Why Do You Collect The Trains You Do?

I quite fancy the idea of having this as a thread myself Trackmaster-Rail-Yard.

Well, my collecting days were very far and young, predating even HiT Toys TrackMaster line; I had been a big fan of Wooden Railway growing up, and that collection is fairly large if I do say so myself. I remember my first actual additions to my TAKARA TOMY Plarail/TrackMaster collection were a TOMY USA(Plarail equivalent) Harvey, Emily, Murdoch, Arthur, Skarloey, Neville, and a rare TOMY UK Oliver; Arthur and Murdoch have survived the remarkable test of time, being a few of the oldest engines in my Sudrian fleet at 10 years old this very year! Unfortunately, Harvey, Emily, and Skarloey did not fare so well with the tests of time; both found parts failing, particularly the motors, and this was before I had ever discovered replaceable couplings on eBay. My first Oliver also suffered a fairly nasty fate at the hands of a careless neighbour asking to take a look at the engine; that prompted me to quickly purchase another to replace him before it was too late. As for Neville, he's still around without his face as an original character of my own known as Stephen the Q1; remarkably, he's still one of the fastest and strongest engines in my fleet to this day, being 10 years old.

I think my collection really began to take of in early or mid 2007 when TOMY USA was being replaced with HiT Toys TrackMaster; the very first HiT Toys "engine" I ever added was Hector with the maroon branch line coach, and the stock standard Thomas. That was very early 2007, and I had not taken much of an interest in the product line until I had stumbled across Season 12's episode, "Heave-Ho, Thomas!" which brought about one of my most favourite engines and characters to this day-- it's really a no-brainer that it was Hank; that sparked my interest in collecting all Hank the American Engine paraphernalia at that very instant after watching the episode he came in. His TrackMaster model came to me in November of 2009 as a birthday present from my father when he went on a business trip; that set off the large spark to my collecting when I discovered the Scottish Twins were being released in addition to engines previously available in the U.K. I worked hard to add engines that were readily available, including rolling stock from their "Truck and Track" packs; I purchased one of each first before taking a massive interest in the Sodor Power Plant Trucks and Track pack. I've bought about 7 or 8 of those already simply for the rolling stock.

It was at that time that early 2010 found HiT Toys being slowly replaced with Fisher-Price TrackMaster, and I had thought I would lose an interest in collecting as Fisher-Price was now taking over; with new movies, and new characters, there were new models to collect of standard gauge engines, and how could I resist? I had begun an interest in the Plarail Thomas & Friends range around the same time, and had begun to purchase the Plarail engines to replace some of the lower quality Fisher-Price TrackMaster engine counterparts, which had met their fate on eBay.com. Even so, some of Fisher-Price's engines left me very impressed, such as their first Ferdinand model; it's probably one reason that 5 minute and some odd second review has the most hits on my channel.

As the years slowly went by, I think it was mid-2012 or early 2013 that I began an interest in the Plarail range of real life engines; the first ones to come to me were the DD14 and DE10 following a 50 year of Plarail special set. GerisPlarail1 and I have that Maintenance of Way train repair set, so I think he knows what I'm talking about; the AmTrak F7 EMD A-Unit with its coaches came sometime after that train set. Shortly after those two, the DD14 and DE10, came the C57; courtesy of ucwepn's unboxing and review video, I had been "persuaded" to purchase the beautiful lady new in box after seeing just how gorgeous it really is running along the line. Can't say I'm struggling to keep it in its box and not display it with one of my other engines right now.

Although my collection is predominantly Thomas & Friends engines, standard gauge, I have enjoyed bringing in real life engines and rolling stock to the collection; not only that, but I know a lot of my subscribers enjoy seeing my collection and having their questions answered in reviews regarding the topic under my inspection. I've collected for years now, and don't think I'll stop; I've plans to build a layout when I've a place to call my own and, of course, I'll film on it to my heart's content just for the fun of it! Nothing's more beautiful than seeing your engines trundling, snorting, or simply dancing down the line with whatever is in tow behind them; that, and some of them are simply just beautiful or gorgeous all on their own as well!

Nice essay!

Nice essay!

@NWR...You are the first person to have spoken of, and knows about Hector w/the Maroon coach and the short first run, rather than the more commonly seen low short grey coal car set!! Do you know anything more about its distribution and/or production estimates??? Thanks!!

I can't remember getting my first set, but it was a TnA Thomas set from Tomica World. My first full set after that was the Thomas and Cranky Deluxe Action Set (Exclusive to Woolworths). I just liked the freedom of a cheap form of model train, as I wasn't allo0wed near my dads Hornby! I just love it as a film medium and a nostalgic toy.

Hey, I'm glad this thread got resurrected! I got into these trains because of my five year old son's almost literally life-long fascination with trains!

Like a lot of guys, I was interested in both real and model railroads when I was younger. I played with an old Marx O scale engine when I was little and had a couple Tyco HO scale trains as an older preteen kid. I read Model Railroader magazine and even bought a few how-to books but I never seriously pursued model railroading as an adult. I've dabbled in scale modeling, miniature war gaming and 1/6 scale action figures during the past few decades. I was aware of Plarail because I've been a customer of most of the big Japanese retailers that sell to the West (HLJ, Hobby Search, etc) but it was only after we'd gotten my son his first few Trackmaster engines that I observed the similarities between the two lines. We then bought a Plarail Thomas with Annie, Clarabel and a bunch of track. I was impressed enough that I started buying the regular, non-character engines for him and eventually, Thomas characters as well. About a year ago, I discovered BPT and eventually started buying engines and rolling stock for myself. My three year old daughter started asking for her own trains about 8 months ago, so now 3/4 of the family are into this hobby. We also go railfanning, visit railroad themed exhibits and have ridden the excursion train run by a local railroad historical society.

While the kids mostly focus on Thomas stuff, Daddy's trains started off as almost entirely the "realistic" steam locomotives before branching into diesels. I have a few Thomas engines but they are slated to eventually be modified into non-character locomotives. My railroad actually has a name, an approximate time period and is loosely based on a couple historical regional roads as well as a couple of large railroads (Illinois Central Gulf and Southern) that operated in the area.

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Great story OTF, thanks for sharing. What is your Railroads name?

Thanks! In the roughly 1930-1950 era, it's called the Denton and Western. I have the lettering to mark the engines but I'm looking for my misplaced Round Tuit necessary to finish the project.

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Thats a cool name. You need to make a sign.