I started collecting Tomy/Plarail/Trackmaster after my son (then about 2.5 years old) received a hand-me-down set from his older cousins. I liked it, so started searching eBay and google for info on other trains. I discovered that some trains are rare/special and that there is a collector base around these trains. For my sons 3rd birthday I had bought a heap of stuff on eBay and filled our living room with tracks and trains for him to wake up to.
We had lots of doubles and spares from the lots I bought so they were sold to fund new purchases. This went well, so I bought bulk lots to resell and fund more purchases to build our collection. Over the next year I steadily bought characters we didn't have until I had one version of each character available. I'm not to bothered by only collecting Plarail or Trackmaster, instead I'll collect any type if I like it and they're stored together. I do however, primarily collect just trains (and carriages) and not play sets so much, although we do have a few.
More recently and as my sons interest in Thomas eased I've looked more at the Plarail 'real trains' side of collecting. Collecting the more rare trains looked like a daunting task with the high prices on eBay. I discovered Yahoo Japan and can now buy trains with a high eBay price for much more reasonable prices.
I'm not a collector of perfect condition boxed trains. I quite like the history that is behind the bumps and scratches. Sure it's nice to have some perfect trains but I don't mind a few bumps. Also I'm happy to repair/fix a train if I get a bargain buy.
Lastly, I'm a tinkerer by nature so have a few trains that have been modified with faster motors, Remote Control internals, custom paint and custom characters. Haven't done this for a while now because my son doesn't get the same joy from it. He's moved on to lego. :-)
We had lots of doubles and spares from the lots I bought so they were sold to fund new purchases. This went well, so I bought bulk lots to resell and fund more purchases to build our collection. Over the next year I steadily bought characters we didn't have until I had one version of each character available. I'm not to bothered by only collecting Plarail or Trackmaster, instead I'll collect any type if I like it and they're stored together. I do however, primarily collect just trains (and carriages) and not play sets so much, although we do have a few.
More recently and as my sons interest in Thomas eased I've looked more at the Plarail 'real trains' side of collecting. Collecting the more rare trains looked like a daunting task with the high prices on eBay. I discovered Yahoo Japan and can now buy trains with a high eBay price for much more reasonable prices.
I'm not a collector of perfect condition boxed trains. I quite like the history that is behind the bumps and scratches. Sure it's nice to have some perfect trains but I don't mind a few bumps. Also I'm happy to repair/fix a train if I get a bargain buy.
Lastly, I'm a tinkerer by nature so have a few trains that have been modified with faster motors, Remote Control internals, custom paint and custom characters. Haven't done this for a while now because my son doesn't get the same joy from it. He's moved on to lego. :-)
![[-]](https://www.blueplastictracks.org/images/collapse.png)