DECATUR - Nothing says Christmas for boys like a train set under the tree.

But Fred Wilhite never got one. He was raised by his grandfather, Fred Stanley, who worked for the Wabash Railroad and didn't take his work home with him in the form of toys. A young man during the Great Depression, Stanley learned to marshal his pennies, and there was no money for luxuries such as model locomotives.

But his adopted son and grandson grew up loving trains while learning the value of patience, cherishing the idea that all good things get shunted into the siding of those who wait. Fifty years on, Wilhite finally has a train to call his very own, although the only tree big enough for it to fit under would be a California redwood.

Drive out to his Decatur home - he lives, of course, on Christmas Tree Road - and feast sore eyes on the pride and joy he's always wanted. Decked out with festive multicolored lights, the full-size CSX 1940s-era passenger car is 82 feet long and 14 feet, 2 inches high. Dismantled for its final journey to his house and then assembled again, it weighs more than 100 tons.

It arrived in late November from the Jasper Street railyards in Decatur via a road trip of more than 15 miles and five years of organizational headaches and expense that ran into "many thousands."

Wilhite had to persuade people, such as the railroad management, that he really did want to buy one of their old trains. "Ron Peters (of Farmer City-based Peters House Movers) actually moved the train by road to my house," he said.

"I don't think he took me serious at first, either, but I bugged the hell out of him. I'm a little bit weird, and once I start on something, I'm vindictive about staying with it."

The only good thing about the delay in the train schedule was it gave Wilhite, who owns Auto Body Repairers, time to prepare for its coming. He built a 200-foot-long platform of earth to hold the train, and locked it all inside a retaining wall where each block weighs 85 pounds, and he needed six semitruck loads of them to get the job done.

The carriage sits on rails he bought from Norfolk Southern Corp. when they tore up a line that ran across Martin Luther King Jr. Drive, and the ties came from a Canadian National crossing on Brush College Road that was being rebuilt.

Now all Wilhite has to do is rebuild the train.

It was last used as mobile office space, and Wilhite isn't exactly sure what its original purpose was back when its wheels first kissed the rails during the twilight of the age of steam. He's done some initial tearing out of false ceilings and other nonoriginal clutter, but his final restoration plan will be guided by careful research.

"My research is going to tell what I am going to do with it," he adds. "But I want to restore it."

Part of the car had what appear to be sleeping quarters, and that will live again. Another part will house a collection of World War II memorabilia - Wilhite is a big fan - and another section will be restored to look like a sumptuous dining car. His granddad used to take the family to California for vacations by train (they traveled free), but nobody was allowed to eat in the grand dining car, making do instead with cookies kept in a steamer trunk. Wilhite doesn't say as much, but visitors get the impression that the dining car rebirth pays homage to another denied aspect of his childhood.