Hornby-Dublo two-rail (when it was brand new) "set". 12 curved rails. R1 0-6-0T (Folkestone Harbour branch type) locomotive, number 31337 [Huh - this was bought in a GWR town???]. Two coal wagons. WR Toad-type brake van [be thankful for small mercies].
In those days Hornby supplied such sets without any power supply, so this had to be bought separately. Marshall transformer/rectifier and controller. There was also a 3'x3' piece of thin hardboard from the local hardware shop, to put it on.
A considerable fuss was made about such a luxurious present, which I later discovered was the absolute cheapest in the Hornby catalogue. Every other set had 12 curved AND TWO STRAIGHT rails as a minimum. Unfortunately the hardboard had been minimally sized just to accommodate the circle, so expansion was not initially possible. Nor could my friend's rolling stock be used on it, as he had three-rail, with steel wheeled wagons which gave an instant short circuit on mine. My father was meant to have tacked the rails down to the hardboard, but never got round to it.
Fortunately, the hardboard was put outside the back door for some reason, it unexpectedly rained heavily overnight, and it was ruined. After the substantial inquisition into who had done this, the replacement was larger. So with my own money from my money box, generally accumulated from being sent shopping and the change not being requested, I bought a set of points. These didn't work on Hornby 2-rail without a separate "isolating rail", if you didn't have one of those you got a short circuit, because the points had an all-metal frog. It took me a while to understand that. You will understand the genial old buffer who ran the local toy shop had no idea about model railways and giving advice on them.
I meet people nowadays who do maintenance work on live 440Kva transmission lines, so it was good to have had an early introduction to electricity concepts, at 12 volts.
