Toy Train Set

Object ID: 2001.138 a,b,c.4971

This toy train set is wind-up powered and would originally have run along a track. We have an engine, a car, and a caboose in our collection, but there would once have been more cars in the set.
The first toy trains were made fully of metal and did not move at all. Later came push trains with moving wheels and then wind-up trains such as this. Electric trains were introduced at the end of the nineteenth century and became popular at the start of the twentieth. By the middle of that century, toy trains were the most poplar toy for boys.