Why do you enjoy old trains vs new ones?

[artfull dodger]

For me, its the smells and sounds.  The history that each model has, I wonder who has played with it over the years?  Was it set up under the Christmas tree as a gift on that long ago Christmas morning or wrapped up for another occasion?  The smell of ozone when I fire up my father's 1949 Lionel set under our Christmas tree each season brings back a flood of childhood memories of days spent with my grandfather who was more of a father to me than my own.  Then there are the smells that comes with old trains and toys in general.  When I run my old trains, no mater what brand they are, they take me back to a more simple time in life.  No computers, no cell phones or the rest of the electrionc stuff.  I am 42, I grew up watching all these things come to life, from cable TV to cell phones and home computers.  None of which exhisted when I was a child.  Then there is the autistic side to me, where these old trains take me away from the stress of dealing with the world in general, to a safe place for me to recover and process the days events.    Mike

[brianusa]

I reckon most of those who play with tinplate trains feel the same way.  I tried all the 'scale stuff'; fine for a while but ended up with tinplate as it was easier.   Easier to put back on the track if it ever came off, no reverse loops to wire and worry about and the best of all, you could see the darn things.  Don't remind me of N gauge!  Mike has obviously realised this at an early age(!) while it took me a bit longer.  Otherwise I agree with his comments and would advise anybody to give toy trains a try.

 

Brian.

 

 

 

 

[Jenny Emily]

Tinplate trains are my childhood, as I inherited my Father's old layout in the 1980s and subsequently added to it because back then the stuff was dirt cheap and plentiful. It reminds me of carefree days when I didn't have to worry about anything and enjoyed laying out a mini empire across the floor of the room. I still love the ozone smell of the old motors running and the slightly dusty, musty smells of the stuff.

[sagaguy]

Nostalgia can be bl****Y expensive,i shudder to think how much iv`e spent since the early 80`s on my Dublo collection,according to my wife,it`s in every box & cupboard in the house.N gauge is fine but i do miss the ozone smell!!.

 

                         Ray.

[Stubby47]

Never had tinplate, but do have fond memories of a large piece of carpet on the grass in the back garden, with two circuits of Hornby Super 4 track, stations, bridges and cars, racing Polly against Princess Elizabeth.

['CHARD]

 

.....bridges and cars, racing Polly against Princess Elizabeth.

 

I must try and find that rare episode of Fawlty Towers.... 

[switcher 1]

Simplicity & fond memories.

Who didn't put trackwork together on the table or floor, only to have to pick it up & put it away again after a few hours of pleasure watching the trains running around the track. (Remembering not to over wind the springs!)

[AdamsRadial]

I love tinplate, both clockwork O gauge and electric OO. I've been slowly collecting Hornby and Basset-Lowke again over the past few years, then I got offered a boxful of Hornby-Dublo 3-rail I just couldn't refuse, and a couple of years ago, at the bottom of a box of broken Hornby clockwork wagons and buildings, I found a Trix-Twin set with two of the little tank engines and a few tinplate coaches.

 

I think it's the fact that the models are a mixture of evocative and conjectural rather than precise miniatures that makes tinplate so appealing, you can look at it and not have to worry about whether the rivets on the smokebox wrapper stop too soon or if the injector pipework is too coarse, it's just instant visual enjoyment.

 

Somehow I've got to keep my knees supple enough that I can still crawl around the floor with the O-gauge, but I also have to think about somehow getting a dumbell layout hinged to the wall so I can mix up the Trix and the Dublo with the more up-to-date DCC sets I got given as my retirement present. Any recommendations for oiling old knees?

Edited September 25, 2015 by AdamsRadial

[Stubby47]

Any recommendations for oiling old knees?

Apparently WD40 is quite good, but is not officially recommended.

[Il Grifone]

Never had tinplate, but do have fond memories of a large piece of carpet on the grass in the back garden, with two circuits of Hornby Super 4 track, stations, bridges and cars, racing Polly against Princess Elizabeth.

 

Polly probably won?

[Il Grifone]

Apparently WD40 is quite good, but is not officially recommended.

 

It 'works' for most things, but unfortunately not for knees.......

 

A Mediterranean diet helps I've found (not that i stick to it - I love my fish and chips too much!)

[Il Grifone]

Simplicity & fond memories.

Who didn't put trackwork together on the table or floor, only to have to pick it up & put it away again after a few hours of pleasure watching the trains running around the track. (Remembering not to over wind the springs!)

 

I used to push mine, but I was only five or six. It usually got laid out in the garden with the inevitable result. For penance, I'm replacing it bit my bit* (or at least that is the excuse!).

 

* I've got most of the items now (and quite a lot I didn't have). Does a 1920s LMS 0-4-0T count in place of a 1940s one?

Edited September 26, 2015 by Il Grifone

[switcher 1]

 

 

Any recommendations for oiling old knees?

 

'Older' racing cyclists swear by glucosamine for their knee joints, wouldn't harm to try it.

Edited September 26, 2015 by switcher 1

[AdamsRadial]

'Older' racing cyclists swear by glucosamine for their knee joints, wouldn't harm to try it.

I've already tried that stuff for my painful shoulder joints, it didn't work for them and if it did anything for the knees, I must have missed it.

 

I was thinking a bit more today about why it should be so much fun crawling around on the floor fiddling with bits of setrack rather than going through the serious planning process of making a layout, when it struck me that half the fun of model railways is the fiddling around trying different arrangements. Once you've designed a trackplan and built a baseboard to suit, you've lost the fiddling part.

 

Oh, and Il Grifone's mention of pushing reminded me that I have a box full of Lone Star 000 pushalong which I ought to get laid out on the desk, there's a bit more space there now I've retired.

[Legend]

Nostalgia and happy memories. Usually of Christmas long gone by , but sometime of relations who are maybe no longer with us. I have every train since my Brush Type 2 " Freightmaster " from Christmas 1965. Each one brings happy memories. Oh I have lots of new stuff too, in fact I'm at saturation point. So while I get a kick out of running the latest locos in correct period with correct coaches , I also get a kick out of seeing the old locos perform . I've got an old LMS Princess Elizabeth from 1971 and a new Hornby one from 6 or 7 years ago. The latter is much more detailed and looks the part making the first one look like a toy, but I know which one is most precious to me

Edited September 26, 2015 by Legend

[APOLLO]

I still have all my old (mainly) Tri-ang TT stuff, including my first loco from 1959, the Jinty set with 2 surburban coaches. It all still runs (just), but all the track & points are worn out (joints). Just keep it all for nostalgia and I suppose it will keep some value. I assembled it into a layout a few years ago, but compared to the modern stuff it ran poorly. Still, it was the bees knees back in the 60's when I was a young un !!

 

Edited to add, back in my early TT days I also had a large amount of the Lone Star push along stuff mentioned above. That wore out quick especially the track & points !!

 

A few years ago I saw a large box with quite a lot of it for sale in a charity shop for fifty quid. A bit expensive I thought at the time, though it was all in good condition, some in boxes also (why did we always throw away the boxes ?). I didn't buy it, and thinking back, it was probably well worth fifty quid.

 

My elder brother had a lot of tinplate Hornby O gauge, which was quite fun to set up and play with running from bedroom to bedroom. The good old days !!!

 

Brit15

Edited September 26, 2015 by APOLLO

[Legend]

Ah I remember Lone Star. Could buy it from Woolies in the late 60s . Must have been pocket money prices. I can remember Union Pacific yellow diesels, budd coaches, jinties, a 24 , mk1s , cabooses ,just like out of Casey Jones, a black loco (maybe German?) and a lot of imagination!

[sagaguy]

It is nostalgia,until about 1952,i had a Trix twin setup,not very much stock & track,My dad not knowing much about electricity would spend hours packing the Bakelite track up with paper so that we could get continuity & run trains,i would have been six or seven tears old at the time.My first HD loco,Silver King,was bought for me at xmas,about 1952/3 by my parents along with some S/H Wrenn 3 rail track,HD track being in short supply & expensive,straights at 3/6 for a length,thats 17/1/2 pence today.We couldn`t make it run for some months until a friend fitted a rectifier in the old AC controller.

 

               Memories eh!!where would we be without them?

 

                         Ray.

[5050]

'Older' racing cyclists swear by glucosamine for their knee joints, wouldn't harm to try it.

Just be wary of dawn raids by WADA!

 

EDIT - well, at least 2 people know what I'm talking about!

Edited September 28, 2015 by 5050

[Il Grifone]

Ah I remember Lone Star. Could buy it from Woolies in the late 60s . Must have been pocket money prices. I can remember Union Pacific yellow diesels, budd coaches, jinties, a 24 , mk1s , cabooses ,just like out of Casey Jones, a black loco (maybe German?) and a lot of imagination!

 

My brother had the first series from the '50s with mazak track and wheels. We could never get them to stay on the track (with the exception of the F7 U.S diesel and the Mark 1 coaches). The points always fell apart (the mazak blade/crossing assembly was only force fitted into the lever and soon worked loose). Most of the range was scaled down from Tri-ang (even the track). I've a small collection of the Treble-O-lectric motorised version. It's belt drive isn't 100% satisfactory.... The British locomotives mainly came in metallic blue or green and the US diesels and coaches in silver. Later liveries included UP, NH, B&M, KCS and C&O.

 

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Lone_Star_Toys

 

The black loco is supposedly a U.S. Baldwin 0-8-0. The electric version had the motor housed in a large tender, which never made it to the Woolworth's range. They sold for around a couple of shillings IIRC.

 

Silver King appeared with the switch to B.R. liveries in 1953 (delayed by the Korean war) and a box of good condition TT would be well worth £50. Apart from the Jinty, most TT locomotives alone sell for this sort of figure (or more).

Edited September 28, 2015 by Il Grifone

[Nearholmer]

Try humming along to:

 

A rake of coaches with a lifetime's traces;

An engine going to romantic places;

My mind still has wings;

These foolish things remind me of when ......

 

Or, how about:

 

The trains of tin came rumbling round;

Remember, In December, On the floor;

As the fire burned down to just one final ember;

In December days of yore.

 

I'm sure you all know the tunes.

 

K

Edited September 28, 2015 by Nearholmer

[sagaguy]

It is nostalgia,until about 1952,i had a Trix twin setup,not very much stock & track,My dad not knowing much about electricity would spend hours packing the Bakelite track up with paper so that we could get continuity & run trains,i would have been six or seven tears old at the time.My first HD loco,Silver King,was bought for me at xmas,about 1952/3 by my parents along with some S/H Wrenn 3 rail track,HD track being in short supply & expensive,straights at 3/6 for a length,thats 17/1/2 pence today.We couldn`t make it run for some months until a friend fitted a rectifier in the old AC controller.

 

               Memories eh!!where would we be without them?

 

                         Ray.

I ran that Silver King so many times on the Kitchen table when my Dad got me enough H/D track & a non isolating point to make a siding that i wore holes in the collecting shoes,eventually,it was sent back to Binns Rd. for repair,came back good as new.i think i still have it amongst my locos.That  first year,my Aunt bought me a fish van,i had to wait another year at Xmas for 3 D1 red & cream coaches.A lot of it was sold in the mid 70s to pay for a no.9 Meccano set however i went to a swapmeet in Enfield & fell in love with a boxed 2-6-4 tank passenger set & that started me collecting again only this time i had a much bigger spending power.Toyfairs were a happy hunting ground,I found a 3 rail boxed EMU two car set for £100,a worthwhile investment although not reaching the prices that they were some years ago,an SD suburban turned it into a 3 car unit.

 

                         Ray.

[daftbovine]

I've started collecting Hornby Dublo 3 rail even though I never had it as a child and started off with Lone Star. I like the weight and solidity of the Dublo loco's and the fact that you can send them racing round the track at break neck speed.

 

They still run very well even after having been stored for years and are easy to work on and repair. I'm glad there are still people who collect and run them.

[Paul H Vigor]

As an 'old school' modeller I've never had a problem with motor noise. I prefer a good motor growl to sound chips, or the almost creepy silence of modern motors!

[sagaguy]

The thing with HD 3 rail is the ease of wiring.Having built a large analogue N layout,the complexities of the wiring started to pall,double track junctions with live frog crossings were a pain using a published wiring diagram & a rotary switch, even that had 2 connections reversed.In the end,i spent more time cleaning the track than runnng trains,Dublo in its simplest form just needs 2 wires & reverse loops are a doddle.A couple of recent pics.

 

                          Ray,