What was your first Christmas trainset?

[Dunsignalling]

1950-something, an assortment of pre-loved Hornby O tinplate - clockwork, and nothing with more than four wheels. One red engine (mine) and one green (my brother's) or was it t'other way round....

 

Brother soon lost interest and I got (1960-ish) the Tri-ang goods set (RS5?) with the 3F 0-6-0 and tender, Series 3 track and a slightly peculiar selection of wagons. I think I may still have the brick wagon and the Toad somewhere as well as what's left of the 3F which (much later) got turned into a Black Motor courtesy of the Bec kit.

 

John   

Edited December 26, 2018 by Dunsignalling

[rab]

I've shared mine on a previous thread,

but for what it's worth:

 

The Triang Princess and 2 coaches which

soon developed the banana shaped roof.

 

It was Christmas 1954, I was 3 and

my brother was 6 months so, yes you

guessed, Dad had to set it up & run it.

He soon got fed up with the batteries

going flat, so bought a transformer,

and modified the control box to add

a speed control, all home made.

 

There were various additions over the years,

and I hung on to it, hoping it would be

worth something one day, but of course

it never was.

 

It all went on eBay last year when we moved,

although I've still got the transformer,

nobody seemed to want it.

Edited December 24, 2018 by rab

[pH]

In 1952, I got a second-hand clockwork tinplate set for Christmas - engine, a few wagons and enough track to build a loop with an outer loop at one end. My cousins and I had great fun, one still reminds me about it. An entertainment was to extend the track out of the living room into the hall as the train ran along it, to see how far we could get before the train ran off the end - shades of Wallace and Gromit:

 

Then, for Christmas 1953, it was traded in and a Triang Princess was bought, with two 'bendy' coaches, some goods wagons, a loop of track and a set of points to make a siding. Every item was individually wrapped, including each piece of track - I had several dozen parcels to open. Dad screwed it all down on a 6x4 of hardboard. I still have the Princess (with a broken front bufferbeam and a loose weight in the tender) and the coaches.

[brianusa]

I must be getting older!    My first Christmas morning train set was a green Hornby MO with two red trucks on a circle of track about 1938.  This was followed a year later with a clockwork GW No.2 Special tank with a couple of trucks, one of which was a Milk Truck.  This was followed by a Dublo SNG set on a board with extra trucks and track plus electric points and signals with a couple of stations.  Didn't get any better as that was just as the war started but the layout spent the next five years on a Morrison shelter in my bedroom.  Then it was all over; the war and the trains, as I had moved on to bikes!

 

Merry Christmas

Brian.

[hayfield]

The first one I really remember playing with was a Hornby Dublo 3 rail with the 4-6-2t loco, as a toddler my dad bought an 0-4-0t Bowman 0 gauge live steam loco which had a spirit (meths) burner, vague memories of him trying to get it to work in the back garden, but was far too young to be anything but an observer

[Darius43]

A Marklin 3 rail train set of early 1960s vintage that my Dad bought second hand from a colleague at work in the early 1970s. My Grandad had built and painted (he was an artist and museum diorama builder) the Airfix station building, platforms, signal box and signal gantry, pus a scratch built tunnel. The whole set was laid out on the dining table on Christmas morning,

 

Unforgettable

 

Darius

[MarcD]

1977 or78 Hornby GW branch set 0-4-0 tank three four wheel coaches and an oval of track and a small mains controller .supplemented with a pair of points and enough track for a loop .quicly added to with a pannier tank and a number of waggons from the 2nd hand bin at Norman Wisdens

Snap I got the same set in the same year. I had asked for a scalelectrix but my dad wanted a train set. So I got the train set. I have yet to find a set of drawings for 101.

 

Marc

[Claude_Dreyfus]

It was Christmas 1981, and my first set was a black 0 gauge Lima 4F, with a selection of wagons; including a GWR Toad.

[Alex TM]

Hi everyone,

 

It was 1978, and this was the set:

 

 

R.691.

 

Regards,

 

Alex.

[AngusDe]

Christmas 1964, 5yo me unwrapped this beauty. Never looked back!

 

 

 

 

Angus

Edited December 25, 2018 by AngusDe

[peanuts]

Snap I got the same set in the same year. I had asked for a scalelectrix but my dad wanted a train set. So I got the train set. I have yet to find a set of drawings for 101.

 

Marc

iirc a pic of the prototype popped up on this site somewhere

[robmcg]

I must be getting older!    My first Christmas morning train set was a green Hornby MO with two red trucks on a circle of track about 1938.  This was followed a year later with a clockwork GW No.2 Special tank with a couple of trucks, one of which was a Milk Truck.  This was followed by a Dublo SNG set on a board with extra trucks and track plus electric points and signals with a couple of stations.  Didn't get any better as that was just as the war started but the layout spent the next five years on a Morrison shelter in my bedroom.  Then it was all over; the war and the trains, as I had moved on to bikes!

 

Merry Christmas

Brian.

 

 

Nice post.  As a younger type b.1950 I had older siblings and a father who already had Hornby stuff from pre-war, post-war and then Dublo, and it wasn't until I was 13 in 1964 that I talked my parents into buying me a Marklin set, a basic 0-6-0 and two carriages, oval and transformer/controller,  but my most vivid present was in 1961 aged 10 when I received a 2-rail Hornby Dublo R1 0-6-0 in black, I recall using the settee or couch as a hill and the underside a tunnel, lying on my stomach,close up it was all very real.

 

Other years I wanted a Meccano set or a camera, and like you Brian I ended up well beyond the orbit of trainsets with a love of British bikes! 

 

Cheers

 

... 

[BR60103]

I probably had a few clockwork ones in the late 40s; I think one was a Rheingold. The Hornby clockwork wasn't Christmas (IIRC) but I got a Hornby O gauge electric about 1950 -- 0-4-0 withtender and a few cars. Not successful for some reason and we soon ran out of fuse wire (a product not used in Canada). I think my father was expecting a Dublo set, but his brother worked in a department store.

[neal]

Hornby Silver Jubilee Pullman Set 1977, with chuffing Albert Hall:

 

Box artwork was magnificent!!

 

Neal

[bike2steam]

Either 1954 or 5, can't remember, a s/h Hornby clockwork O gauge tin-plate. replaced 3 (or 4 ) years later by a OO 2 rail electric 'Red Dragon' Hornby Dublo set.

[Nearholmer]

“Box artwork was magnificent!!”

 

Really the whole story of train-sets, in one exclamation, that.

[jonny777]

This is the closest that I can get to my 1958 Christmas present. 

 

 

 

Thankyou Hattons - I have pasted the image from the website. 

 

My version had the N2 in LNER green and the tanker was 'Royal Daylight'. 

 

My relatives chipped in with a power controller, a turnout and a couple of extra track lengths, a signal and the island station platform and so I had a decent shunting layout by the end of present unwrapping.

 

However, my intention was to have the controller set on max and watch everything fly off the rails as they tried to negotiate the curves at a scale 300mph. Not approved of by the adults present. 

[Markeg]

R852a 0-4-0T train set (Australia) 1968

 

Mark

Edited December 25, 2018 by Markeg

[SM42]

Hornby HST was my first set. 

 

Baseboards made and track laid (held down with drawing pins with yellow plastic covers of all things) in the spare bedroom by my dad and brother whilst I was downstairs completely unware. The cover story was they had gone to the pub, which is probably what they would have preferred to do.

 

Still got it 40 odd years later The box is a bit tatty though

 

 

Andy

[Steadfast]

First trainset would technically have been the beginning of my Brio empire at an age I can't remember.

First proper trainset, would've been 1993 or 94 (4 or 5 years old), Hornby Intercity 225 set and their yellow brake down crane and presumably a few other bits.

Also inherited dad and uncles 1960s Hornby dublo 2 rail (is that rarer than 3 rail?) and Triang bits soon after. Then I saw the light and went N gauge age 13

 

Jo

[Danemouth]

My first trainset was a second hand Trix Twin 0-4-0 Tender loco and a few wagons together with an oval of the dreaded Trix black three rail track in 1950.

 

Dave

[Tony Davis]

Don't know what it was, I was very, very young, and my excited father put it together and ran it around the track, it sparked, I cried, it was put away and I never saw it again......

[47137]

My grandfather bought me some Hornby Dublo models from Hattons when I was very young. Some years later, my father set them up on a table and I was hooked, and soon afterwards he fixed the track onto a base of chipboard (hundreds of tiny screws in the tinplate track) and hinged it all to the wall of the garage.

 

There were two Co-Bos, a Royal Mail van with exchange aparatus, two level crossings, four right-hand points and track to make an oval with a reverse loop and two sidings. It was great but hampered by my friends being unable to couple their trains to mine. It was really hard to buy trains with the simplex type coupler, I remember adding a Trix twin wagon. I've still got one of the Co-Bos, rewheeled twice for two rail but a reluctant runner nowadays, the model must be most of 55 years old.

 

- Richard.

[john new]

Early 1950s Hornby O Gauge clockwork, not a set as such, the black 0-4-0 tank, track and some trucks and coaches. That was followed later by HD 3-rail and even later a conversion of some of it to two-rail (circa 1969/70).

[kernowtim]

First set I got for.christmas contained a Hornby railways LNER Flying scotsman, with firebox glow, and 3 teak coaches with no interiors, this would have been around 1973 when I was 6, an assortment of second hand triang was added, including several jinty tanks, I chose a couple new Hornby diesels, cls 25&29 from the 1977 catalogue(priced 25p) and my dad got me an Arnolds Sands open wagon as he worked next to one of their quarries. Still have scotsman although many parts were replaced in the late 70s and the Hornby diesels & sand wagon. All my stock would fit in a shoe box then, my collection of Arnolds sands wagons will fill several shoe boxes now!!