For those amongst us who remember:- "When I was a boy"!

[lil chris]

I used to have a Hornby Dublo too, a A4 pacific I think ..... King. I also had lots of Corgi cars, do not know what happened to them. What a sickner when I saw some go for a fortune on the TV program Flog It last week. I kept thinking I had that one...and that one....and.....

[joe cassidy]

Chris, I'm sure those prices were for mint, never played with condition.

Were yours in that state ?

Best regards,


Joe

[robert06]

I too had Triang kit.  It started with an American looking blue diesel and two blue coaches one with a panorama roof.  (I later discovered it was intended as an Australian style train which they were aiming at the export market). Next followed an electric version of the loco in green and some years later a catenery set which allowed two locos on one line as mentioned in an earlier post.  I also had the Royal Mail coach and had a number of the military vehicles which were on the market for a while.  One was a helicopter on a flat wagon which launched when the train passed a trigger attached to the track,  always assuming the chopper was wound up first. There was also a Wild West steam loco complete with cow catcher and wide chimney which I think was called Davey Crockett and a matching coach.  As well as these exotic items there was also a motley collection British stock, 3F, B12 (which was a knockdown kit) class 37, various coaches in various liveries and freight wagons etc etc.

The original set had series 3 track and additions were super 4. In the end I had a double track oval with a couple of loops and some sidings on roughly 8'x4'.  All dismantled in the mid 70s and sold off. 

Robert.

[Jon898]

First trainset was a clockwork tin-plate O-gauge set with steel rails that was set up under the dining room table when I was allowed to use that space (not very often  ).  That was subsequently replaced about 1961 by a simple loop of Trix Twin (3-rail OO-Gauge) handed down by an uncle.  This included a Flying Scotsman (green BR livery), but was "recovered" almost immediately by a cousin who had taken over the bulk of my uncle's extensive layout  :'( .

Following this fiasco, I subsequently bought for myself with Christmas money a Triang HO/OO set (RS.38 Snow Rescue Train) at the Model Shop in Teddington.  That one had a snowplow, 0-4-0 shunter, ambulance car and (working) helicopter car.  I expanded it to a double track with one siding, and added two 0-6-0 steam engines, some LMS carriages, some goods vans and the ubiquitous Royal Mail coach.  This also lived on the floor, so reliability was dubious at best, and eventually was retired to the attic when I went off to boarding school along with some Minic Motorways stuff.  When we cleared out my parents' home after they died, I found the Triang stuff in the attic covered in about a centimeter of dust. Nostalgia set in and I could not see it go to the dump with all the rest of their stuff, so packed it up and put it in my luggage and flew it to the US in 2006.  It is still in the packing, and may stay there for a while if not indefinitely (not much market for Triang over here  and the rail-space is dedicated to N).

[mark100]

I had the Hornby Hymek and 37 when they first came out and the Hornby R900 series controllers, prior to that I was using a controller that sat on 2 huge blue ever ready batteries and I could only play with my trains when my parents could afford to buy me those batteries.
I had all the Dinky Space 1999 and Thunderbird stuff and huge yellow Tonker dumper trucks and now its all gone, as someone else said on here, this stuff sells for a fortune but only cost around £2.99 to buy in the good old days.

I remember my parents playing a TV controller game called Blip, then it was Atari, then Sinclair, Commadore, Grandstand e.t.c and now we can now send photos to each other via mobile phone,

Fishing tackle was a tree branch for a rod, cork for the float, cotton for the line, plasticine for weights and a bent pin for the hook.

Dinner was what ever my Grandfathers Ferrets caught on the day.

Mark

[joe cassidy]

I was lucky - my Dad used to travel a lot for his job and he'd go out of his way to get quadruple Green Shield stamps when buying petrol.

Thay paid for my fishing tackle and a lot of our toys!

Best regards,


Joe

[ozzie Bill.]

Hornby OO with lots of bits. I think my dad got as much fun out of it as I did, and he used to always buy extra bits for Xmas, so I had a turntable, Winston Churchill with "real smoke" and lots of other bits. Also had a Minic car set, which was 1:72 for those who don't know, so it fitted in well with the trains. There lots of pieces you could get so you could join them together, like a car transporter with load and off load ramps, also level crossing and similar. My favourite loco was my first, a little black Jinty. Great stuff! Cheers, Bill.

[port perran]

Ah....Green Shield Stamps.
I can remember those getting out of hand and being given absolutely reams of them when you filled up with petrol.
Great days !

[mark100]

I was lucky - my Dad used to travel a lot for his job and he'd go out of his way to get quadruple Green Shield stamps when buying petrol.

Thay paid for my fishing tackle and a lot of our toys!

Best regards,


Joe

I Still have a Green Shield stamp encased in a resin keyring fob. Maybe I should cash it in for a Merc or Bentley

Mark

[port perran]

What about pennies on the line?
We used to do that all the time.
I used to have a penny that had been run over by the Cornish Riviera Express (on Westbury Cut Off line) about 6 times.
I do wonder whatever happened to that penny.

[georgehgv]

What about pennies on the line?
We used to do that all the time.
I used to have a penny that had been run over by the Cornish Riviera Express (on Westbury Cut Off line) about 6 times.
I do wonder whatever happened to that penny.

We used to do pennies on the line, lost most of them until Dad brought home double sided tape - modern miracle, just had to scrape it off the track then.
Also remember being shown a calculator that was a wonder, put in some numbers and it added subtracted and everything, all worked by batteries.
I was a deprived cild some may say depraved but then ... Only ever allowed to drool outside Eames shop never permitted inside.

Ah memories .... Dream on.

[georgehgv]

What about pennies on the line?
We used to do that all the time.
I used to have a penny that had been run over by the Cornish Riviera Express (on Westbury Cut Off line) about 6 times.
I do wonder whatever happened to that penny.

[elmo]

Christmas 1981. After years of having to share things with my brother, who broke every toy that I ever had, I received my very first locomotive that was all mine. A Farish 08. The following Christmas and birthdays saw the addition to my fleet of a 47 then a 37 and the original two power-car HST set.

Last night after reading this thread I had all these old machines running on my layout. They all still get regular use but last night was an early 1980's memory.

The other thought that this thread brought to mind is how many people will be doing something similar over 30 years later with modern models? The above farish locos did not require any tinkering to get them going and the only 'major' surgery has been a change of brushes. I compare this with various tinkering and returns of modern both steam and diesel and think of my latest failure, a Dapol 22 that despite being a couple of years old  might have been run for only about 5 hours.

Sadly this state of affairs is common to all scales of model railways. My Bachman 57xx required a new motor after around 6 years of not particularly heavy use, but at least my Hornby pannier and Hornby/Dapol terriers are of the easily maintained (in fact yet to break) open frame design that should still be working many years from now.
Happy modelling
Elmo

[petercharlesfagg]

I must be getting old because I like these old days type threads, my first layout was a Honby Dublo Duchess of Atholl 3 rail set, I got it for Christmas when I was 12 years old, my Nan and Grandpa bought me an LNER tank loco to go with it and my Uncle built me a great station, that was the beginning of a lifetime hobby.

Going slightly of topic I was lucky enough to live near the Birmingham - Bristol main line and spent every spare minute trainspotting, I could not stand the thought of missing all those great trains passing while I was a school so armed with my LMS Ian Allan train ref, a notebook, my school lunch and a packet of five Woodbine fags I would wag school and log some great cops, ah they were the days.

Tut, Tut, Tut, not going to school , naughty boy! 

Woodbines, YAY! I used to sneak off to the woods with mates to share the experience.

Never did understand why it was always me who was stood guard duty and missed out on a smoke!!!

Trainspotting was not my interest but it was good just to sit on a footbridge and watch,with a bottle of Tizer whilst discussing deeper subjects such as girls?

[petercharlesfagg]

What about pennies on the line?
We used to do that all the time.
I used to have a penny that had been run over by the Cornish Riviera Express (on Westbury Cut Off line) about 6 times.
I do wonder whatever happened to that penny.

I remarked in another thread about doing just the same!

Thinking about it later in life it is amazing that we weren't hurt sometimes.

The locomotive would go over the coins and some of them would shoot out sideways into the scrub where we were hiding and embed themselves in the tree trunks.  Not even a sheath knife could dislodge them, perhaps they are still there?

What fun memories are?  Peter.