Toy Trains?

[Another Johnson]

Tis the season. Is this hobby incompatible with audio?
I have an animated G scale Christmas train that died a few years ago. The grandson saw it at age 2, and asks for it every year. I spent this afternoon bringing it back to life. Deoxit played a major role. He’ll be excited tomorrow when he comes for our weekly Sunday night dinner.

 

[DonH50]

Tis the season. Is this hobby incompatible with audio?
I have an animated G scale Christmas train that died a few years ago. The grandson saw it at age 2, and asks for it every year. I spent this afternoon bringing it back to life. Deoxit played a major role. He’ll be excited tomorrow when he comes for our weekly Sunday night dinner.

It is expensive, time- and space-consuming, requires great attention to detail, and often some technical ability to dial it in and fix things. Plus there is always some other (new or old) thing you want to add, more track to buy, more scenery, etc. In other words, compared to audio hobbies, they are basically the same...

I have my old Lionel (O gauge) sets around someplace. I always thought I'd get into that or HO with DCC and all that jazz, but have so many other hobbies fitting the description above that I just never got around to it.

 

[KPC]

I envied my older brother's O' gauge train set when I was young. I wanted a train to put around the Christmas tree, but never pulled the trigger until this year. Guess it's my bucket list item, along with a nativity set (just got this year) and my high-end audio chains

 

[Another Johnson]

The Lionel animated G-Scale Christmas train was a hit with the five year old. But after we’d played with it for a while, he wanted to set up the O-Scale Thomas the Tank Engine train (bought in 2022 when the G-Scale had failed). Train aficionados will know that O and G can’t run on the same track. I will set Thomas up and take him down “on demand.”

FWIW, if you have one of these 2010ish Chinese made G-Scale Lionel Christmas Trains, they’re actually not difficult to get into.

The gear train is plastic, but it still had grease present. All the teeth looked good.
In the end, the thing that was causing the trouble was the electrical coupling plug from the tender to the locomotive. That was surprisingly resistant to cleaning … like a tube and socket, it eventually responded to reseating, but it took several reseatings before it was reliably working again.

In 2022 when I called various toy train repair gurus to troubleshoot, the advice was always “send it to me and I’ll fix it in January.” So maybe this hobby has even more in common with audio than I thought.

 

[DonH50]

The Lionel animated G-Scale Christmas train was a hit with the five year old. But after we’d played with it for a while, he wanted to set up the O-Scale Thomas the Tank Engine train (bought in 2022 when the G-Scale had failed). Train aficionados will know that O and G can’t run on the same track. I will set Thomas up and take him down “on demand.”

FWIW, if you have one of these 2010ish Chinese made G-Scale Lionel Christmas Trains, they’re actually not difficult to get into.

The gear train is plastic, but it still had grease present. All the teeth looked good.
In the end, the thing that was causing the trouble was the electrical coupling plug from the tender to the locomotive. That was surprisingly resistant to cleaning … like a tube and socket, it eventually responded to reseating, but it took several reseatings before it was reliably working again.

In 2022 when I called various toy train repair gurus to troubleshoot, the advice was always “send it to me and I’ll fix it in January.” So maybe this hobby has even more in common with audio than I thought.

I've had to deal with similar connectors over the years. Often enough the receptacle (female, jack) end contacts have spread enough that they no longer reliably capture the plug (male) end. Compounded by cheap and/or soft metal that loses it's "spring". I have had some success using a (or a pair of) very fine (e.g. jewelers) flat screwdriver or file to sneak between the contact and holder (often a molded housing) to gently squeeze the the contacts together. Then some contact cleaner and a couple of insertion cycles usually gets things going again.

 

[SuperDave]

I kept all the LGB gear we had growing up, pulled it out a couple years ago for my kids and almost all of it still works. Some of it is 35 years old and the lights still turn on. Lots of fun, but it takes a lot of space.

Dave

 

[KPC]

I’ve been to a couple of model railroad museums, and a few model railroad open houses - very impressive of the work, art, and time invested to achieve realism.

 

[Alrainbow]

Here is a throw back slot cars or even efx the tiny ones

 

[KPC]

Slot cars.

My childhood friend had 4 sisters 10yrs older than him, so he got the great toys. Extensive hot wheels and slot cars.

For years I wanted to get a slot car set. When I finally got one, it was a bit fidgety and now wireless model cars were the norm. Not sure if to keep the “deluxe” slot car set (4 lanes) or get rid of dinosaur tech. Nowadays they’re racing drones via video cameras

 

[bozebuttons]

I have a lot of trains .what started me on collecting them was a Lionel trainset I use to play with as a kid.
It a 1948 freight train set my mother bought for my Father as a first anniversary gift.
I still had some pieces left and restored the set and found the cars I was missing to complete the set
I still have the set.
I also got into slot cars when they where popular

 

[Another Johnson]

At the moment I am watching an LGB Swiss Furka Oberalp run CCW on an R1 oval. I’ve just finished the lubrication maintenance on all my G scale sets. The Bachmann 4-6-0 Christmas train is running CW and on the R2 outer loop, fire box brightly flickering and smoke pouring out of the stack. They’re passing Johnson’s Hardware and Dry Goods on every lap.

I ran the Lionel Pennsy earlier. I’m waiting for some bulbs (from eBay) to fix the two passenger cars. I do have the cars apart … no mean feat. Plenty of freight cars to run with that engine (thanks to my Mother’s having bought a new car every year for my Dad.

 

[Another Johnson]

The five year old announced the other day that “Grandpa has four trains running for Christmas.” I told him there were at least 12 here, from Z to G.

 

[Dimfer]

Rod Stewart is also into toy trains

 

[Another Johnson]

Rod Stewart is also into toy trains

Neil Young too.

Neil Young’s O gauge railroad - Trains

Neil Young’s O gauge railroad ranks among the greatest and most influential of toy train layouts presented in Classic Toy Trains magazine.

www.trains.com

It can be mesmerizing to watch the loops and listen to the clickity clack, much like turntables.

The grandson wanted to know where the other trains were (he could only see four). I told him they were in my secret storage room. So now the quest is on … where is the secret room. As Roseanne Roseannadanna used to say, “It’s always something.”

 

[Another Johnson]

A few others, including Sinatra and Daltry

The Unlikely Celebrities Who Are Big Model Train Hobbyists

Model Train: Meet the unlikely celebrities who are model train enthusiasts, from British singers to surprising US sports stars

railwaytraveller.com

 

[Kingrex]

I had trains. Prefer the AFX cars. As a kid i had 3 or 4 car sets. I made a giant layout in the attic. Had to have jumpers to get power to the whole track. I nailed that thing to the floor. My parents must have been very tolerance.

 

[KPC]

I recall a fully laid out slot car track business or two.