Toy Trains from outside the USA - Pictures Please!

I think I’ve only seen one photo of one other Issmayer loco before today, thank you! :smiley::+1:

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Becky, a web search suggests that the Masudaya toy company was associated with the ‘Trade Mark Modern Toys’ logo. This blog post has images of many tin toy markings, alonside the names of the companies they are associated with. This blog post appears to have descriptions of even more Japanese toy markings, but not matching illustrations for all of them.

I have a few Japanese tin litho items that I plan to highlight in this thread, though mine are much smaller and operate on tracks.

-El

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@mersenne6 I quite like the cartoon-esque proportions of this outfit! The bright colors, stubby proportions, and detailed lithography make for a very fun set. What a treat, thank you for sharing as always.

-El

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Yes, I’ve heard that before. Though I think it was misspelled as maTsudaya in the reference I saw.

Actually I always wanted to find a “good shell/bad mechanism” Silver Mountain to retrofit with a Lionel Supermotor and send it screaming along my Standard Gauge rails! :star_struck:

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Becky, that sounds like good fun! My older brother has a very fun ‘space age’ train of similar size, and I have often mused how fun it would be as an operating locomotive for three rail track.

It’s called the “Magic Color Moon Express” and says ‘Moon Express’ on the sides. Looks more like a retro-future rocket ship than a train.

-El

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If you go to the company’s website, the logo using the MT is in the header. The complete company history is on the site, Masudaya was founded in 1724. www.masudaya.com.

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Wow. This is a fascinating WHOLE 'nother world!

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You know, with all of these trains running around, it might be a good idea for some of them to have a train station as a destination. For starters we could consider

Bing

Fandor

Hornby

JEP

Moskabel

.Issmayer

or Keim as possibilities

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A electric locomotive and 2 passenger cars made by KTM/TER circa 1960



Matsuzakaya Department Store had stores in Ueno and Ginza, Tokyo.



This advertisement appeared on page 58 of the April 1961 issue of Kagaku Kyozaisha’s “Models and Radios” as a supplement. The locomotive alone was priced at 1,050 yen for the kit and 1,250 yen for the finished product. This was in the days when 1 dollar was worth 360 yen.




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The fine art of preparing a European train for export to the US.

Take one European locomotive (KBN) and manufacture a separate cow catcher

Attach said cowcatcher to the locomotive

Put the locomotive in a box with some cars and track

Ship across the Atlantic and presto changeo

we have a train for the US market!

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I AM amazed! What a site, every time I come on here I learn something new.

I have very few foreign made trains, but this is one of my favorites in my clockwork collection - A Walker-Fenn controlled clockwork locomotive. This loco uses a Marklin clockwork mechanism that has had a gramophone governor added. The governor is adjustable so the locomotive can be run at a broad range of speeds.

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Until the Kaiser sinks the Lusitania anyways :wink:

I’ve always been impressed with prewar locos like this that were hand painted. Just look at how smooth and consistent the stripes are! :star_struck:

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That’s lithography, including with metallic inks – much better and more durable than hand-painting could ever be!

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I remember seeing a video of this one on your channel! The detail about the governer being an adjustable type for a gramophone is very neat. A lovely little loco!

I wish my Fleischmann U325 had something that nice. Its governer is pretty useless at keeping the speed low enough that it won’t be flung off the track. I’ve been trying to come up with ideas to make the governer work better, it’s of the centrifugal ‘brake’ type, similar to what Marx used, except that it doesn’t seem to have enough friction to actually do much.

-El

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This is a Plarail train that my grandson received as a bonus at a McDonald’s store.



If you look through the round hole on the side and press the button on the roof, you can see an image of Thomas.

Keihan Electric Railway is currently decorating trains and station buildings on the Katano Line with Thomas designs. This is one of the measures to increase revenue in response to the line’s significant decline in operating performance. If you’re interested, check out my blog post.


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How about Lyonel Feininger’s development of toy trains just before WWI?

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Here’s one from the manufacturer whose product started this thread - Paya.

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Mersenne, what’s the story behind the Paya Car advertising Champ Decals? (if you know it). Afaik Champ was a US based company, definitely not Spanish.

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Special run would be my guess. Possibly during the era when mass production tinplate steel cars wasn’t happening. However the couplers don’t exactly look Lionel prewar latch compatible.

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