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Rapido

Rapido HO Wired Telephone Poles, New in Box

Rapido HO Wired Telephone Poles, New in Box

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 $27.50
$31.50		 15h 2m
RAPIDO#106122 73' 6"Smooth Side Baggage-Express Car

RAPIDO#106122 73' 6"Smooth Side Baggage-Express Car

$44.95 1d 3h 39m
RAPIDO#106247 Baggage Express Car

RAPIDO#106247 Baggage Express Car

 $44.95 1d 3h 39m
Rapido HO Scale Wide Vision Caboose Chessie #903320

Rapido HO Scale Wide Vision Caboose Chessie #903320

 2 $5.50 1d 18h 28m
Rapido HO Scale Wide Vision Caboose Cotton Belt #17

Rapido HO Scale Wide Vision Caboose Cotton Belt #17

 5 $14.06 1d 18h 38m
Exactrail HO Scale 4427 Covered Grain Hopper ADM #3113

Exactrail HO Scale 4427 Covered Grain Hopper ADM #3113

 3 $12.62 1d 18h 59m
Exactrail HO Scale 4427 Covered Grain Hopper ADM #3126

Exactrail HO Scale 4427 Covered Grain Hopper ADM #3126

 4 $17.50 1d 19h
Exactrail HO Scale 4427 Covered Grain Hopper ADM #3128

Exactrail HO Scale 4427 Covered Grain Hopper ADM #3128

 3 $11.50 1d 19h
Exactrail HO Scale 4427 Covered Grain Hopper ADM #3133

Exactrail HO Scale 4427 Covered Grain Hopper ADM #3133

 3 $11.50 1d 19h
Exactrail HO Scale 4427 Covered Grain Hopper ADM #3135

Exactrail HO Scale 4427 Covered Grain Hopper ADM #3135

 3 $10.50 1d 19h 1m
Exactrail HO Scale 4427 Covered Hopper Beacon #2655

Exactrail HO Scale 4427 Covered Hopper Beacon #2655

 4 $11.50 1d 19h 12m
Exactrail HO Scale 4427 Covered Hopper Beacon #2656

Exactrail HO Scale 4427 Covered Hopper Beacon #2656

 3 $17.50 1d 19h 12m
Exactrail HO Scale 4427 Covered Hopper Beacon #2657

Exactrail HO Scale 4427 Covered Hopper Beacon #2657

 4 $16.49 1d 19h 13m
Exactrail HO Scale Evans Boxcar St. Lawrence NSL #15155

Exactrail HO Scale Evans Boxcar St. Lawrence NSL #15155

 4 $11.99 1d 21h 27m
Exactrail HO Scale Evans Boxcar St. Lawrence NSL #15166

Exactrail HO Scale Evans Boxcar St. Lawrence NSL #15166

 3 $10.49 1d 21h 28m
Rapido HO ERIE Baggage-Express # 215

Rapido HO ERIE Baggage-Express # 215

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 $39.95
$43.95		 2d 32m
Rapido Totally Wired Telephone Poles

Rapido Totally Wired Telephone Poles

 1 $20.00 2d 1h 34m
Rapido Totally Wired Telephone Poles

Rapido Totally Wired Telephone Poles

 -
 $20.00
$27.95		 2d 1h 34m
Rapido Totally Wired Telephone Poles

Rapido Totally Wired Telephone Poles

 -
 $20.00
$27.95		 2d 1h 34m
Rapido B&O LW SS Blue Gray Baggage Express Car #665 NIB

Rapido B&O LW SS Blue Gray Baggage Express Car #665 NIB

 1 $24.98 2d 17h 41m
Rapido B&O LW SS Blue Gray Baggage Express Car #664 NIB

Rapido B&O LW SS Blue Gray Baggage Express Car #664 NIB

 1 $24.98 2d 17h 52m
HO Scale Rapido Turbo Train AMTRAK Late With Sound RTR

HO Scale Rapido Turbo Train AMTRAK Late With Sound RTR

 $324.77 2d 20h 22m
Rapido HO Louisville & Nashville Baggage-Express # 1476

Rapido HO Louisville & Nashville Baggage-Express # 1476

 -
 $39.95
$43.95		 2d 23h 57m

Train news

  • TRAINS HISTORY

    Prehistory There have been models and toys of trains for as long as there have been real railways. Indeed some early models of locomotives were made first as sales promotional tools for the early railways, even if they later might have become playthings. During the Victorian period toy and model trains and locomotives fell into a number of categories there were the live steam engines, expensive and only for the wealthy, there were pull along trains in all shapes, sizes and materials, penny toys in lead and tin and latterly clockwork engines. The steam and clockwork engines might be intended to run on the floor, or a simple track assembled by the user, but there was no real sense of system about these trains. Most of these toys were made in Germany. Britain and France tended only to make the better class of steam engine. There was an indigenous US industry, with considerable use of cast iron rather than tinplate. The Real Beginning The defining event in toy train history was the launch by Marklin in 1891 of the first complete system of trains. While the first models were derived from earlier products, what Marklin introduced was a series of standard track gauges, ready to use track sections for those gauges, and a range of locomotives, rolling stock and accessories to match. Now you could have an initial train set, but continually add and expand till your miniature railroad empire was complete - which it never was.

     

    This was of course good for the toy manufacturer, indeed this is possibly the first example of the expanding range, with items at various price points Christmas, birthdays, parents and relations and pocket money sized, which is one of the basic features of most successful toys since.

     

    These first Marklin models were made in three gauges called 1, 2 and 3, logically enough. Painted and soldered tinplate was the main material, and clockwork the driving power. And they were crude. But the range was clearly a great success. So Marklin expanded and improved its range, after a few years adding a fourth, small gauge O. The range of accessories was greatly expanded. Other German toy makers introduced competitive products, most importantly Bing then probably Germanys, and hence the worlds, largest toy maker. Despite the odd divergence these makers generally adopted the same standards as to gauge as Marklin, while developing new production techniques, in particular the use of lithographed printed tinplate, allowing much cheaper and more colorful items, at the expense of some robustness.

     

    By the start of the 20th century other methods of propulsion were being applied too, in that live steam and electric powered models had taken to the toy train rails, though clockwork was still the prime mover. More importantly the first ranges of Marklin and Bing and others were growing and improving each year, and as with the rest of the German toy trade, was strongly export oriented, thus spreading toy trains world wide. The main markets were Britain, France and their empires and the US. Britain had no indigenous toy maker to compete with, nor really had France, but there was home based competition in America. Britain however had something else - model railways

     

    Model Railways

    The hobby of model railways can really be said to have been founded in the U.K. at the start of the Edwardian period. There were already active amateur model engineers, building live steam locomotives and with a keen interest in the real railways. One of the embryo suppliers to this group was a young man, W J Bassett Lowke. He saw the potential of using the German toy trains, particularly the track and mechanisms, with bodies rather more accurate as to prototype and selling not as a toy to children but rather to adult enthusiasts. And he used the services of another young man, Henry Greenly, as a designer of these models. Greenly, among other things, established a system of scales using the Marklin  gauges as the starting point. He also founded the first periodical devoted to model railways. And thus from the beginning the hobby of model railways was in part a toy, and in part the effort of amateur and professional model makers coexisting, sometimes comfortably and sometimes not.

    Bassett Lowke tended to use the services of Bing and Carrette for its own models, but of course once the idea of British outline models was established the German makers started to produce models for sale by other importers, for example Marklin for the Gamages store in London.