Toy or Scale trains?

[Anonymous]

I like and appreciate both, but trains of the "toy" variety is where my main interest lies.

I have a very deep interest in real-life trains and have a very large collection of books and magazines devoted to prototype railways as well as some railroad memorabilia, such as lanterns.  I visit every railroad museum I can and go out of my way to photograph old stations, freight yards, engines displayed in parks and interesting rolling stock that I notice sitting on sidings.   I am generally more interested in railway history and trains as they were in the past, but I do like to keep up on what currently happening in the rail world.

With the above in mind, I certainly can't help but like scale detailed model trains and I have a large HO collection to prove it.  However, when it comes to miniature trains, prewar and postwar toy trains are what I like the most.  I suppose I like the fact that they are artistic representations of trains.  They convey the essence of real trains, but are a more stylized and idealized version of them.  Just as there is a range in artistic representation, there is a range in just how stylized toy trains are.

I'm sure everyone here is familiar with the wonderful art deco illustrations that the railroads used to promote their streamliners back in the 30's and 40's.  I love them for many of the same reasons I love toy trains.  If you look at vintage advertising for railroads, or just about any type of company for that matter, you will notice that actual photographs are very seldom used.  Simmilarily, it wasn't until the 1960's that toy train catalogues started using photographs rather than artists' illustrations.  In any of these cases, using real photos would probably have been a lot easier and cheaper, but these artistic illustrations capture a person's imagination in a way that few photographs can.

Miniature trains are usually a form of escapism from the stresses and unpleasant realities of the world.  To me, things like weathering, counting rivits and operating trains on a prototype schedule are stressful rather than enjoyable.  The age of my toy trains also plays into the idea of escapism.  There's a great romanticism associated with days gone by our current age will probably never have:  Why do people collect antiques?  Why does an antique car going down the highway always turn heads?  Why do buildings for ceramic Christmas villiages usually represent structures from the Victorian era or the 1950's?  Why does an old-fashioned, melodramatic film like Casablanca remain popular more than sixty years after its original release?  And why does a guy like me treasure old tinplate trains?

[Deputy]

A mix for me with leaning more to O-scale than Lionel toy. I like the operating cars like the Lionel hotbox reefers, but I am crazy about the big, mammoth steamers from MTH and Lionel. I don't hold any special allegiance to either company's products, though. I'll run an O-Gauge train with a mix of scale and non-scale stuff on it. No interest at all in pre-war stuff.

Dep