Toy or Scale trains?

[CSXect]

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.

[johnandjulie13]

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

[palallin]

"If it ain't 1:1 scale AND generating income, it's a toy!"

[Dr. John]

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.

[envfocus]

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.

[darianj]

I like them both; but if money was no object, I would probably go more for detailed.

[Anonymous]

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.

[crip]

toy trains, That's why I switched from N scale. More fun for the buck

[RR Redneck]

TOY TRAINS ROCK!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

[Santa Fe Kent]

Man, do they! Massive couplers, big rails and wheels, plenty of heft (not dainty trains!)....

 

Lionel just screams "Manly Trains" for us big boys!

[brianel027]

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 control/sound war going.

For me though, 027 kinds of products will always be number one, even if I did have the finances to do otherwise. Lionel would  not be getting the attention and media publicity without the support of the high-end scale operator, but Lionel would not survive without the sales from the more traditional "toy" operators.

[RR Redneck]

With all do respect, I mean your posts are usually really informative, but do you ever make one shorter than on paragraph?

[Frank53]

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". 

[thor]

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 as it was I didnt want to keep giving my Disney set a hammering because, after all, my kids DID give it me expecting it to be cherished which doesnt include gross overloading, gross overspeeding and frequent crashes!

SO I went to a junk store/flea market and picked up two well beaten up old Lionel locos, one from 1954, the other circa 1972, both plastic for 10 bucks each plus a couple of used cars, a gondola and a flat car (the better to carry stuff with as against balanced precauriously on top of my coaches) and a box full of steel track, the old kind, which Asherah finds easier to put together than FasTrack and we went back to "just playing trains" on either the floor - if we had all day - or the kitchen table.

She really couldnt care less if it looks realistic, as long as it can carry stuff back and forth all day and not give Daddy Mike a heart attack when it dives onto the floor and without her wanting to participate I doubt if I would really run it all that much on my own whether fine scale or not.

So for a fraction of the cost of going 'super detailed' I trebled my stable with locos that for all they are bottom feeders, smoke, look and sound (as in whining gears and rattling rods) good and are as tough as anvils and can be PLAYED with as against agonizing if some little detail snaps off or a complex and expensive circuit board gets fried when a short occurs as it will when young ladies put diecast trucks across the rails!

The whole point of TOY TRAIN playing which doesnt come across well thus far, is that the two of us are busily telling stories to each other as we play, explaining why the train has to stop at the castle to pick up the dragon and why there needs to be a zoo as well as a farm to stop the lions eating the sheep and she has a very active imagination and is really extremely entertaining to listen to as she sets up house for the boys and girls and lives out their weird little lives, speaking to herself,  which makes you wonder exactly how she sees the adult roles in our household.

So, in answer to your question, compare that with the expensive and cold top of the line detailed scale models and ask yourself, which is the better deal?  Having a shelf queen to occasionally admire or a cheap and cheerful locomotive which earns its living daily by actually doing what a loco is supposed to, namely hauling stuff and providing satisfaction to its owners and riders.

The other weekend we took Asherah to Trainland when Jerry Calabrese was there and I hope he took note of her comments as we showed her various items and asked her what she liked because she's a bright child with a good vocabulary, well capable of expressing herself adequately if quirkily when she said that the "trains are funner when they DO things and carry things and I like the cages"

"The cages?"

"You know with the aminals in that get off and get on all by themselves. Can you make me one of them Mike?"

So there's your answer mate! She's the light of our lives and what makes her happy, makes me happy amd though I really tried (for my sake) to get her really enthusiastic about that Hiawatha "isn't it SHINY dear?" the fact is that Thomas and those operating accessories win hands down and thats hardly surprising given that MY happiest memories were filling Hornby wagons with rice and lentils and tipping them out only to fill them back up again and repeat the journey, with my best friend and I spending happy winter days on the floor of the front room laying tracks underneath tables and chairs, building inclines and bridges from tottering stacks of books and having contests to see whose loco could pull the heaviest trains.

[Frank53]

The whole point of TOY TRAIN playing which doesnt come across well thus far, is that the two of us are busily telling stories to each other as we play, explaining why the train has to stop at the castle to pick up the dragon and why there needs to be a zoo as well as a farm to stop the lions eating the sheep . . .

What a great post. Thanks for sharing.

[Birds]

I haven't meet a toy train I didn't like!  But I'm partial to passenger trains...

Chris

[LL675]

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.

[Andrew Falconer]

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

[brianel027]

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?

[ben10ben]

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.

[prewardude]

Do you perfer the toy like trains or the super detailed budget busters?...

Actually, I prefer toy-like "budget busters" (Standard gauge).

Regards,
Clint

[1688torpedo]

 I prefer the so called "Toy Train's" myself. especially, if they are prewar tinplate lithograph trains pulled by a.....You guessed it...........a 1688! what fun. take care all.

[Kooljock1]

I've often told folks who visit that someday I want an "O-72 basement". But I think if I had one, I'd still run toy trains rather than the big behemoths out there now. The shorty cars, smaller engines, and Plasticville buildings create a scale all their own, and to my eyes look just as "real" as the scale stuff.

I will say there are areas where even I get a little "rivit-ty"; and that's in the area of gaps between power trucks and frames, and overly-long coupler shanks.

These oversights in design just look wrong to my eyes.

Jon

[Santa Fe Kent]

I have been in scale model railroading years ago, probably because of my Lionel trains as a kid. But after getting Papa's old '48 set with 2026 and log dump car, toy trains and anything Lionel is what I like best. The scale stuff is nice.... but it can never take the place of my boyhood Lionel! Hope I get some more PWC stuff for Christmas!

[Andrew Falconer]

It does not take too many of the superdetailed items on sale to start busting budgets over a few month. There is always an auto part that will compete with the scale model budget made up months ago.

[BMRR]

For me, the only way to go...........Lionel 027.

Stan.

[Andrew Falconer]

Those new Lionel O Scale Cars are so realistic that it is a good thing that The Train Barn and L&J Hobbies do not stock them regularly like Rider's Hobby Shop did when it was operating.

The MTH Premier O Scale Diesel Locomotives at The Train Barn are very detailed, making it easy to bust a budget for the year in a month.

Super-Detailed Scale is so real, that it is too attractive.

Andrew

[mpzpw3]

"RIVIT-TY"!!! Now there is a term I like! I'm currently on vacation, and only have dial-up, and slow at that. I just spent 20 minutes getting logged on so I could reply to this thread.

"Rivit-ty", now that is something I can sink my teeth into. I  run mainly toy or semi-scaled trains, but am beginning to modify some equipment to look more realistic. It adds to my hobby to build accurate paint schemes to my equipment, but I don't have the room for huge engines, and I don't have the budget for accurate models. I think I am becoming "rivit-ty", if I understand the term right.

Kooljock1, that is a good word! Maybe a thread on " who is becoming a little rivit-ty" when it comes to O-gauge trains...

[Frank53]

I've often told folks who visit that someday I want an "O-72 basement". But I think if I had one, I'd still run toy trains rather than the big behemoths out there now.

Having run mostly O31 until about a year ago, I was really amazed at the difference a slight step up in radius makes in how good post war engines look rounding the curves. I have incorporated a lot of O42 into my track plan and some O54 and only use O31 when I have no choice. A friend of mine told me he can run his post war steamers full out on his O72 curves and can barelt count the frieghts passing by.

 

[tomikawaTT]

mpzpw3

I resemble that.

My interest is operation, so the basic tinplate (galvanized sheet steel) freight cars get modern automatic couplers and accurate-to-prototype reporting marks.  They do NOT get complete brake systems, cut levers or separate grab irons.

Where I get fussy is in operations - to a slightly modified version of my prototype's published timetable, which is treated as Holy Writ (deviate at your peril!)  Freight (with cars wrapped around it) is moved in accordance with a more complex than average car card and waybill system.  Freight cars don't roll unless there is a valid reason for them to go elsewhere.

Then whimsey sets in, and the C58 class 2-6-2 normally found on the point of a  passenger train gets swapped for a GG1 instead of an EF58, and its returning counterpart sheds an EF65 for a NYC Niagara!  To put this in focus, my prototype is the Japan National Railways, 3'6" gauge, and those big Eastern US locos would blow the clearance diagram and crush the rails and roadbed even if they weren't 14.5" wider in gauge.

Want to see something ridiculous?  Put an ATSF 2-10-4 on the point of a train made up of 15 ton capacity 4 wheel cars!

Fun is the final objective.  If you insist on total compliance with every prototype practice, get a job with the BNSF.

Chuck