Random set of the day: 8 Curved Rails Grey 4.5 V
Posted by Huwbot,
Today's random set is 7851 8 Curved Rails Grey 4.5 V, released in 1980. It's one of 28 Trains sets produced that year. It contains 32 pieces.
It's owned by 886 Brickset members. If you want to add it to your collection you might find it for sale at BrickLink or eBay.
24 likes
13 comments on this article
Well, not too much to be said about this set...
I would have gotten something like this, except I don’t have a train to put on it...
Box art has come a long (rail)way since then!
Ah, the good old days. I had several boxes of these as well as the straight pieces and the switches for my first train - one that I fashioned out of my extra bricks and the old 901 4.5v motor set. Then I got my first real train set, the cargo train. Many hours spent setting up different layouts around my old town sets. The train really added some new dimensions. Although the tracks came apart for easier storage, at the same time it was more work to put them together to set things up!
I was too young to get into the 12/4.5V train systems. I was 8 in '91 when the 9V system kicked into place, so that became my default system, but I tracked down a few of the older sets years later on eBay (before they got offensively expensive).
I have quite a few of these and I must say, by time the get really brittle. Now I'm afraid to assemble them because it's so easy to break them by mistake.
They're good, but they're not electrifying.
They did take a lot of time to assemble - especially with the addition of the conducting rails. The 9V track was a big improvement.
^ I want to say that was a shockingly-bad pun, but I think I'd get kicked off the site.
Today's set was very random.
I had those as well. Even though I never had a train to run on them, funnily enough.
I used those tracks for my custom monorail back in the days, but not in conjunction with the sleepers, but instead on a custom built four-stud-wide brick-built track-base. Quite intricate, come to think of it. Especially tricky at switches I remember.
Prefer the old track type. Much more versatile for decoration and those 2x8 plates always come in handy.
I store mine connected in lengths (with the electric centre rails) to minimise connecting and disconnecting sometimes brittle 35 year old parts - having said that, most are still in surprisingly good nick...
Though generally the modern PF stuff is my ‘go to’ system for when we want to set up (and dismantle) a layout quickly as 12v - for all its wonderfulness - takes forever!
I found a sealed set of these, along with a straight rails and switching points sets, in a Bolivian toy store that sold lots of older Lego (though none quite as old as this!) for decent prices. At the time, I had no train sets, either. I ended up using some of the straight rails to serve as display stations for some of my shunting engine MOCs. The curved rails are still sealed, however. I keep them mostly as curiosities, relics of an age long past.