Make Your Man Happy with a Model Train

Do you know what Steven Spielberg, Neil Young, Pete Waterman and James May all have in common? They are all keen on their model trains.

Music producer Pete Waterman has a huge, million dollar model railway system housed in its own 200 foot barn. He even owns his own model train business. And there are many wealthy model train enthusiasts with a similar obsession. Steven Spielberg and Neil Young have their own model train company called Lionel trains.

And this little group of well known personalities are not alone in their obsessive enthusiasm for model trains. Building and running model train sets is no longer a hobby pursued by young boys. It’s their dads, their uncles and even the old rock musicians they listen to who are more likely to have a room full of Hornby Trains.

Collecting vintage model trains has become enormously popular. Obsessive collectors tend to be interested in pristine vintage models that are still in their boxes, never having been played with. To many, including James May, this is not what these model trains were meant for.

At a model train auction Mr won a completely unused Hornby train set for £200 which other collectors would have kept, unused, in its box. Mr May built and played with the train set in his James May’s Top Toys television programme as he says this is what was intended when the system was made.

In the pre-Christmas December 20th edition of James May’s Toy Stories he and loads of helpers rebuild the long lost rail link between Bideford and Barnstaple in Devon using OO gauge model train track. Although some of the track was stolen by vandals Bideford and Barnstaple was once again linked by rail, allbeit for a short time. Obviously the model trains didn’t carry any passengers of goods but the people involved had a great time building the track.

You could win one of two fantastic Hornby Train Sets in the current Christmas Hornby Competition from modelzone.co.uk. All you have to do is answer one simple question and you could win a fantastic Hornby train set.