What was your first Christmas trainset?

[2mmMark]

Christmas 1962 brought me this.

Mine didn't have the smoke but it did come with an extra turnout and a BR maroon Mk1 brake.

Obviously prototypical accuracy wasn't a priority then!

 

My friend a few doors down had this, which I remember as being rather temperamental but it obviously left an imprint on me.

 

For sheer play value, I think I had the best deal. The box car and the cattle car had opening sliding doors into which you could put stuff, like sweeties and Lego.

 

 

[Titan]

Christmas 1974.

 

Edited December 24, 2018 by Titan

[Dungrange]

Mine was one of these https://www.hattons.co.uk/230660/Hornby_R597_U02_Super_Sound_Freight_Set_Pre_owned_imperfect_box/StockDetail.aspx : the Hornby Super Sound Freight set, which I think Father Christmas delivered at Christmas 1983.  I still have the locomotive and wagons up in the attic, but I have obviously moved on a bit.

[Dr Gerbil-Fritters]

Christmas 1975

 

 

I've never been as excited since 

[Gareth 73]

I had the Lima 0-4-0t and coaches in LMS maroon as my first xmas trainset 40 give or take years ago and also the playcraft cl29 with it which went that quick it wouldn't go round corners. I still have the lima 0-4-0t but repainted for industrial use. If I remember the controller was battery powered and the track was mounted on a Hornby dublo display baseboard that dad got from a local shop that was chucking it out.

[The Stationmaster]

Peco Individulay track on a hardboard baseboard, a homebuilt transformer/controller unit and a Hornby Dublo 'Duchess of Atholl' in LMS livery and three wagons.   I didn't get any coaches until about 6 years later.

[Jol Wilkinson]

A secondhand Hornby Dublo "LMS" goods set with the 0-6-2T loco. 

[doilum]

Christmas 1961. Uncle David turned up with a previously owned Triang boxed set in near mint condition. An oval of grey standard track, 82004 and a couple of suburban coaches. February's birthday added a 13 ton drop side wagon and a 7 plank with opening doors.

Being electric I wasn't allowed to set it up unsupervised. A secondhand brake van became Toby and I was happy to set up my own shunting plank using a pair of points. The points cost dad 7/6 (37.5p) was at least the price of four pints of best bitter. For the record, the wagons cost 4/6 (22.5p)

[BernardTPM]

Christmas 1959, not actually a 'set' but a Tri-ang 2-6-2T, three suburban coaches, an oval of Series 3 track and a hardboard station. (Picture to follow if I can work a way of scanning it).

[E3109]

A ragtag collection of Triang castoffs, featuring a Blue Pullman (one power car only),a quasi-Canadian Pacific and various stock.

The hand-me-down job lot also featured the famed giraffe car, in an unserviceable state.

 

Dad paid £10 for the stuff approx 1973 and although I reckon he was ripped off I don't mind one bit.

For it sowed the seeds of a lifetime interest/obsession from which there's no coming back from.

[Gilbert]

It was a Wrenn set featuring an N2 0-6-2, LMS brake plus I think a cattle wagon and double bolster...all later foolishly part exchanged for Scalextric along with a Brush 2 and R1 to Old Mr Hatton in the original Smithdown Road shop

[Flying Pig]

From dates of house moves, I'm pretty sure my Freightmaster set arrived at Christmas 1969, along with a copy of 16th Edition Tri-ang Hornby catalogue. However, it didn't quite match the info for the 1969 set at http://www.hornbyguide.com/item_year_details.asp?itemyearid=2929 as it most definitely ran on System 6 track (I never used Super 4). The wagons were the rather weird collection shown in the photo, not those described in the text, as I certainly had the Conflat L (didn't find out until years later what the items it carried were) and never had the cable drum wagon.

 

It had been added to with a pair of points and a siding as my Dad considered that shunting was an essential feature of even a starter layout. As I recall, a couple of blue and grey Mk1s turned up around the same time and a CKD kit for an RMB from an aunt and uncle. It seems terribly lavish in retrospect, as we were far from wealthy.

 

Interesting to note from Titan's post that by 1974 the Freightmaster set was retro, with a green loco and an even more oddball array of wagons.

[doilum]

A ragtag collection of Triang castoffs, featuring a Blue Pullman (one power car only),a quasi-Canadian Pacific and various stock.

The hand-me-down job lot also featured the famed giraffe car, in an unserviceable state.

Dad paid £10 for the stuff approx 1973 and although I reckon he was ripped off I don't mind one bit.

For it sowed the seeds of a lifetime interest/obsession from which there's no coming back from.

1973: 12p a pint or 30p for a gallon of petrol. Well and truly ripped off!!!

[Dave Hunt]

About 1953 I got a 3-rail Hornby Duchess of Montrose set - loco in BR green with two or three coaches and an oval of track. Also a Hornby station, one point and track for a siding. My dad mounted it on a  sheet of hardboard with wooden batons round the edges. Magic!

[dvdlcs]

The Mainline set with the LNER J72 and a number of wagons. Would have been circa 1977.

 

Long gone from my possession now.

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

A ragtag collection of Triang castoffs...

..., a homebuilt transformer/controller unit...

 

I can relate to these two. Pa had brought home (unknown to me) an 'assorted' box of Triang obtained from a colleague at de Havillands. Two princesses but only one operational tender, (and I still have the single cobbled together item after many rebuilds) and a Jinty. The track was a mix of grey and series three. The rolling stock extremely various. (I later got a new loco, the EM2, becase it was the nearest thing to the prototype EM1 which he had seen working immediately post war in The Netherlands.)

 

He then spent several evenings building a very elaborate electronic box of tricks. This was entirely normal in our household, he had been a radio enthusiast from 8 years old and was an electronics engineer so I had not a clue that this device was coming my way. I was the only boy who had to wait for the train set controller's valves to warm up and stabilise before commencing operation. All made from salvaged components as was his usual wont, based on a pair of old audio amplifier chassis.

 

That was a very good Christmas indeed.

[DavidR]

In the early 1950's my Dad was advised (conned) into buying a Trix Twin tank engine, track, controller, transformer, a couple of wagons. At the time it seemed good, but it was AC and incompatible with friends and cousins who had Triang. Within 5 years it was left in a box, unused and finally sold.

[Robert Shrives]

1968 - five and a bit , Triang  TT 3F two coal wagons and a brakevan trackwise I recall two long straights that sat on the window ledge - a micro layout . The wall mounted hinge  down cam 3 or 4 years later.  Still hot a lot of Traing TT and other 3mm kits.  But variously dabbled across the scales - before typing this it was a Tenmille CCT kit in G1- well I can see it!!

Festive greetings and merry humbug to all

 

Robert    

[Butler Henderson]

A 6ft x 4ft double track oval with a coupling of sidings and extra loop at the platform accompanied by 4472 and Polly, Christmas 1969 -  Santa must have been busy overnight. The coaches ended up getting detailed to look more like the Thompsons were meant to be (vents, underframe trussing etc and ends altered). Polly is I think the only retained item having received outside valve gear and the name Robin Hood at some point.

[russ p]

1970 a set with the black B12 and a few wagons and my parents also added two great Western liveried mk1s

A couple of years late I got the freight master set the same as earlier in this thread

[Legend]

Triang Freightmaster 1965 . Brush type 2 , 7 trucks . Supplemented with 2 Pullman’s and a Royal Mail pick up set. Happy days!

 

Merry Christmas

[Robert Shrives]

Hi Just a thought out of the 18 replies I think  6 got new and rest got recycled/ purposed as the modern idiom has it.   Lots of Dads building on hardboard as well.  I wonder how the current younger generations would perceive recycled presents - yes I know it happens a lot despite all the shiny TV ads!

 

But I was just glad to have a trainset. I had traveled on a  bit of the LMS at Bath Green Park and bedroom at a pinch overlooked Bathampton junction and the Plasticine factory across the Avon. I recalled a black steam engine and the 3F worked it for me - loco was probably a Standard tank looking at pictures now.    

[luckymucklebackit]

I had been bought the Hornby Dublo 31337 and two coaches on a board with an oval of track and one siding for my birthday in October, so Xmas brought a Hornby Dublo Deltic, wagons and two more sidings to hold the new stuff.

 

Jim

[David Bigcheeseplant]

Must have been Chtistmas 1967 when I was four months old my Dad got me a Triang Albert Hall and three pullman coaches.

 

David

[Ohmisterporter]

Triang Jinty with two maroon coaches and an oval of grey track with a battery powered controller. Must have been around 1954 aged eight. The large batteries seemed to run down quickly and were expensive to replace so the set spent more time in its box than playing. The coach roofs warped after a while, a common failing I think.

 

P.S. Spellchecker does not like rooves; which I thought was the correct plural of roof.

Edited December 24, 2018 by Ohmisterporter