Hi,
Well as per my forum name I'm Nigel, UK based and been into all sorts of things over the years. I do have a substantial amount of Hornby and a lesser amount of Roco trains etc... But until a week ago never had any Tomy or similar type trains. It was something I never really thought about getting into, but when searching for information on the Tomica road system (you know the rolls royce hotwheels thing) I came across the PlaRail Advance trains.
Now I've always fancied something in the N gauge size, but just never really got into it because of the cost. Of course the Advance system isn't quite as detailed as some of the serious N gauge stuff out there, but its passable and more importantly in comparison very cheap. So I ended up buying a couple of the loco packs and then of course needed track. After a brief flirt on EBay I found the Takara Toys bundle which I've been asking about in one of the other sections and as you can no doubt guess some other bundles also.
The first of those other bundles actually arrived today, great find, it is basically one of the Tomy Thomas sets with the talking/musical Thomas plus some extra's, although with the caveat that Thomas wasn't working properly as he wasn't making any sounds. It was listed with a start of £5 and similar postage, I didn't expect to win it as I wasn't going to be online when it was finishing, but punted a £10 bid anyway. Surprise though I ended up winning it on the opening £5 bid. Unpacking it I found not only the Thomas loco and coaches, but also a Percy with two trucks and Ben with two trucks. Both the latter were working out of the box and after a bit of fiddling around I found out why Thomas hadn't been working, simply it only had a single battery in it rather than the 3 needed 🙂
Otherwise the set is all but complete apart from the trees and other small bits and in excellent condition with only really Percy showing any wear which is minor and easily rectified, there was also some additional track and windmill and helicoptor plates which appear will rotate when a loco stops on them. So all in all a brilliant purchase for only just over a tenner 🙂
Of course now the problem is I can see myself getting sucked into collecting the Thomas rolling stock as well lol!!
Other interests of mine revolve around computers and photography to name two, but needless to say I have more than enough to keep me occupied even without this potential new interest.
Oh and of course today while idly surfing what do I find but a product called "Tagamoto", which I've never heard of before, but which I was instantly hooked on. Basically this is a product from the hexbug makers it consists of track pieces you can assemble, little cars with working lights/sound and the ability to read bar codes which you can stick to the track to make them do things like stop, speed up, turn lights on or off, make as specific sound etc... Oh, dear so another thing to add to the never ending list of gadgets I like lol...
Have fun people!!!
