How it all began...

[tomparryharry]

Hi all,

Well this where it began for me. Another wonderful Christmas present. I got this set when I was 6 and I played it to death. That was 53 years ago. I still have the Deeley 3F, but sadly everything else has gone to that great railway set in the sky.

Well I'm blowed! That's my old train set as well! Straight back to my childhood. Like you, I played it to death. A nostalgic visit to EH-Ba-Gum beckons!

 

Cheers,

 

Ian.

Edited June 28, 2018 by tomparryharry

[cypherman]

Hi all,

I found this guy and his videos on You tube. He seems to have everything ever built by Triang and Triang-Hornby. His videos are very interesting for the history of these models. Plus it is just nice to see the old engines run.

https://www.youtube.com/channel/UCipRGr9WqTMAGDgKgWTOLxQ

Edited June 28, 2018 by cypherman

[Ruston]

My first trainset, when I was 6 years old, was a Hornby 0-4-0T on a circle of track that was powered by a controller that clipped on to the top of a pair of those large 6v rectangular batteries. I remember being most disappointed that the loco was nothing at all that I could recognise and I still have no idea what it was. All I know is that it looked American but it was made by Hornby and was, as far as I know, OO and not HO. There were 3 or 4 wagons that came with it and I can remember a blue long wheelbase mineral with the name NORSTRAND and a green covered van with the picture of a pig on the side with "Prime Pork" lettering. The van was always my favourite.

 

I had to set the track up on the dining table and take it down for meal times, which soon became boring and so my dad nailed it to a sheet of plywood, with the addition of a few lengths of straight track and a siding, to which my mother added paint, some pebbles to make a pond and some green sawdust scatter as grass.

 

One Christmas I was given a blue 0-4-0T, numbered 7178 and I was quite happy with this until I found a lad at the end of the street had a Deltic...

[cypherman]

My first trainset, when I was 6 years old, was a Hornby 0-4-0T on a circle of track that was powered by a controller that clipped on to the top of a pair of those large 6v rectangular batteries. I remember being most disappointed that the loco was nothing at all that I could recognise and I still have no idea what it was. All I know is that it looked American but it was made by Hornby and was, as far as I know, OO and not HO. There were 3 or 4 wagons that came with it and I can remember a blue long wheelbase mineral with the name NORSTRAND and a green covered van with the picture of a pig on the side with "Prime Pork" lettering. The van was always my favourite.

 

I had to set the track up on the dining table and take it down for meal times, which soon became boring and so my dad nailed it to a sheet of plywood, with the addition of a few lengths of straight track and a siding, to which my mother added paint, some pebbles to make a pond and some green sawdust scatter as grass.

 

One Christmas I was given a blue 0-4-0T, numbered 7178 and I was quite happy with this until I found a lad at the end of the street had a Deltic...

Hi Ruston, I believe this was the set you had .Hornby Rail Freight Set R688

https://picclick.co.uk/Rail-Freight-Set-R688-oo-gauge-Hornby-train-222845125259.html

[Steamport Southport]

They released quite a few of those sets during the 1970s.

 

Virtually all the same, but they changed the stock around a bit. Normally had a tank wagon, mineral, a van advertising something and a couple of PO wagons. The loco was either the Nellie type, the "International" tank or a Jinty. Then they released the Holden and Caledonian and they've been the staple for the last forty years.

 

http://www.hornbyguide.com/item_details.asp?itemid=369

 

7178 was this one.

 

http://www.hornbyguide.com/item_details.asp?itemid=39

 

 

 

Jason

[Ruston]

Hi Ruston, I believe this was the set you had .Hornby Rail Freight Set R688

https://picclick.co.uk/Rail-Freight-Set-R688-oo-gauge-Hornby-train-222845125259.html

That's the one!

[tomparryharry]

Sometimes, you shouldn't go back.

 

Cyphermans' post on #39 has dragged me straight back. I've spent the last 2 days just looking at that box....  Mind you, very happy memories.

 

Ian.

[billy_anorak59]

My Dad and Grandad clubbed together to get me started – this is the actual receipt for my first ‘train set’ dated Dec 12^th 1962 (…just in time for Christmas).

I had just turned 3 years old.

All 2-rail - some of the items listed on there are

1 x 4310                                Goods Brake Van L.M.R

1 x 4676                                Tank Wagon ‘ESSO’               

1 x 4655                                16-ton Mineral Wagon (Grey)

1 x 4325                                12-ton Ventilated Van

1 x 4084                                Suburban Coach, Brake/2^nd B.R.

…and 2226                           ‘City of London’ Loco and Tender L.M.R.

 

I still have them all.

Wasn’t I a very lucky little boy!

 

‘K’ Cycle & Hardware Stores’ (known locally as ‘Kynestons’) was a lovely place that had that paraffin/oil smell of all hardware shops and also stocked Airfix kits to entertain me. It is thus so important to me I’ve had to preserve the shop name on my layout (a WIP), even if it didn't actually look like this:

 

 

Edited July 22, 2022 by billy_anorak59

[Nearholmer]

Exceedingly lucky, and very smart to hang on to everything including the receipt, which on its own is a lovely little period piece ...... a shop selling hardware, bicycles, and Hornby Dublo trains ........ how close to heaven on earth is that??

Edited July 3, 2018 by Nearholmer

[Marly51]

My Dad and Grandad clubbed together to get me started – this is the actual receipt for my first ‘train set’ dated Dec 12^th 1962 (…just in time for Christmas).

I had just turned 3 years old.

[url=http://www.rmweb.co.uk/community/index.php?

‘K’ Cycle & Hardware Stores’ (known locally as ‘Kynestons’) was a lovely place that had that paraffin/oil smell of all hardware shops and also stocked Airfix kits to entertain me. It is thus so important to me I’ve had to preserve the shop name on my layout (a WIP), even if it didn't actually look like this:

Just been in the ships’ chandlers and hardware supplies in Lochinver today - that smell of turps, mothballs, welly boots, etc is wonderful!

[billy_anorak59]

and very smart to hang on to everything including the receipt, which on its own is a lovely little period piece

 

That'll be my Mum being very smart - she never throws anything away!! Luckily she filed it away as usual, and presented it to me about 40 years later.

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

I attached myself near limpet like to the De Havilland MRC layout during a family open day in the 1950s. Pa got a bundle of s/h Triang that Christmas. (He didn't need much encouragement, having had to say farewell to the family's Bing gauge 3 garden line on Java when the family evacuated pre WWII.) Never actually had a 'train set' in a box, but we had endless fun, including Pa playing Transacords to synch with train movements.

 

On the playing with little sisters front, the youngest of mine could be put in the middle of a track circuit on the grass or carpet (precrawling) and effortlessly entertained for hours as a by-product of simply operating trains, which at the time (summer holiday 63) won me significant points from Mother.

[brianusa]

Its surprising that most started with OO which must be indicative of the average age of this group.  I went the traditional route starting with a Hornby MO set which had a green loco with two red trucks to be replaced shortly with a GW 4-4-2T and a few trucks which in turn was superseded by a pre war Dublo SNG set and some extras.

 

Brian.

[StevieD71]

I have seen a photo of me as a toddler with a clockwork engine, but my life long love of trains and model railways started properly at Christmas 1977 (age 6)when I received the Hornby operating mail train (I still have the Class 37).

My father had it already set up for me on a 6x4 board with some extra track, a siding and an H&M controller.

[jetmorgan]

My very first train set of any description

[BernardTPM]

Christmas 1959 and I received a Triang 2-6-2T with suburban coaches an oval of Series 3 track and a wooden/hardboard station. My Dad wanted something that was like our then local line (the LTSR/District) so it wasn't a standard set as such. The picture is a couple of years later with new Arifix and Superquick stations, double track and level crossing as well as goods wagons and a blue Transcontinental double-ended diesel with lights. Then came a Jinty with synchrosmoke! This later went on to a 7' x 4' board in the spare bedroom. I still have the 2-6-2T, diesel and some of the other early rolling stock. I have almost the same coaches. The couplings got damaged so they were sent back and returned renewed. In fact they sent new replacements with interiors and closed axlebox ends. I've still got two of those.

 

 

We went to both the MRC Central Hall shows and the local Ilford one (at the Town Hall) each year and I had my first Railway Modeller in May 1967 (the June issue). Sort of went on from there.

 

[andyman7]

Thinking about how new starters come into the hobby I looked back at where my involvement with the hobby started. There were a few 'hand me down' push-along items from an older brother knocking about in the toybox and I do recall trying to cut out wagon plans from Railway Modeller and trying to stick them together with Gloy to make a wagon; it lacked something.

 

What I really wanted for Christmas, aged about 5, was 'an electric train set'.

 

AL1set.jpg

 

What I got was an oval of track with a siding on a board, a second-hand Jinty and a few wagons. It wasn't what I had in mind but Dad had built it and it lasted a few years with various additions.

 

So how, why, and at what age, did you get sucked in?

I repeatedly asked for a train set....aged 6 my dad took me and my brother to the Harrow Model Shop and we looked at some train sets but he was concerned that they cost a lot of money and if we broke it or lost interest it would be wasted and they were not well off. So we made do with two lengths of flexi track, two secondhand Triang well wagons and what looking back I now believe was an assembled Kitmaster Swiss Crocodile (!). Eventually, when I was 11 I painstakingly saved up my pocket money and bought, week-by-week, an oval of secondhand track, a Hornby Intercity Mk2 and a Triang A1A - the start of a lifelong hobby. I've quoted Andy Y's post above because his picture shows what would have been my dream set, living as we did by the WCML in the 1970s. In the end I was about 23 when I finally acquired one, which has a prized place in my collection. I even have the promotional motorised Train-Hornby shop display stand for it! 

[RedgateModels]

Bit of a blast from the past for me yesterday too. I have an old '37 in for service/diagnose slow running. Gave it a test run last night and after a few laps of the track it freed up quite well, only pulling 350mA or so, so the magnet is still fine. Made that lovely "not run for a while" smell too. 

 

A good service will see it running for another 30 odd years easily

[philsandy]

This was my first train set, Christmas 1962 or 63 would have been 5 or 6, a Triang TT  08 diesel shunter goods set.

Had it set up on the table in the front room, it kept me quiet for hours.

 

Like that picture on the box lid, all Dads smoked pipes in those days.

Edited July 12, 2018 by philsandy

[cypherman]

Hi all,

It is a great pity that TT did not continue as a standard gauge for model railways. I look now at the detail that can be found on N gauge engines and stock. Incredible compared to when I dabbled in N gauge with Minitrix and Grafar models. Imagine the detail that could be put on a TT gauge models and being smaller that 00 gauge you could get just that little more running room, That extra carriage in the station or the point work you always wanted but did not have the room to fit in 00. Such a shame, but alas that's life.

[Invicta]

It started for me at Christmas of either 1970 or 71 aged (almost) 4/5 with a Triang-Hornby  'Steam Freight' set from the 1970 catalogue- Jinty, 'London Brick' bogie wagon, bogie bolster loaded with 3 Minic Thames 400E vans, bulk grain wagon and brake van.

 

http://www.hornbyguide.com/item_details.asp?itemid=560

 

I don't remember whether it was the same Christmas, or more likely some of this came spread across my birthday (early January) and the following Christmas, but this was added to with a Princess (impressive bit of joined-up London Midland thinking by my parents!), a Mk1 BSK and one of those short Triang Pullmans, a Freightliner wagon (slightly less-joined up thinking on the rolling stock front!) and a Triang Freightliner crane.

 

Pinned down on a board with some extra track to add a siding for the crane, this became my first layout, although hardboard wasn't the best baseboard material to use...

 

I've still got a lot of it- the grain wagon, brake van and Freightliner bits got lost/broken over the years, but the Princess (albeit very play-worn and hasn't been run in at least 30 years) is still lurking in a drawer, along with a couple more acquired in my teens, and the Jinty- repainted several times from it's original BR lined black '47606' guise- it's currently LMS black- remained a stalwart of all my teenage layouts and awaits an overhaul.

 

It certainly had an influence on me- although I've come and gone from the hobby several times, I always seem to have kept an LMS/LMR flavour to my modelling activities

Edited July 15, 2018 by Invicta

[GNR Dave]

My earliest recollection is an oval of track plus the obligatory siding nailed to a 6 X 4 and a red loco called Polly. Can't remember any other stock. The board had the Triang station on one side and the siding ramped up on the other to terminate atop the Airfix girder bridge. That would be about 1966. I was 4. In the early 1970s my dad sold it all plus my Scalextric for £10 and bought a Minitrix N gauge track pack, to which my Grandad added a Minitrix Britannia and two coaches. The base was an old door and had paper mache hills and tunnels. 

 To me though, these were just toys to play with and were 'gone' by my early teens.

 My real interest was not rekindled until 2000 when I went with a friend and his 6 year old son to the Ally Pally show. I left with a new Hornby J52 in GNR livery, a couple of S/H 'teak' clerestories, several yards of code 75 and a book on the Great Northern Railway.

That's the day I became a Railway Modeller. And my credit card has hated me ever since.  

[luckymucklebackit]

At the tender age of 5, I was bought a Hornby Dublo R1 0-6-0T 31337 and two tinplate suburban coaches for my birthday, this ran on HD set track laid on a green painted sheet of chipboard , Xmas added a plain green Hornby Dublo Deltic and several wagons which was the complete layout for a few years until a house move caused the board to be dismantled.  When I was 12 I started again, that lot was brought out of storage and joined by a Tri-ang Hornby M7 tank, a Jinty and a Dock Authority diesel shunter plus two Trix coaches and five Triang Hornby Coaches.  Track eventually became a mix of the HD from the original board, plus some Series 3, Super 4 Triang and Peco Streamline.  It was a mix of incompatible track and couplings plus a lack of space in my parents house that shaded my enthusiasm, and a teenage desire to have an electric guitar and amplifier resulted in the whole lot being packed up and sold off!

Then when I married and had a home of my own the guitar was sold off, and Gateside and Northbridge Mk1 was born with a Lima DMU, Class 09, Hornby Class 25 and three coaches, apart from the 09 all are still running today.

 

Jim

[Foulounoux]

A Joueff Playcraft TEE set very early 1970's my brother and I adored It. Sexy French loco with working Lights

[Allegheny1600]

Here's what got me started;

http://www.tri-ang.co.uk/r3aset.html

Only, my dad being my dad - bought me a secondhand set that was probably around ten years old, it had a mains transformer but only half an oval of track and for the next few years, I had to be content with my "Victoria" running back & forth. Even when I could muster enough 'pocket money' to complete the oval, it still wasn't right as my newer track was quite incompatible with the old stuff, grr!

The other thing that got me started was dad mooring his boat at Findern, south of Derby where I could jump on the roof of the boat and watch all the lovely big blue diesels with stubby noses roar past.