page_title: Wooden toy train
section_title: Design origins and developments
hierarchical_section_title: Wooden toy train / The rolling stock and accessories / Design origins and developments
caption_attribution_description: 3d Ldraw rendering of a wooden toy locomotive in the style of HEROS around 1970
context_page_description: Wooden toy trains are toy trains that run on a wooden track system with grooves to guide the wheels of the rolling stock. While the trains, tracks and scenery accessories are made mainly of wood, the engines and cars connect to each other using metal hooks or small magnets, and some use plastic wheels mounted on metal axles. Some trains are made to resemble anthropomorphical, fictional, and prototypical railroad equipment.
context_section_description: Early sets such as of Skaneateles, Eichhorn and Brio all seem to have used rather simple and abstract designs. The pieces were not painted, so that trains and tracks had the same surface. The normal early trains had engines and wagons each carved from a single piece of wood and connected by hooks and eyes. Painted sets may have become common in the early 1970s, as did the use of magnets as connectors. Engines carved from a single block were commonly painted black in Europe with bright red funnels and wheels. The early trains made with construction sets and large pull-along trains may have influenced other early train designs that were built of several wood pieces ("cut broomstick design" among others). Normally each wooden piece had its own color, thus an engine, for example, could sport six different colors: one each for the base plate, the cylindrical boiler, the drivers cabin, the cabin roof, the funnels and the wheels. Sets with painted patterns seem to have become more popular in the late 1980s and 1990s. This may have been due to the success of the "Thomas the Tank Engine" series and the wish for more realistic real world designs.
  As of 2007 there seem to be several design trends:
  One group seems to emphasize the material wood. Some are simple "back to the roots" designs, while others take a more artistic approach, searching for new ways to abstract the train theme.
  Another group tries to stay true to the material wood but use more realistic designs with series based on famous real life trains.
  A modern view is to use more and more plastic and build battery powered and remote controlled objects, with electronic devices gaining ground.
  Specialty trains for specific purposes like alphabet trains and name trains, as well as decoration sets like birthday trains with candles and promotional designs for special events.
  Train tables are a popular way to set up trains and railways, with fixed versions often placed in waiting rooms at hospitals, doctors' offices, or other places where some entertainment for children may be offered. This way they stay off the ground and it is not necessary to take apart the track after it is built!  Wooden railway layouts based on the wTrak module standard have become part of model railroad shows in the United States - starting in the Pacific Northwest in 2009.
caption: 3d Ldraw rendering of a wooden toy locomotive in the style of HEROS around 1970
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