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Toy Train Photos

Melensdad

Melensdad

Jerk in a Hawaiian Shirt & SNOWCAT Moderator
Staff member
The other day there was a thread that went askew and turned into a toy train chat.

I happen to have some of my train stuff at my office and figured I'd take a few photos for comment and consideration.

This first photo is my latest prize. It is a limited production flat car that was made in conjunction with a bakery in Germany. The train car includes a cookie with an image of a train engine painted on it in icing. This car was produced in one run, about 8 years ago(?). I recently found this one for sale, I picked it up from a guy in Norway. The cookie is has a crack in it, but it is still in the original wrapper. The flat car is 1/32nd scale, which is also called Museum Gauge, and roughly equivalent to "G" scale, or Garden scale.

Also photographed in the picture is my little Z-scale 2-6-0 locomotive, with coal tender and an attached "Christmas" car. Inside the clear plastic Christmas ornament at the rear of the tiny train is another Christmas car from a differnt year.
 

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Here is another limited edition car, this is the 2005 "museum" series car. It is photographed in front of the same little Z scale train as in the prior photo.
 

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Here is the 2004 "Museum" series car, this one includes a small metal jeep like car as well as a clown to drive the car. All these trains are made by Marklin. The "Museum" series just happens to be a circus train, they issue only one car per year in the series and each is a limited edition run.
 

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You might be surprised to learn that some of the Thomas stuff is very collectable. Lionel made some Thomas pieces that are very valuable. No I should restate that, they are VERY valuable.

I honestly just like to set them up to play with. I never had a set when I was a kid and I used to bust my dad's chops over the fact that I didn't have a toy train as a kid. So sometime when I was in my mid-late 20's he bought me a small cut crystal train set. After my daughter was born I used her as an excuse to buy a Christmas train to run around the Christmas tree.

Now I only buy a few cars a year, but I only buy limited edition stuff. My 'collection' is probably under 100 total pieces. Of those pieces, probably 90% of them are limited run pieces.
 
B_Skurka said:
I honestly just like to set them up to play with.
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Do they give you funny looks when your sitting on your office floor playing with Thomas, Percy, Toby & friends? :whistle: :StickOutT
 
Heck my VP has 3 radio controlled cars under his cradenza and he races them up and down the hallway, its not like he can actually level any criticism of my toys and then expect me not to stomp on his!
 
B_Skurka said:
its not like he can actually level any criticism of my toys and then expect me not to stomp on his!
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Hey, another use for your gun(s)! :2gunsfiri Blow those radio controlled puppies away!
Bone
 
B_Skurka said:
its not like he can actually level any criticism of my toys and then expect me not to stomp on his!
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:yum: :yum: :yum:


Sounds like a fun place to work (or not work as it seems to be).
 
B_Skurka said:
You might be surprised to learn that some of the Thomas stuff is very collectable. Lionel made some Thomas pieces that are very valuable. No I should restate that, they are VERY valuable.

I honestly just like to set them up to play with. I never had a set when I was a kid and I used to bust my dad's chops over the fact that I didn't have a toy train as a kid. So sometime when I was in my mid-late 20's he bought me a small cut crystal train set. After my daughter was born I used her as an excuse to buy a Christmas train to run around the Christmas tree.

Now I only buy a few cars a year, but I only buy limited edition stuff. My 'collection' is probably under 100 total pieces. Of those pieces, probably 90% of them are limited run pieces.
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That's pretty funny. I never had a train set either. Grandma gave my daughter two of the Thomas trains but no tracks so I used that as an excuse to go buy a lot more tracks and basically the "rest" of the Duplo set (still need to get James but my daughter's birthday is in a few months:whistle: ). If you look closely you can see the Disney Princess Talking Kitchen in the background - that was the real Xmas success story. Of everything that the two girls got the only thing of interest I have to play with is the Duplo train - an I'm making the most of it!:D
 
No Collector's Editions here, but I have enough postwar / early 50's Lionel gear to operate at least 6 separate trains each with some animated cars.

At one point I had an entire garage space laid near solid with track and multiple trains running simultaneously. The kids and their friends loved it.

Not shown - milk can unloader cars, yard crane, log ramp, ZW (275 watt, 4-train) transformer plus a couple of others, and lots more animated cars.

This is all operating, not collectable, grade stuff and everything works or at least did the last time I played with it.

About 20 years ago I pulled out my 90 watt transformer and really thrashed gear saved from my childhood, and spent about $1,000 at Toy Train Operators Society swap meets accumulating the stuff I wished I could have afforded as a kid. Today I hope the collection is worth a little more than that, but I don't expect to ever sell any of it.

Hmm I need to dust that shelf.
 

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My uncle worked for Lionel in Hillside on the Irvington border and I had lots of trains growing up. So much so that if I wrecked one, he would just take it back to the factory and have it refurbished or replaced. When I moved in 1973, I gave all of them away. Somewhere through the years the person that I had given them to, gave some of them back to me, since his kids were grown and he had gotten divorced. The ex wife wanted them out of the house and thought that they were on loan, so some came back to me. Don't know what happened to most of them, but my guess is that they were destroyed along the way. I have been selling a few pieces on eBay every once in a while since I don't have any interest in them any longer.
 
California, from what I can tell, the Lionel trains are probably the most collected and loved of all train brands. I really don't know a lot about their values but it's my understanding pre-war is highest value, post war stuff up to maybe the late 50's is very highly collectable. Condition determines value as does age and rarity, of course, but its probably a safe bet that your 'collection' will go up in value.


"G" scale trains are larger than your Lionel, they are photographed in my first posts. G = 1/32nd scale. Its also called 1 gauge, Museum gauge, and Garden Scale. Most Garden Scale trains are actually larger than 1/32nd and built on a "Narrow" gauge pattern.
Lionel trains are "O" scale, that is the letter "O" not the number "0".
American Flyer, which is owned by Lionel, is the next size down and slightly smaller than "O" I'm not sure what they call it.
"HO" is probably the most popular scale, it stands for "Half O" scale.
"N" scale is the next size smaller than HO
"Z" scale is the smallest commercially available scale it equals 1/220 scale, a Z scale is also my first photographs.

From the standpoint of collector's value, my trains don't seem to have a large collector following at all (Marklin MAXI series cars). They are far more popular in Europe than the US, but the type I collect really are not very collectable, they are just what I like. To me the most important thing is liking what you collect and collecting what you like. So while I have a collection, I think there are very few people who would actually seek out the cars I have and pay much for them. I'd suspect that your Lionel rolling stock cost less than my "MAXI" cars but would sell much faster than mine and likely provide a better return on your dollar. But like you said, you don't plan on selling them, and I don't plan on selling mine either.


Junkman, if you find any more pieces maybe California might be interested in them.
 
American Flyer, which is owned by Lionel, is the next size down and slightly smaller than "O" I'm not sure what they call it.
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So THAT'S what happened to American Flyer in the time since Dad died. I wondered why I never heard more about it. Their scale, 2-track layout and realism was so much better than Lionel's that I expected them to kill Lionel. It never occurred to me that Lionel would simply buy them out and kill them, instead.

Oh, and when Dad was building them, it was called "S" guage.
 
Don, that's it "S" guage!!!

American Flyer is still around (or it was a couple years ago), and I think it is still owned by Lionel.
 
Actually, I do have a train. I've had it a couple of months. It's an HO starter set by Athearst called the Warbonnet and has a "modern" Santa Fe diesel, a flat car, box car and tank car, and a caboose. It has a starter oval of track. I bought it at a local church thrift store for $10.00. It works fine, but the little plastic knuckle couplers are all pretty much junk. The cars won't stay coupled more than one or two slow trips around the oval. I've been on Athearst's web site and they offer bags of couplers, but I haven't bothered to order any, yet.

I don't know what I'm going to do with the train; it's boring to leave it like it is, yet if I get started on it, I won't be satisfied unless I have a full bore layout, and I don't really have time for that, right now. I also still have that hangup that I won't be able to do as well as my Dad, but he died 50 years ago -- I should be over that, by now?

I keep going back to the garden trains and wish there was some way to do them at a more reasonable price.
 
OkeeDon said:
The cars won't stay coupled more than one or two slow trips around the oval.
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Hey Don,

The engine will make its way back around the track in short order. It could just push them around. :whistle: Look at it through a mirror to get everything straight again. :thumb:
 
Here are a few photos of a GARDEN scale, also called G scale, 1 gauge or Museum gauge train layout that is at EPCOT in Disney World. The set up is in the World Showcase area, adjacent to the Germany area. The running stock is very likely a brand called LGB. I'm pretty sure the buildings are PIKO, or at least I think many of them are PIKO. LGB trains are very popular in this scale and mostly plastic so they can take a light rain shower without incurring any real damage. Enjoy the photos.
 

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Some more model train photos. This is my HO Scale Timber River Railway.
John
 

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John Welcome to ForumsForums. I hope you come around more often and post more of the train pics. Love them thanks
 
My trains are still packed away in the attic awaiting room for me to set them up again. I ran the 009 guage which was the narrow guage version of 00. My ex-husband ran 00 and I ran the slate quarry in 009 to make a narrow guage version which fitted in with the 00. One of my best engines got stolen (I think I know who took it, but I cannot prove it) but one day I hope to get them all working again. I am still poorly and cannot face going in the attic to get some of the engines out to photograph so keep this thread going until I am better and then I will do so! Incidentally we ran Great Western Railway engines (GWR also known as God's Wonderful Railway), they were in green livery and I have actually driven one of the real ones. King George V which is now in the railway musuem at Swindon, it has a bell on the front which was presented to it when it made a trip over to America and was supposedly the first engine to reach over 100 mph. I suspect that if it is Googled, you will find a picture of it.
 
Ice Queen said:
One of my best engines got stolen (I think I know who took it, but I cannot prove it)
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Doesn't that just piss you off? Probably a friend so you thought. I have some very important books I gave to a person one time to look at. Never returned them and this person denies ever having them. The thing that really pisses me off is there was two sets and both are gone. Didn't even leave one for me.:hammer:
 
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