TRAIN TIME: A Yank Does Hornby Pt 1 - Hornby Type 101 No. 2270 0-4-0 Clockwork LMS Tank Engine

I've been constantly re-inventing myself over the years with my interests in trains. I had stagnated for many years by staying with HO scale until finally breaking out into the world of toy trains. It's been a fun journey with many new discoveries being made. The history of miniature trains is a long and fascinating one and there are many side roads on can take leading to fun new ways to explore this wonderful hobby. I loved the detail that HO scale is noted for but a combination of failing eyes, and loss of desire to super detail every square centimeter of layout space led me into 3-rail O-gauge. You can still have a wonderfully detailed layout using Lionel, MTH, K-LIne, Marx and anything else that runs on 3-rail track. You can go from near scale perfection to total toy. I think I've floating around the middle ground for the past 27 years - not quite scale not entirely total toy. 

All that being said, somewhere along the line I discovered 2-rail wind-up trains running on O-gauge track. I had a bunch of Marx clockwork trains I collected over the years but after running them and taping my efforts I wasn't terribly impressed with them. But now I know it was because I misunderstood the medium - I was, as an adult, overthinking them. Wind-up toy trains were meant for little kids to enjoy on the floor or table and just play with. Period! They simply don't have the capabilities that electric trains do and once you embrace their simplicity and limitations they can actually be quite fun.

And then...

...and then I discovered Hornby and European trains in general. One would think that after spending nearly 10 years in Europe I would have latched on to these sooner but noooo! I'm slow, what can I say? In my defense, during the time I spent in Europe I was still into HO scale and the thought of tinplate never even entered my mind. So, to make a long story longer, after reading about and seeing Ya'All Tube videos and joining various facebook groups I simply decided to take the plunge and buy me a Hornby and here's what I got - this Hornby Type 101 Tank Engine from ~1949-53-ish (I gotta double check that). I bought this nice little tank engine in early 2016 and just never got around to blogging it. Along with this, the past several years have been spent quietly assembling a collection of engines, rolling stock, buildings, figures, and accessories that I'l be slowly posting over the coming months. I've actually already posted some tin-litho building here on Toys and Stuff but sort of in a helter-skelter fashion. But now, there's an end game to all of this so stay tuned to this station. Until then - Enjoy! Opa Fritz and Oma Bettina