matchbox railways battery operated

i bought this for $15NZD for my mate, blair. he has one already, but his nephew broke one of the engines when he was a toddler, so when i saw this for so low, i left nothing to chance and hit the buy now as quick as my mouse would click.

i dont know much about the range, but from google i think there is 5 different engines and maybe 10 different rolling stock. not much info out there at all. they appear to be rare, as blair had only heard of one other in new zealand other than his. this makes 3 known in the country. a shame its not complete, but will do for parts for his one.

   

this is blairs one at the bulls show last weekend, where it was very popular with members of the public.

   

Nice set there Sun, I wasn't aware that Matchbox had made a railway set(s), but there again I do recall a 'moving road' system they had back in the late 60's early 70' as I had one as a kid.

As Matchbox is a UK company I'll keep an eye out see if I can find any add-ons for your pal

[Super]

Thats pretty cool. I had not heard of that before. So this whole setup folds down and fits into that box on the floor?

the base is in 3 segments which come apart entirely.

nigels, he appreciates your offer. hopefully you can turn something up.

I'll see what I can find Sun, any idea how maintainable the trains are? I mean are the screwed together so you can fiddle with them or are the more the welded plastic case type model?

As for the bases are the expandable? I mean can you combine more than a single set for a larger layout?

i think more of the middle section could be added to make it longer, but the end sections cant be added to.
they must be able to be opened, as the two blair has were in non working condition when he got them, and he was able to bring them back to life, though they are no where near as fast as some ive seen on youtube. one visitor to the show said they were "slow motion trains", and compared to everything else there, they were.

Slow is sometimes better - in the 00 world a loco that can move slowly, some might even call a crawl, smoothly is highly prized as they are considered to be more realistic than little tank locos that zoom around at what would be a scale speed of 300mph

[Super]

I am not sure if they are the same but I did just see some Listings on Ebay with Matchbox trains.

[Ucwepn]

I had that set but both the engines broke gears as soon as I tried to run them so I donated them back to the op shop where I got it from, was a good size and would have made for an interesting video.

thats got to be gutting, wepn. what a shame they broke like that.

thanks super. there are loads of ebay listings for trans from the 70s, which look similar but dont appear to be compatible. this set is from the early 90s.