Do you remember that first train set?

[markwhale]

With so much negative threads and folk feeling a little down and despondent, I thought i would start a thread about that first train set. You may have forgotten what you did this time yesterday or what you were supposed to do before the wife got home, but it is said, us boys will always remember the first train set you ever had. You will probably remember what engine you had, what carriages and how many and all the minor details with app solute clarity!
Mine was a Hornby set with a class 47 engine in blue. For an extra cost, much advised by the chap behind the counter, to have a mains controller, which was grey with a red dial which increased and decreased the speed. There was a red flip switch which set forward and reverse with screw terminals on the front for the wire connections. The set also came with two passenger carriages and a oval track layout. Included in the set was a cardboard tunnel with plastic ends to keep its shape and, wait for it!!!, a mail carriage with a little red bucket that would swing out and collect the mail bag hanging from a post by the track ( that depended on the track switch and post being in precisely the right position, when it did work, it went so fast, you barely saw it go!!!
It was a basic set for sure, no cliches, no crashes in the program, no worry of FPS and no editor. You could buy more track and make it as big as the space around your bedroom would allow. Sadly, my Mother trod on the mail carriage and the little flap appeared no more. Had to be that carriage she chose to redesign!!!

What about you good people?

Mark.

[ihavenonamenoreallyidont]

I remember, in the very early 80s, saving up £10 to pay my uncle for some blood and custard mark 1s with a green steam engine. Can't recall what engine it was. I know I had some track well before then, too, but I can't recall what engines or stock I had. Definitely diesel, though. Oh, and my dad built a table in my room, literally half the size of the room - no, really! - which went from wall to wall, purely to put my train set on.

Also recall buying lots of Linka shortly before my teens and having a great time with it trying to make various buildings for my route. That stuff used to get everywhere!

Received a DMU for my birthday which happened to be the launch morning of breakfast television in the UK. I was slightly disappointed it was in white livery with a thin blue stripe (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Q8qsO-R-T7c) rather than traditional blue and grey 115s where I grew up in Aylesbury (here's a video including some lovely sounding 115s, although not in blue and grey, sadly - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=_SMOYTKS ... yQ&index=6).

Good memories, thanks for prompting me. And what a great thread this will hopefully be!

[VernonDozier]

Nothing special. Just a little Bachmann Trainset. Circular layout. Canadian Pacific F7 engine, green CPRail boxcar, black CPRail hopper, yellow CPRail caboose.
Way Way back yonder for Xmas 1993.

[partyspiritz]

My gran got me a Hornby Goods Set o gauge clockwork. I think it was for my 10th brithday.
In later years I swaped it for an APT set.


Regards


John

[Kromaatikse]

I got my dad's old Hornby Dublo set - yes, the three-rail version - since we weren't really rich enough to replace it with the modern version. Eventually I had the well-known 0-6-2T, Duchess, and *two* of the 2-6-4Ts, and there were maroon and blood-and-custard carriages to run them with, along with some wagons which I don't recall very well, and a breakdown crane which I very much do.

All the stock, track and scenery lived in a series of old Meccano boxes - appropriately since Hornby Dublo was for some considerable time made by the Meccano company. My parents still have these somewhere in England.

The age of the rails and motors was definitely beginning to show, as it got really quite unreliable. The control equipment was fine (mostly consisting of a tapped transformer and rectifier), but there just wasn't a good enough connection through the pickup to run the weak old 3-pole motors properly. Apparently it is possible to fit stronger magnets (using material not available in the 50s) to strengthen the motors, but that's really a bit beyond my level of enthusiasm for models.

[USRailFan]

A wooden Brio one, with IIRC a steam locomotive and three freight cars (one side-tipping one, I remember). And a circle of wooden tracks.

[Andrew Page]

Yes, I remember that Christmas morning, and coming downstairs to discover a Tri-ang R3A set with the black 'Princess Victoria' locomotive and two BR 'blood & custard' coaches. My Dad had set up the track for me on a basic baseboard. I went on from there to build up quite a collection of Tri-ang and subsequently Tri-ang Hornby models. As is, I guess, the case with many folk, my interest waned in my later teen years. However, when I took early retirement a couple of years ago I started to get interested again and am now modelling the US scene in N scale. I'm also thinking about starting a small P4 layout featuring the LSWR, but that's another story. Today's models are a million miles removed from those early Tri-ang ones, but I doubt if I shall ever hold any in such affection as that first R3A set!

AP

[briyeo1950]

Somewhere around the year 1957 my father got a 6ft by 4ft hardboard framed base with an oval of track made up. Im not sure what the loco was but Princess Elizabeth comes to mind, did hornby/Triang make one at that period? I remember it was black. There were two crimson and cream coaches and 4 or 5 wagons. It was supposed to be my brothers and mine, but as always I really think it was dads train set
I remember when I was sent to bed about 7 o,clock in the summer time and it was still light outside, I used to sneak the loco out of the wardrobe to play with it in bed. Mother wasn't very happy when she found out, moaning there would be oil everywhere.
We swapped it for a scalectric a few years later, I don't think Dad was very happy about that

EDIT Just reading the post above by Andrew, it sounds like it could be the very same train set

[stephenholmes]

Good morning
My first train set was a Hornby Goods Train Set which I purchased in 1981 from Toys R Us
It consisted of a 0-6-0 London Transport 56xx Pannier tank loco an Oval of track
There were 5 items of freight in the pack
The power controller was very simple one bi directional switch and switch for Quarter, Half, or Full power
The first extension I made for it was by the use of the track packs Hornby did
I added a passing loop and a Goods Shed .
I remember thinking at the time how come the models were expensive when the train set was cheap at £15.95
I soon realised train sets are sold at a heavy discount and then the price is recouped by the expansions.
Here is something to make you smile.....although I wanted to cry at the time
Several years and a huge layout later I decided the track could do with a really good clean.
I thought Oh wire wool adds a nice shine to the rails and stupidly carried on cleaning away.
Now then as soon as I powered up with my HM3000 super controler...a red light "Overload" kept flashing away and there were fires breaking out right left and Centre
Of course being much older I now realise the folly of this stupid idea
I spent ages cleaning the armatures of tiny fragments of wire wool
Kind regards Stephen

[USRailFan]

I soon realised train sets are sold at a heavy discount and then the price is recouped by the expansions.

Sounds a bit like how they do it with train simulators as well...

[gavo01]

In later years I swaped it for an APT set.

Arr, the Hornby APT. I remember having to travel to a model railway shop in Stoke-On-Trent to get mine as no one local stocked them.

The joy on my liitle face when I finally got home and gave this beauty its maiden voyage only for it to crash on the first corner.

[loverswalk]

Me and my brother were both taken to see Santa in his grotto at Tesco in the late 70's , on Christmas Morning we awoke to find that we each had a Hornby train set mine was a Pick up Goods http://www.hornbyguide.com/item_details.asp?itemid=378 and my Brothers was the Rural Rambler set http://www.hornbyguide.com/item_details.asp?itemid=368 , we progressed from the carpet to a large sheet of chipboard with a twin oval circuit. We gradualy added a few more coaches to our collection over the years as well as getting an InterCity class 47 and a Black 5.
LW

[stephenholmes]

Hello again
I mentioned earlier that I eventually upgraded to an HM3000 controller
I was fascinated by it at the time as it had variable inertia which mean't that trains could coast.
I attach two screens below
Kind regards Stephen

[briyeo1950]

Thanks to Andrews post about the Triang trainset I have managed to find out exactly what the set was that we had. It was the previous years set to Andrews Princess Victoria made in 1959. The set did indeed have a black Princess Elizabeth and was produced in 1958
Wonder if I can find one today anywhere

[stephenholmes]

Good afternoon Brian
I wonder how much they would have cost in 1958?
Kind regards Stephen