First Train Set - Where did you start?

[melmerby]

3 hours ago, Philou said:

This. The 'ersatz' LNER loco and coaches from Trix Twin, the 'forrenner' arrived later. Rumour has it, that the set was bought the day I was born - 70 years ago.

 

 

..... and they still 'work' after a fashion.

 

Still got the freight wagons too.

 

Cheers

 

Philip

The running opportunities on that layout look a bit limited

[Philou]

Très drôle, @melmerby but it IS unfortunately!!! That is my 'layout' - a single length of flexi!!

 

Good news is that today despite menacing rain and winds (nothing like that they've had in the south of France), I have done the very last external repointing on my barn wall and the scaffolding is down, and over the next couple of months, work will start on preparing a new floor in the barn for THE layout.

 

Cheers,

 

Philip

Edited October 4, 2020 by Philou
Knocking some sense in wot i rote.

[33C]

My very first train set, i've since discovered, was by "Lincoln International" and was the TWIN TRAIN, double 8 layout. H.O. scale, battery operated, with a green tender loco and 2 carriages and a black tender loco with 2 cream and red mineral wagons. Very early B.R. liveries to my mind. I've since managed to acquire one! (See photo's) It's exactly how i remember it! Chad Valley home and distant signals, (O gauge!) came with it and i suspect it was second hand but cannot be sure as i was about 4? But, what a lot of action for such a cheap set! Then later, the 1975, Tri-ang Hornby, R.168 freight set from Tesco's Home 'n' wear department, with an Airfix engine shed, signal box and platform kits. I was in heaven that year setting it up in the back scullery by the open fire......magic!

Edited January 4, 2021 by 33C
added detail

[SM42]

Apologies all

 

I've been in the loft and found the mrotal remains of a Big Big Train set I had that predated my HST and I had completely forgotten about.  The  HST was therefore  my first proper train set with a controller (well, a sort of one)

 

The Hymek will never work on 4 SP2s again and the 0-4-0 is looking a bit worse for wear too. The quartering is shot and the holes in the connecting rods are oval.

 

The signals are shattered remains that those I once crudeley painted so at least they weren't all over yellow.  At least they still have a train stop (bit like the underground) but they can't be clipped to the track anymore so they would probably just fall over

 

The tipper wagon's frame is split, but the red and green 16t wagons are OK except one has been painted rust coloured at some point. The green one was my favourite.  Don't know why.

 

The auto reverse lever, that is in te same state as the signals. Wrecked.

 

The track is still serviceable, if a few section are a little warped in places

 

 

Andy

 

[33C]

Blimey, i forgot about my BIG BIG set! Must have been about 6 at the time. Yellow Hymek with black roof and red screens and a 3 part flat wagon with various loads, tipper wagon, red 16t mineral wagon and green caboose! I think there was a barrel loader and a level crossing as well. A strange set but very smooth i recall........

[MarkSG]

On 29/09/2020 at 06:30, Earwicker said:

This one. I have the Western and some of the rolling stock in storage. Looking at the pictures in the 1980 catalogue still gives me a thrill. I spent so long as a kid staring at that layout.

 

Apart from the typical train set mix 'n' match of BR and Big Four (and fictitious), that's not a bad train set. Seven wagons, a decent sized oval of track (with a siding) and what looks like a level crossing and a building in there as well.  That's plenty of play value included in the box. Even the most expensive of Hornby's current sets only has four wagons, and none of them have any additional accessories. But I wonder if train sets in general are a less important aspect of the range than they used to be.

 

[Steamport Southport]

4 hours ago, MarkSG said:

 

But I wonder if train sets in general are a less important aspect of the range than they used to be.

 

 

They probably sell more of them than anything else.

 

Just that the retailers people buy them from has changed. More the high street and internet rather than traditional model shops. Argos, ASDA, Tesco, etc.

 

https://www.argos.co.uk/browse/toys/toy-vehicles-and-sets/toy-trains/c:30429/

 

[joppyuk1]

Hornby 3-rail Duchess of Atholl. Screwed down to an 8x4 sheet of hardboard that lived behind the settee, only coming out during the Christmas holidays, when it stayed up on a dining table till school term beckoned. One picture still exists, but It's buried in the albums somewhere. 

[ForestPines]

On 28/09/2020 at 07:01, Ben B said:

Well it's not Brio at least...

 

 

I had a 6x4 layout built by my parents (with Airfix buildings painted by mom), with Thomas, Percy, Duck, Diesel and a selection of wagons back in the mid-80's, but the first 00 gauge train set I ever played with will have been this one.  Wells Brimtoy (or more likely their cheaper brand, Welsotoys) 00 gauge clockwork tank loco and track, and at least second-hand, probably third-hand, by the time it ended up in the toybox at my grandparents house...

 

 

I love this thing, I actually built a layout during lockdown incorporating this set so I'd have somewhere to run this, and a few other 00 clockwork locomotives

 

 

Ooh, I had a very similar set, I think with the same loco but with grey plastic track.

 

I also had a couple of Lesney Matchbox push-along train sets, including one with a coal conveyor and tippler wagons.  The coal was little lumps of shiny black plastic, I think probably 1mm round rod that had been chopped up, and it got absolutely everywhere.

 

My first "proper train set" was Hornby R597, the "Super Sound Freight Set" with a sound generator which you wired up to the controller, so that its rate of chuff would match the track voltage.

[Nearholmer]

I’m sure we’ve had this thread before, and that the key message that emerged was that, by and large, you can tell a person’s age by the first train set they had, pretty accurately.

 

Based on that, you can work out my toll of years from the fact that my first train set was a Hornby Dublo 3-rail ‘Silver King’ with two tin ‘blood and custard’ Gresley coaches, bought for me by my father on the day I was born. There is a catch, in that I’m pretty sure it was ‘new, slightly-old, stock’, rather than a new release.

 

It was, unsurprisingly, a tad unsuitable To play with for a few years, and in the mean time I had a wonderful big box of tinplate O gauge handed-down by an uncle, given to me when I was three.

Edited October 14, 2020 by Nearholmer

[ejstubbs]

My first train set was a Hornby tinplate O gauge set with a few additional bits'n'bobs.  It wasn't new when I got it, but I can't remember whose it was before - it might have belonged to my brother, who was eight years older than me, but I'm by no means sure.  I'm pretty certain the loco was an 0-4-0 tender engine.  I have a vague recollection of another loco but I can't be sure: it might have had a reverse gear which IIRC the 0-4-0 didn't.  ISTR that there were track sections with movable trip levers built in which would stop both locos automatically, but there was another setting that would reverse the 'posher' loco.  I may, of course, be completely wrong about all that.  There were at least two, possibly more open wagons but I don't recall any other stock.  There was a level crossing and a station, and at least one turnout plus, I'm pretty sure, at least one sprung bufferstop.  I have recollections of playing with it still in the very early 1970s after we moved to Derby.

 

The next one, which followed shortly after that, was definitely a hand-me-down from my brother: a rag-bag collection of Lone Star Treble-O-Lectric stock with ?Peco? flexi track and turnouts.  Despite my Mum managing to source some more Lone Star stock on a trip to London (mostly modern US image, I think from Hamleys) my interest in it was limited: basically none of the stock looked like anything I was familiar with, having grown up in south-east London and knowing only EMUs at that point.  (How things changed!)

 

My first "proper train set of my very own" was the Triang-Hornby RS.609 Express Passenger set with 6201 Princess Elizabeth with both synchrosmoke and exhaust steam sound.  That grew over time with the addition of a Jinty , a GWR pannier tank and pretty much every non-'modern image' wagon in the Hornby catalogue.  It culminated in a terminus-to-fiddle-yard layout which unfortunately was completed at just about the time that I became interested in other things such as modern beat combos and girls of the female sex, and so it quickly fell in to disuse.  I assume my parents must have dismantled it and sold or given away the rolling stock when they moved house while I was transitioning from university to my first proper job.  Certainly there was no trace of any of it when we were clearing their house after Dad had to move on to a care home.

[cypherman]

Hi all,

Just looked on Ebay and found some one trying to sell my first train set Old Smokey for over £120.00. It is not complete as it is missing all it's track , The engine has broken steps on one side and they have thrown an old Triang car carrier in it for good measure instead of the track. I cannot believe that it is being put up at that price.

[peach james]

I stole mine...from my sister !

 

When we were in Mold, she conned dad (^) into giving her "lion money" & "Paper Money" & a few pence, and then proclamed that she was going to the shop to buy the above Faller railcar !. 

(I'd have to assume it was 1.53 or suchlike)

We moved to Canada in 1979, that photo is in the house my parents had from 80-82, so I would be 4 in the photo.  Last I saw of the Faller, it is in a box in my sister's basement, and still works.  

Dad had a moderate amount of Tri-ang, and I was given a Lord of the Isles in probably 82-83 that I still have, ex my mum's dad.  Dad's interests really is steam rather than rails, 

 is another image from around the same time.  He finished the roller before we came to Canada, and built the traction engine mostly when we were over here:  
 

 

(That's 1983, I think)

He had a 5" gauge electric before we left the UK, along with a portable railway for it.  I have seen photos/cini film of it, but have no memories of it.  The first railway engine that he finished was a Hoffman J2 Hudson that was bought 50% finished in 1984, and he made runnable by 1985.  It never had a tender, because the tender for any NA loco make them a challenge to operate.

 

Generally, I do the tin mice sized things, and he builds steam, which I then wear out for him !

 

James

 

[SM42]

On 14/10/2020 at 03:46, 33C said:

Blimey, i forgot about my BIG BIG set! Must have been about 6 at the time. Yellow Hymek with black roof and red screens and a 3 part flat wagon with various loads, tipper wagon, red 16t mineral wagon and green caboose! I think there was a barrel loader and a level crossing as well. A strange set but very smooth i recall........

 

I had a blue Hymek with white roof and windows ("The Blue Flyer" was embossed on the side,)  two mk 2 coaches in blue grey and three 16 tonners, two red, one green plus the tipping wagon. The 0-4-0 was a later addition.

 

There were two signals with yellow posts and red arms and an auto reverser switch.

 

Level crossings were crafted from plasticine. Just what you need on the lounge carpet.

 

I always thought it strange though, that points were only in the Y format.

 

Andy

[33C]

5 hours ago, SM42 said:

 

I had a blue Hymek with white roof and windows ("The Blue Flyer" was embossed on the side,)  two mk 2 coaches in blue grey and three 16 tonners, two red, one green plus the tipping wagon. The 0-4-0 was a later addition.

 

There were two signals with yellow posts and red arms and an auto reverser switch.

 

Level crossings were crafted from plasticine. Just what you need on the lounge carpet.

 

I always thought it strange though, that points were only in the Y format.

 

Andy

It got me thinking when you mentioned Y points and i went digging around under the stairs and found the last bits of my later BIG BIG set that my nan bought at a market.  An 0-4-0 diesel and 3 narrow gauge tipper wagons and three Y points but no other track!

[Ian Kirk]

Not the "first" train set that I can remember but the first "layout" from Santa was on a sheet of plywood and had green "grass" grey roads a station platform, a garage and a circuit of very tight radius (1ft I think) tinplate track, more of a square really as there were straights as well. The "train set " bit comprised a green clockwork 0-4-0 tender engine and two very short bogie tinplate pullmans. (ostensibly 0 gauge) I think probably mettoy. I have no real memory of this, other than what I was later told. However being a "canny" family the " baseboard" was later used inverted on a 00 layout that ran around my bedroom wall. When this was recovered model railway archaeology revealed what had gone before. Apparently there was also a clockwork car and a level crossing. The car if setoff to cross the crossing followed the roads by banging into carefully angled stretches of (cream painted) walls and ended up in the garage. I am told that I preferred to set it off the other way in the hope that it would collide with the circling train.

The first real train set I can remember, again from "Santa" was a Hornby Clockwork LNER green 0-4-0T and three "teak brown" coaches. I still have this. It's last outing was when as The Scottish Area rep for the Gauge O Guild I used it as part of my "sixty years of O gauge" display at some of the Shows I attended.   A few Christmases later I got my first electric 00 set a Triang Jinty and two very short red coaches. The rest as they say is history.......

 

best wishes,

 

Ian

[fezza]

A Hornby GWR 101 set with three wagons, usually set out on my grandmother's front room floor. A chocolate and cream Mk1 brake was quickly added and it soon got out of control after that... 

[John Tomlinson]

On 27/09/2020 at 16:49, BernardTPM said:

I didn't get a train set either, but my Dad bought a Tri-ang R59 with three suburban coaches, something like the trains that ran on the LTS at the time (1959, so just before electrification).

Photo is 1961 by which time I'd also been given a Jinty and goods wagons, double track, etc.

 

I still have the original loco, not exactly mint condition though:

 

What a delightful fireplace behind you. Looks nearly new as no chips or marks, love the tall shaped skirting boards too!

 

John.

[cessna152towser]

Hornby-Dublo EDP14 passenger set, Christmas 1958.     Three-rail BR Standard 2-6-4 tank 80054 and three tinplate suburbans with glazed windows.   I often saw the real 80054 when I was a kid, raised in the Glasgow area.   I've still got my original Hornby loco, now two-railed, paintwork is now tatty but I had it serviced a few years ago so it still runs well.    Also still have the coaches, now fitted with Wrenn wheels and Ratio interiors.    The original train still gets the occasional run on my current layout.   November 1959 and a more recent shot.

Edited October 17, 2020 by cessna152towser
added photo - grammar

[BernardTPM]

5 hours ago, John Tomlinson said:

What a delightful fireplace behind you. Looks nearly new as no chips or marks, love the tall shaped skirting boards too!

John.

That fireplace was very new then, but was still there when I had to move in 2013. No doubt it's landfill now. The skirting boards are the original late Victorian ones.

[Invicta]

First train set was the Triang-Hornby RS601 'Steam Freight Set' from the 1970 catalogue- Jinty, London Brick bogie wagon, Bogie Bolster with 3 Thames vans, 'Johnnie Walker' bulk grain wagon and brake van.

 

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

 

My birthday falls shortly after Christmas, and I don't remember whether it was that Christmas, birthday or even the following Christmas, a passenger train got added- 'Princess Elizabeth', BR Mk1 BSK and a Pullman, and somewhere along the line we acquired a Freightliner terminal and thre circle of track, plus a siding got nailed down onto a board. That didn't reign long, and the stock got packed away in the loft, to be resurrected in the late 70's when we built my first 'proper' layout, on a 6x4 of chipboard

 

I've still got a fair bit of it- the Jinty, London Brick wagon (both of which suffered multiple repaints when I first entertained thoughts of becoming a 'serious' modeller in my teens!), bogie bolster, Princess and coaches are still stashed in a drawer in the loft, although neither loco has run in at least 30 years. 

 

One thing noticeable is that bit of joined-up London Midland thinking by Mum and Dad when they bought my first extra loco, which seems to have stuck with me ever since- although subsequent stock purchases in my early teens remained a bit random (Hornby B12, Black 5, Class 25, then when Mainline and Airfix came into the market, J72, Warship, Royal Scot and 4F), I've always been mainly an LMS/LMR modeller.

[lakeview770]

I was allowed the use of my fathers 2 trainsets at holiday times only.They were both Triang Rovex sets one was a Black Princess Victoria set with some MK1 coaches and the other was a green EE Type 3 with pullman coaches set. Sadly both were stolen years ago. Been searching the internet to replace them since moving back to the UK recently..

 

Andy

[5050]

I can remember my Mum coming home from shopping with a couple of Trackmaster wagons she got from Woolworths.  I must have been very young but had shown my interest in railways from a very early age when INSISTING that I was bought, on holiday in the Isle of Man, the 'Wonder Book of Railways' before I could even read properly.  I could look at the pictures though and I still have the book 70 years on!

 

My cousins had a Hornby O gauge electric 'set' which was handed down to me when I was a bit older.  A 'GWR' 0-4-0 tender loco and 2 'Pullman' coaches, enough track for an oval and 2 'Y' points.  The 20 volt controller was a lever which was full-on to start and, if you weren't careful, the whole train would derail on the corners  (I can't call them curves!).  Power was taken from the light socket with fabric covered wire into a 2-way adapter that allowed a light bulb as well.  Quite shocking really by today's standards. I fitted a bulb into the front of the loco and enjoyed running in the dark.

 

Once I had established with my parents that I was definitely 'into' railways I requested an 'electric train' for my birthday/ christmas (they are only a few days apart) present (probably 9th birthday) and received a Triang Transcontinental 'set' with grey standard track - and 3 points!  This was the Pacific with 2 coaches and also a few British wagons.  It was mounted on a board 5' x 4' in two halves lengthwise which was plywood faced underneath with Formica, a surplus kitchen table top from my Dad's furniture factory.  Most of the year these lived against the wall in the 'front room' which was only used when special guests visited (you know, the vicar, distant relatives etc.) and I was allowed to have it down on the floor occasionally.  My railway interest at the time would have been fed and watered with train spotting most weekends with friends, travelling many miles away from home to Crewe, Wolverhampton, Birmingham, Manchester - all at 10/11 years of age!

 

Once I was able to be a bit more 'forceful' at home I was allowed to have the boards down a lot more and, thanks to reading Railway Modeller and Model Railway Constructor, I arranged the halves at 90' and attempted to build a 'branch terminus' using the Jinty I got the year after the first acquisitition.  I made a goods shed of card following ones I'd seen in the mags and started a card station building which never got completed - but I still have the walls in my 'stash'!

 

My parents must have got fed up with all this, still on the 'front room' floor, because my Dad made an extension 'shed' on the back of the wooden garage for me in which I attempted 'scale modelling' following the lead of my heroes in the Modeller (P D Hancock, Charles Oates, Peter Denny etc. etc.) using Peco spiked track, Airfix kits etc. - but it was not a success.  By this time I had got into cycling, joined the local club and started racing and the shed became a bike shed instead.  It wasn't until I married in 1970 that I rediscovered railway modelling after buying a copy of the Modeller in the local paper shop.  When we moved to Wakefield I got the opportunity of joining a club - and the rest is history!

 

Sorry this is so long - but I've been around for some time..........................

 

Quite frankly, I'm rather surprised I can remember so much

[Devo63]

On 29/09/2020 at 21:05, cypherman said:

This looks like an updated version of the original Frieghtmaster train set that I longed for as a 10 year old child.

That was the only actual train set that I owned. It was bought for me as a Christmas present by my Great Grandfather shortly before he passed away. I had it for many years but hardly ever used it as I was mainly interested in running steam outline (especially GWR & WR) and could never often bring myself to run a "modern" blue diesel on my various layouts. I eventually sold it in the late 80's to raise funds for more up to date models.

Through the late 60's and early 70's I was given various locos and rolling stock at the appropriate birthdays and holidays. The first locomotive I actually bought with my own money was a K's 14xx kit and the matching autocoach. I had an after school / Saturday morning job at the local Woolworths store which provided the nessessary funds to go and order the kits from a model shop in Adelaide and then had to wait for about three months (or more) for them to arrive from the UK. 

 

Dave R.

 

   

[Devo63]

On 03/10/2020 at 08:06, Steamport Southport said:

 

BR blue between 1969 and 1971. Then only available in green until withdrawn in 1976 and replaced by the Class 25.

 

 

That would fit in with when my GGF bought the one for me as he died mid 1970.

 

Dave R.