Return to childhood, second hand.

When I was a young boy, back in the 1960s, I had a train set, I’ve written about it before in this blog (Railways) but I’ll recap:
I had a few locomotives and some carriages, wagons and track. I never had a permanent track layout, the track was just placed on the floor or on a table and when I’d finished playing; everything was packed away in boxes.

I had three locomotives, I won’t get technical here (because if you want, I can get technical) but let’s just call them; 1, 2 & 3.
No. 1, was a small, black, steam locomotive.
No.2, was a slightly bigger, green, steam locomotive.
No.3, was a green, diesel locomotive.

In my teenage years I sold the toys because I wanted the money, well, that’s teenagers for you eh?

In my late 40s I started to buy model trains again.
Some were ‘modern’ fine-scale models and some were old, second-hand models of the type I had when I was a child. One of the second-hand models I bought was No. 1, above; the small, black, steam locomotive.

Several years ago, more than several years ago, a work colleague gave me some old bits and pieces that he had found in his attic, a box of old track pieces and a couple of locomotives.

The locomotives he gave me were of the old type, they were; No. 2 and No. 3 above.
They were looking very sorry for themselves with pieces missing and broken. But I took them and thought to myself that someday I would buy the necessary spare parts, repair the locomotives and get them running again. They got put into a cupboard and forgotten.
Last week, whilst searching in that cupboard apropos of something entirely different, I pulled out a box and in the box was a bag and in the bag was… the two broken locomotives that my colleague had given me.

Well now, having time and leisure I decided to pull my finger out and do something about them, so I spent a pleasant hour on eBay sourcing the spare parts and replacements I’d need.

Over the next few days bits and bobs began to trickle in and I set-to. The first task was to disassemble what remained of the locomotives and give them a good clean. That done I set up a small test-track and ensured that the motors still worked, which they did – see video below.

So far, so good. I will need to buy a complete new body for locomotive No. 2 as all I was given was the chassis but I haven’t seen a likely looking example on eBay yet (other tat-buying websites are available), but I’ll keep my cyber-eyes peeled.

Below are a few photos of the work so far.

It’s a shame that it took a period of enforced staying at home to get this out in the open, as it were, but then again, maybe that’s the purpose of cupboards with hidden or at least part forgotten treasures lurking within. They stay there lurking until such a time as they are needed.

For train nerds:

Locomotive No. 1
Tri-ang R52, 0-6-0 ‘Jinty’ tank engine

Locomotive No, 2,
Tri-ang R59S, 2-6-2 Class 3MT tank engine

Locomotive No. 3
Tri-ang Hornby R357, A1A-A1A Type 2 diesel

Here’s the two motorised chassis (locomotive 2 and locomotive 3), running after overhaul.