Toy Trains and Victorian Christmases Past

Did you ever receive a toy train for Christmas?

  • Yes

    Votes: 19 55.9%
  • No

    Votes: 8 23.5%
  • No, but I wanted one.

    Votes: 4 11.8%
  • Still do. I love trains!

    Votes: 3 8.8%

  • Total voters
    34
Two of my best ever Christmas gifts were toy train sets, improving in size and sophistication as I grew older. I ran them both until they pretty much wore out.

I do miss hearing real trains regularly, especially on cold winter nights. There's something romantic about it. The town where I live now has very little rail traffic compared to where I grew up.

Souter goes on to explain that batteries were an essential part of 19th- and early 20th-century electric trains because so few homes at the time had electricity.

Also, DC was competing with AC in the early days of home electrification, and there was no way to transform 100 VDC down to a safe voltage for toys. Fortunately, George Westinghouse prevailed over Thomas Edison and now we can have any voltage we want or need.
 
Two of my best ever Christmas gifts were toy train sets, improving in size and sophistication as I grew older. I ran them both until they pretty much wore out.

I do miss hearing real trains regularly, especially on cold winter nights. There's something romantic about it. The town where I live now has very little rail traffic compared to where I grew up.



Also, DC was competing with AC in the early days of home electrification, and there was no way to transform 100 VDC down to a safe voltage for toys. Fortunately, George Westinghouse prevailed over Thomas Edison and now we can have any voltage we want or need.
Oh for the Tesla Coil....
 
When I was six, over 60 years ago, my mother gave me a small electric train for Christmas that had smoke coming from the engine. Shortly after Christmas my mom said that the train was broken and needed to be fixed, but I never saw it again. I think she got it from a department store so that I would have something for Christmas but took it back for a refund since she had very little money. That's my supposition, since I never asked her about it.
 
It does state in the article that it was the 'Jacobite', WCR run it as the Hogwarts express, for some reason they don't market the original Hogwarts Express 'Olton Hall' but I guess that they can rename it what they want. The Jacobite has also been in a couple of movies (Highlander and Local Hero) I've had a look at the WCR website and they are selling tickets for the Hogwart Express even though its the Jacobite. I'm not sure what's happened to Olton Hall but I did read that someone spotted it in the Yorkshire area.
That's a bit cheeky, considering Olton hall is a shade of red and a Great Western engine and the Jacobite is nearly always hauled by one of Ian Riley's black fives, both ex London Midland I believe - and black !
 
In 1901, Edward Ives made mechanical trains that ran on tracks. The trains became very popular, and by 1907 he opened a factory in Bridgeport, CT. The slogan of the company became “Ives Toys Make Happy Boys.” This became popular and was found in all of their catalogues.

Once Lionel trains began making trains along with several other toy manufacturers, the competition became fierce. Lionel actually advertised that they would repair toy trains for free. The Ives Toy company could no longer compete. In 1929, Ives Toy filed for bankruptcy. The Ives toy trains that were made are hard to find today, but they are considered quite valuable.

Toy_Train_with_tracks-402x235.jpg

Bridgeport Library
 
When I was six, over 60 years ago, my mother gave me a small electric train for Christmas that had smoke coming from the engine. Shortly after Christmas my mom said that the train was broken and needed to be fixed, but I never saw it again. I think she got it from a department store so that I would have something for Christmas but took it back for a refund since she had very little money. That's my supposition, since I never asked her about it.
My heart just broke. Please tell me you've had a toy train at some point in your life since then. (And if not, can I send you one for Christmas?)
 
When I was six, over 60 years ago, my mother gave me a small electric train for Christmas that had smoke coming from the engine. Shortly after Christmas my mom said that the train was broken and needed to be fixed, but I never saw it again. I think she got it from a department store so that I would have something for Christmas but took it back for a refund since she had very little money. That's my supposition, since I never asked her about it.

Oh @16thVA, I'm with @LoriAnn. This is such a touching story. It seems your mom loved you a great deal and didn't want you to be sad on Christmas morning. That in itself is enough to make me misty eyed, but the fact that you, even as a child, never asked her about it really makes me misty! I'm sending you a virtual hug! :hug:
 
In 1901, Edward Ives made mechanical trains that ran on tracks. The trains became very popular, and by 1907 he opened a factory in Bridgeport, CT. The slogan of the company became “Ives Toys Make Happy Boys.” This became popular and was found in all of their catalogues.

Once Lionel trains began making trains along with several other toy manufacturers, the competition became fierce. Lionel actually advertised that they would repair toy trains for free. The Ives Toy company could no longer compete. In 1929, Ives Toy filed for bankruptcy. The Ives toy trains that were made are hard to find today, but they are considered quite valuable.

View attachment 169210
Bridgeport Library
One of Walt Disney's top animators was Ward Kimball. Ward was a man of many interests and had a HUGE collection of train memorabilia. He even owned two full sized, working steam locomotives, which he occasionally ran on a very short line railroad on his property called "Grizzly Flats RR". Years ago, he was a guest on the old Tom Snyder television program, and they spent most of the hour talking about real and model trains. Ward owned numerous Ives toy trains, and had them all in working condition. You can see lots photos of his collection of toy trains here:

https://www.google.com/search?q=war...2gmPjXAhVM3IMKHSXkD7wQsAQINA&biw=1561&bih=787

and, if you've got 45 minutes to blow and you really like this train stuff, you can watch the entire program with Ward and see some of the Ives trains in operation here:
 
I do miss hearing real trains regularly, especially on cold winter nights. There's something romantic about it. The town where I live now has very little rail traffic compared to where I grew up.
Agree. I find it romantic and soothing. I often hear them as I sit here, typing at my kitchen table. :smile:

The only time I'd rather not hear one is when we're walking home from town or from our local walking track. We need to get over the tracks to reach our block. So we'll be walkin' along casually, chatting away, when we hear the train horn in the distance. Within seconds, we have to decide whether or not we're close enough to run for it. (Most of the time, we elect to slow down and watch the train go by.)

Sometimes I think (not sure) the cars do something like kind of hit up against each other. There's a rather thunderous, rolling roar that happens, and you can't help but notice it. When I first moved here, I thought a train had derailed, it was so loud. Do any of you railfans know what that is?
 
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Sometimes I think (not sure) the cars do something like kind of hit up against each other. There's a rather thunderous, rolling roar that happens, and you can't help but notice it. When I first moved here, I thought a train had derailed, it was so loud.

American freight car couplers allow a little bit of slack, which adds up to several feet in a long train. The slack runs in and out as the train goes up and down hills, sometimes quite violently. That's why you never want to be in a caboose at the end of a long train in the mountains.

Passenger trains use a different, more expensive coupler design.

I'll never forget one summer night when @ER and I were in downtown Harper's Ferry. We had the town to ourselves. It was dead quiet. Before crossing the Potomac River footbridge, we walked over to the Amtrak station and looked in the windows at some displays they had. A coal train was stopped about six feet behind us, waiting for a red signal to change. When I heard a rush of air, releasing the brakes, I warned her to prepare herself for all the slack to come out all at once. With echoes from the steep mountainsides all around us, it sounded like ten serious traffic accidents all at once.

Harper's Ferry is so much like a serious model railroader's layout, where the mountains look too steep and too close together to be realistic, and there's visually dramatic trestles and tunnels everywhere.
 
American freight car couplers allow a little bit of slack, which adds up to several feet in a long train. The slack runs in and out as the train goes up and down hills, sometimes quite violently. That's why you never want to be in a caboose at the end of a long train in the mountains.

Passenger trains use a different, more expensive coupler design.

I'll never forget one summer night when @ER and I were in downtown Harper's Ferry. We had the town to ourselves. It was dead quiet. Before crossing the Potomac River footbridge, we walked over to the Amtrak station and looked in the windows at some displays they had. A coal train was stopped about six feet behind us, waiting for a red signal to change. When I heard a rush of air, releasing the brakes, I warned her to prepare herself for all the slack to come out all at once. With echoes from the steep mountainsides all around us, it sounded like ten serious traffic accidents all at once.

Harper's Ferry is so much like a serious model railroader's layout, where the mountains look too steep and too close together to be realistic, and there's visually dramatic trestles and tunnels everywhere.
Thank you for this explanation. I have always wondered. Tom guessed as to what it might be, but even he wasn't totally sure. (It also sounds like I need to drag him to Harper's Ferry.)
 
My heart just broke. Please tell me you've had a toy train at some point in your life since then. (And if not, can I send you one for Christmas?)

Oh @16thVA, I'm with @LoriAnn. This is such a touching story. It seems your mom loved you a great deal and didn't want you to be sad on Christmas morning. That in itself is enough to make me misty eyed, but the fact that you, even as a child, never asked her about it really makes me misty! I'm sending you a virtual hug! :hug:

Thank you both, yes, I did get a train later on. Even when I was an adult my mom arranged with a friend of hers that I could ride up front with the engineers on a passenger train from Niles to Kalamazoo. I'm sure it broke all kinds of regulations for me to do that, but, there you go.
 
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