First Train Set - Where did you start?

[Hesperus]

8 hours ago, Ben B said:

 

I don't suppose you've got any pictures of the clockwork High Speed Train have you?  The latest issue of the Train Collectors Society mag mentions it, the last generation of the Welsotoys clockwork loco (the more commonly known BR/LMS-ish tank loco).  I've never seen one of these clockwork HST's. 

 

I started collecting clockwork 00 gauge starter locomotives during the first lockdown, just because they tend to be cheap as chips, really nice, and I don't have the budget for 0 gauge tinplate

 

Sorry I haven't,  it was molded in bright blue and yellow plastic and was about 6" long.  The mechanism was quite similar to the Hornby one but had a white plastic brake lever.  The coach was again about 6" long, 4 wheeled and made of very thin plastic.  The side profile was similar to a mk1 but it had windows in roughly the right shape for a mk3 and the grooves on the (seperate, white plastic) roof.

[Compound2632]

On 14/10/2020 at 17:44, Nearholmer said:

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.

 

RS613. How old am I?

 

(It was brand new, @MrWolf.)

Edited January 21, 2021 by Compound2632

[MrWolf]

If your first train set was something very secondhand, as mine was, people could get the wrong idea about your age!

[Ben B]

13 hours ago, Hesperus said:

 

Sorry I haven't,  it was molded in bright blue and yellow plastic and was about 6" long.  The mechanism was quite similar to the Hornby one but had a white plastic brake lever.  The coach was again about 6" long, 4 wheeled and made of very thin plastic.  The side profile was similar to a mk1 but it had windows in roughly the right shape for a mk3 and the grooves on the (seperate, white plastic) roof.

 

Thanks for the details!  I really like the old Welsotoys clockwork loco models, I have acquired half a dozen of the steam locomotives (my first, that I had as a kid, being one of the later-produced by the sound of it, with a mostly plastic mechanism that couldn't pull the skin off a rice pudding, and white plastic brake lever).  It sounds like the basic chassis that was retooled into the HST.  I have two carriages which are vaguely Mk.1 in profile but with tampo-print Arrows of Indecision on them, one a vaguely suburban/compartment one, the other with longer windows and end-doors that sounds like the one that came in your set.

 

I have to admit to being intrigued by the mentions of the HST in the Train Collectors Society article, I'd never heard of it before then, and then your mention of it just intrigues me further.  Not come across any pics of it anywhere... the TCS piece said it was probably the last iteration of the cheapy Welsotoys 00 gauge range, made at their factory on Anglesey into the early 80's... might be even more elusive than the ridiculous 4-wheeled Playcraft clockwork class 29! 

[Zomboid]

I've still got most of the components in various states of repair (the loco has worn out its drive gear) and the box is long gone, but it was this one:

http://www.hornbyguide.com/item_year_details.asp?itemyearid=2186

[Hesperus]

6 hours ago, Ben B said:

 

Thanks for the details!  I really like the old Welsotoys clockwork loco models, I have acquired half a dozen of the steam locomotives (my first, that I had as a kid, being one of the later-produced by the sound of it, with a mostly plastic mechanism that couldn't pull the skin off a rice pudding, and white plastic brake lever).  It sounds like the basic chassis that was retooled into the HST.  I have two carriages which are vaguely Mk.1 in profile but with tampo-print Arrows of Indecision on them, one a vaguely suburban/compartment one, the other with longer windows and end-doors that sounds like the one that came in your set.

 

I have to admit to being intrigued by the mentions of the HST in the Train Collectors Society article, I'd never heard of it before then, and then your mention of it just intrigues me further.  Not come across any pics of it anywhere... the TCS piece said it was probably the last iteration of the cheapy Welsotoys 00 gauge range, made at their factory on Anglesey into the early 80's... might be even more elusive than the ridiculous 4-wheeled Playcraft clockwork class 29! 

 

Yes, I remember the end doors on the coach, the body of which survived longest as a grounded body on my first layout.  The main suprise is that it was British made, I'd alway just assumed it was Chinese.  I've got a Playcraft 21/29 (electrically powered) in the stash upstairs after a vague game of trying to collect all the diesel classes.

Edited January 22, 2021 by Hesperus

[phil_sutters]

The first railway 'bits' I remember, because it wasn't a train set, were a circle of track and a diecast Gaiety pannier tank on a Triang 0-6-0 chassis. 5708. I made a cornflake packet GW diesel railcar shell to sit on top of the loco. I would have been about six or seven at the time. I had been to stay with my grandmother in Hereford and had been in railcars then. It got converted to 3-rail when we built up a Hornby Dublo layout and back to 2-rail for later layouts.

Edited January 23, 2021 by phil_sutters
Additional photos

[johnlambert]

On 13/01/2021 at 20:21, Steamport Southport said:

 

Not really seen as proper trains sets though. 

 

You couldn't put it on your next train set when you moved up to Hornby, Lima, Mainline, Bachmann or whatever you got from Santa.

 

Very few have mentioned clockwork. I reckon most people of my generation had a Hornby clockwork set before they got an electric one. Those you could run on proper track. ISTR the later versions had normal Hornby track instead of the plastic stuff.

 

Not my video. Mine didn't have the cars and level crossing.

 

 

I had that clockwork set.  Eventually my parents bought me not just an oval of Hornby track but a couple of points and some extra curves to make an oval with a passing loop at one end.  My first electric train was the Hornby Electric Starter Set with Desmond the pug (which I still have).

[faulcon1]

Here's a photo of me being coached by dad in about 1965 in Melbourne Australia with the track laid directly on the lounge room carpet. Mum is knitting and the other adult man is I think uncle Jonk. The other young boy is my older brother.

[faulcon1]

Years later my dad told me when I first started to walk my dad had made the Airfix windmill for my brother and I over balanced and sat on it crushing it. In those days unlike today trains were built solid and one only needed to get the carpet fluff out of the mechanism and they'd keep going. Track of course was steel and was cleaned with sandpaper as Peco streamline or set track either hadn't been invented or was just too expensive. 

[lastluddite]

Never had a train set when I was young,  only a weebles toy, by Airfix  like the one in this picture. 

[MrWolf]

Forty years ago Weebles were plastic toys, I suspect that some hushed up laboratory accident has given them a life of their own, considering how many you see wandering around. 

[Compound2632]

"Weebles wobble but they don't fall down." 

 

Discuss.

[MrWolf]

I remember conducting exhaustive tests into that theory as a child.

 

It depends on the size of the hammer that you employ to wobble them.

 

They also make a very entertaining cat toy, because the cat becomes convinced that the Weeble is taking the p***.

 

The cat eventually jams the Weeble under the refrigerator in disgust.

 

Weeble hammer tests are best conducted on soft ground. 

 

Tests on concrete generally resulted in the destruction of the test subject.

 

This later formed part of my thesis for my engineering degree...

 

You did ask!

 

[Geep7]

My first proper train set was a Hornby Percy Goods set for one of my birthdays, probably my 5th or 6th, I can't remember, along with a couple of lengths of Peco streamline track and points, and it was all pinned to a 6x4 board that lived under my parents bed. Previous to that, my Dad had made up a small circle of N gauge track on a board, which I could push his Lima Mk1 coaches round (I wasn't allowed to play with his proper N gauge layout at the time).

However, most of my early years were spent playing with a proper "train set", Twickenham & District MRC's N gauge layout 'Ravens Park'. I even helped run the layout one of the days at an Imrex exhibition (remember those?), but I can't remember which year it was. It must have been late 80's or very early 90's, as I needed to stand on a chair to look over the layout.

[Keith J]

This was mine. Late 1960's I think.

 

[ianmacc]

This is my daughter’s. indestructible super 4 track (can run an electric Thomas when she’s a little older should she still like it.  Clockwork Thomas and Percy plus various Lima crick etc. Somewhere to push cars. A place for farm animals and town people etc. 

[PatB]

On 11/02/2021 at 06:39, MrWolf said:

I remember conducting exhaustive tests into that theory as a child.

 

It depends on the size of the hammer that you employ to wobble them.

 

They also make a very entertaining cat toy, because the cat becomes convinced that the Weeble is taking the p***.

 

The cat eventually jams the Weeble under the refrigerator in disgust.

 

Weeble hammer tests are best conducted on soft ground. 

 

Tests on concrete generally resulted in the destruction of the test subject.

 

This later formed part of my thesis for my engineering degree...

 

You did ask!

 

I've long suspected that weebles would make excellent catapult or slingshot ammunition, the weighted base encouraging stable flight. I am also grimly amused by the thought of staff at A&E having to lever one out of someone's eye socket when the drunken William Tell antics reach their inevitable conclusion. 

[Compound2632]

3 hours ago, PatB said:

I've long suspected that weebles would make excellent catapult or slingshot ammunition, the weighted base encouraging stable flight. 

 

Not so sure - the very uneven mass distribution would lead to the projectile spinning; it would probably be very difficult to fire repeatedly on the same trajectory. The same reasoning suggests that they might make rather effective grapeshot.

[MrWolf]

25 minutes ago, Compound2632 said:

 

Not so sure - the very uneven mass distribution would lead to the projectile spinning; it would probably be very difficult to fire repeatedly on the same trajectory. The same reasoning suggests that they might make rather effective grapeshot.

 

You can actually throw them quite a long way. 

The idea of making a shot cannister full of Weaponised Weebles does have a certain appeal though ....

 

 

[PatB]

And here resteth the case that small boys (of any age) will consider weaponising pretty much any toy, however innocent .

[MrWolf]

35 minutes ago, PatB said:

And here resteth the case that small boys (of any age) will consider weaponising pretty much any toy, however innocent .

 

Nothing wrong with that! 

I'm glad that you weren't judgemental about the maturity of my comments on generally blowing sh1t up....

 

Although....  We could have gotten an awful lot of mileage from the irony of blokes who play with train sets telling each other to grow up and act like adults! 

 

 

[cypherman]

Hi all,

I remember as a child attaching one of my friends sisters barbie doll with a home made hanky parachute to a rocket. Made a hell of a mess of the doll and the parachute burst into flames. My friend was really in the dog house. He was grounded for a month and had his pocket money stopped for that month. The things you remember....lol

Edited February 21, 2021 by cypherman

[PatB]

27 minutes ago, MrWolf said:

 

Nothing wrong with that! 

I'm glad that you weren't judgemental about the maturity of my comments on generally blowing sh1t up....

 

Although....  We could have gotten an awful lot of mileage from the irony of blokes who play with train sets telling each other to grow up and act like adults! 

 

 

You're addressing a man who was only prevented from completing a leaf spring powered siege crossbow, attached to his Mad Max 2 inspired sidecar outfit, by rather hurriedly leaving the country.

[MrWolf]

Oddly enough, I have four words for you on that subject:

 

Morris Traveller top leaf.

 

Tent poles make rather good bolts.