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Toy trains have come a long way
- Thread starter RoadKing
- Start date
thcri
Gone But Not Forgotten
When I was a little critter I got a train set for Christmas. Don't think I was much over 5. It was a Lionel Train Set. The larger scale. Today if you could find one of them original ones they would go for big bucks. I remember it, dad told me I used it so much I kept burning out transformers on it. All you could make out of it was figure eight. But I have a room in our house downstairs that when I retire I will set something up. Something that could take ten years to build one piece at a time.
murph
murph
There are "G" scale trains that you can run inside or outside. "G" stands for Garden scale. It is roughly 1/32nd scale narrow gauge railway. Lionel, Bachmann, LGB, Marklin and a couple other brands are available.RoadKing said:
I used to run a train at Christmas, just a big oval. We bought a Christmas train and then added a new car every year after my daughter was born. She grew and lost interest in the train, the dogs kept tipping it over, and we stopped putting it up 2 years ago. I've still picked up interesting train cars, just a couple a year.
I worked with a guy who had a HUGE set up of HO trains. It filled almost 1/2 his basement he must have had over a quarter mile of track on several levels. He built the whole thing himself and had hundreds and hundreds of cars. He died a couple years ago and his son is overwhelmed with the collection, just packing it up and moving it is monumental.
Interesting how adults can become fascinated with these toys, but if you look at some of the prices they obviously make them for adults, not for kids!
Yes. Fortunately he does. His dad was very proud of the son and the fact that when he was younger the son grew up helping run the trains, but even he didn't realize the extent of the collection. The set up is just a memory for me, I only saw it a couple times, but it was so big you needed several people to run the whole thing. He must have had a half dozen "mainlines" that could be run simultaneously, each with sub-lines, switchbacks, etc.bczoom said:
Below are some photos of a Marklin set up at Disney World in the Epcot Center at Germany. (Marklin is a German company). This is the same type of stuff that I collect, but I don't have enough track to actually do anything close to this. I'd love to try someday!!! The handful of buildings that I built were turned into doll houses years ago by my daughter, so I'd have to start from scratch with buildings too. At this gauge, the smallest circle or radius you can turn is 48" across, and many of the bigger engines require much larger radius turns.
Attachments
If I succeed in getting planning permission to lift the roof on my store room I hope to get my old layout of 00 gauge and 009 out again. At present I cannot do anything but crawl in the space and it is too much for a decrepit old lady to do for long. The trains have been packed away since I moved here about 23 years ago!! Keep your fingers crossed and watch this space!
Anita, we will want some step-by-step photos of this project! We are all little kids at heart and toy trains certainly take us back to our youth!