to get it work, the trains moves great however the track seems to have bad connection or something because it stops in several places along the track, so my question is will the track and controller that I can buy from bachmann work for an older train like mine?