Do you perfer the toy like trains or the super detailed budget busters?
I like both and will run both on my layout which is yet to be built.
I like detail. While I cannot afford many of the budget busting products out in the marketplace, I do look for the most scaled product I can afford.
Regards,
John O
“If it ain’t 1:1 scale AND generating income, it’s a toy!”
I really like the look and sounds of prewar tinplate. However, most of those trains are above my pay grade. Lately, I’ve acquired a modest Marx tin collection. I like the sound that metal trains make as they clatter along the tracks.
I do appreciate the more scale items, but overall I like the more toy-like items. Of course, I hang on to my beloved post-war items. They are a happy medium between tinplate and scale offerings.
I love to see and visit scale layouts, but my personal preference will always be “toy”. My layout is all prewar Lionel. I love the simplicity of the accessories as well as the fact that the doors on my bungalow houses are about half the size as those on the neighboring station. My son probably summed it up best for me after visiting a wonderful scaled layout of the Twin Cities a few weeks ago - “Dad, that was really cool, but I couldn’t imagine playing with it”. Again, the detail and realism possible today is absolutely amazing, but give me that lithographed tin plate whistle station and I’ll be happy all day.
I like them both; but if money was no object, I would probably go more for detailed.
If it operates on three rails, toy is fine with me.
I’m a bit more finnicky (but not much) when it comes to my two-rail interests in On30, Z, and Large Scale.
toy trains, That’s why I switched from N scale. More fun for the buck
TOY TRAINS ROCK!!!
Man, do they! Massive couplers, big rails and wheels, plenty of heft (not dainty trains!)…
Lionel just screams “Manly Trains” for us big boys!
I should come as no surprise to anyone who has been reading this forum or the other one, where I stand.
I think the vast majority of buyers also fall into the more semi-scale, traditional toy category of trains. The train forums do give the impression of the opposite though, but that’s not representative of the actual buyers, but of the people who take the time to post on the train forums.
There is nothing wrong with the scale end of the hobby. What I personally fail to understand, is the seemingly disproportionate level of offerings towards the high end. But putting personal feelings aside, I think the manufacturers are courting what is the newest segment of O gauge buyers. The bitter competition between Lionel and MTH has also fed into this quite heavily.
In the short history of MTH, they have upped the ante, features, and detail levels more prolifically than any other company. The train forums also appeared around the same time approximately that MTH got started which I think benefited them greatly. Many hobbyists wondered on the forums when Lionel would catch up. It seemed too many that Lionel was no longer in the lead. Add in the growing competition from K-Line, who had made their intentions known the be the number one 3-rail train company within 5 years, and we had a rapidly accelerating competitive spirit in the industry, but not necessarily with the accelerating growth of new customers in the hobby.
I personally wish Lionel would put the thrust of their efforts into the more toy/semi-scale arena and let MTH put their efforts on the scale end. Lionel has the name that has the best awareness for a newcomer, while many die-hard scale operators seem to favor MTH because of their innovation and quality on the scale side. I don’t see that happening though. Lionel does make some fine scale products and TMCC/Railsounds was the first innovation that got the who
With all do respect, I mean your posts are usually really informative, but do you ever make one shorter than on paragraph?
If it was made before 1960 in the USA - I like i and run it.
Personally, I find the term “toy trains” to be a misfit for post war trains. I guess it is a phrase adopted by the elitists who only run scale and refer to all else as “toys”.
If I won the lottery - unlikely since I dont play it - I’d have a layout for each. However, years ago in my teens I made the mistake of going the scale detailed route in HO which in the end was unsatisfying and just last year I got back into trains with O gauge Lionel which, for me, was brand new in every way.
I grew up in England so I’d never seen Lionel trains except once or twice and had no idea of the vast range of stuff they made. The only thing even close to Lionel and thats just the look of the track, was the O gauge clockwork Hornby I started out with as a kid.
Many years passed, then along comes our 4 yr old ‘daughter’ Asherah (isn’t technically but might as well be) who loves playing trains and got a TOMY set with all the trimmings from my wife and I and coincidentally that same Christmas my own grown children gave me a Lionel W.E.Disney set which made Asherah just lose interest in hers!
Well, playing trains with her was a heck of a lot more fun than my previous HO empire had ever been because we covered the living room and bedroom floor with just about every toy she owned and ran the train delivering Lego bricks and Lincoln logs to each other and building castles and farms and enclosures for her animals and the time whizzed by so fast we could spend all day only stopping reluctantly for meals and bathroom breaks. BUT being a bit oldish it was hard on the knees and the setting up and taking apart was a drag and after a while I started thinking about maybe putting a baseboard down somewhere so I could sit at it and not get crippled!
I went to Trainland, saw all those gorgeous scale sized locos, grabbed a few catalogs and started dropping hints and gloating over those ACE and ETS trains and drawing up plans for a really large and no expense spared layout. At that point a warning bell sounded and a little voice said “Whoa there! You made this mistake before” and besides Asherah was asking me why couldn’t we “just play trains” and a
What a great post. Thanks for sharing.
I haven’t meet a toy train I didn’t like! But I’m partial to passenger trains…
Chris
I like them both, but I’ll never be able to afford the budjet busters. Besides, I have too much fun digging thru junk boxes at shows looking for a train to rescue.
For “Toy” Train Cars I prefer items like the Lionel Waffle-Sided Box Car. I have purchased O Gauge Cars that fit the theme and time period of the trains, but not willing or able to spend more than $30-$40 for them. For Scale items I try to buy as selectively as possible. Some Scale Locos and Cars must be reserved or they will be sold out. I prefer the details of scale cars and locomotives. The O Scale stock are so much more expensive and larger, that it is agonizing making a choice some times. It has to be right. Andrew
Oh thanks Red, you really gave me a good laugh. Then I read Thor’s lenghty response and was remineded of years ago when I was more active on the other forum and how he literally said the same thing to me.
This forum is a bit of a Godsend for me. I’ve been through a lot of hardship and the worst of it all has been being single (by chance, not by choice) all these years. Even as a Believer, this season has always been a very tough time for me. The trains for me are one small respite in this crazy world and humanity which seems sometimes to be taking two steps backwards.
Simple trains for me are a step back to a simpler time. Maybe it really wasn’t simpler, but it seemed that way.
When I was a toddler, there was a fence around the back yard. The house and that fence are still there after all these years. My family has always pondered how I always managed to get out of the yard. My mother would put me in the back yard, then look out the front window only to see me toddling up the steet to the busy street corner to sit and wait for the train to come by. I could do that back then… could you imagine a young kid sitting on a corner curbside by himself today without people becomming alarmed or concerned?
Brianel,
You are certainly much more of a gentleman than myself. Personally, I appreciate your always taking the time to write out an informative post. Since I myself can sometimes be a bit wordy, I can certainly understand that it’s difficult to say what all you need to say in just a few sentence. I especially appreciate people who don’t just quickly scrawling a sentence or two in response to a post just so that you can increase your post count.
By the way, I don’t believe that the Thor posting in this thread is the same one who you’re thinking of. That Thor bought a magazine devoted to military figures a couple of years ago, and hasn’t done much posting on the forum at all since then.