Blue track 12V score . . . . . any thoughts on Blue vs. Grey?

[Breakdown]

Recently I came across an interesting ad for some 12V odds 'n ends, and decided to travel 85km or so, to make a purchase for $50.

The person who sold this appeared to be a student, I was planning on asking how this ended up in Canada, as I cannot find any proof that any of the 12V stuff was ever sold here, but with her being younger I kinda gave up, she seemed eager to have her money and close to door transaction over before I could realize that some of the stuff wasn't in the best of condition.

Here's what I got:

- 90% of a 721 train (this is the engine only variant, and all of the unique parts) with a working 12V motor, and original instructions to build the train (I was missing much of the black section where the driver would go at the back).

- A bunch of other 1969 era original instructions.

- 2 transformers (one of the two had broken plugs wedged in it, the other had the european plug end cut off (I think that they were powering this with a car battery or other source)

- 7 12V track switches

- 8 Remotes for the 12V track switches.

- 2 Track power pickup (not sure of the technical name, but they power the tracks and go to the transformer).

- Random lego bricks that have nothing to do with this stuff, but are old

- One broken 12V motor with a pair of power pickups.

- 63 Straight 12V power rails

- 63 Curved 12V power rails

- 1 level road cross over piece that someone decided should match the track and coloured blue with a crayon or marker - It looks horrible!! Everything (aside from the wires) is in decent shape considering it's about a half century old.

Absolutely no blue outer rails, I happened to have some because I have a 182 kicking around that I had purchased mistakenly from a newspaper ad around 1992 or so - not knowing that there was even such a thing as blue-era trains (I was kind of confused and disappointed when I got to the door and saw the set, after being very excited over the phone about it at the time). So I was able to test the track and trains (I only have a full circle of blue curves). My first attempt was using my grey era 12V transformer, and then the Blue era one after using pliers and working the broken plugs out of the switch power area. I'm not sure if anyone else has tried this, but I didn't think that the switches worked as well using the grey era transformer, and the train was most definitely faster at top speed forwards and reverse using the Blue era transformer. I'm assuming that you were intended to put the switch remotes on the top of the Blue era transformer, not sure??? They look good up there & fit perfectly.

Definitely a purchase which has me scratching my head. I probably would have paid much more if they were asking it for this. It's very interesting to go back in time and try and work with this stuff, feel blessed to have gotten this lot.

Edited July 13, 2016 by Breakdown

[peterab]

That sounds like a good score. Though fewer people collect blue era stuff it can be interesting particularly because it is less common in some parts of the world. $50 is exceptional value for what you got. I'd happily pay $30 each for working points with their switches. In Australia some of the 4.5V blue era trains are fairly common but the 12V ones are quite rare.

[Breakdown]

This weekend I'm making a trip to the US. I made some E-bay purchases to acquire the outer rails, and some crossovers, and one more manual switch to even out the bunch. My trip will involve visiting a mad scientist friend of mine. Since the one transformer has been hacked my mad scientist friend will be looking to convert to 110 for me (won't be done prior to me leaving the US, but I'll see him soon enough again).

The other purpose for my trip is to pick up a massive Ebay lot which is effectively a mini-city, with mainly grey era stuff (with some blue mixed in), with 7860, 7866, 7740 & 7760 with a bunch of extra rolling stock.

I believe that the blue stuff is more rare in working condition and obviously older, but the issue is that it's relatively ugly and that makes it worth far, far less. Expect to see a decent-sized blue layout on here with some old school lego surrounding it.