MTH Trains are an American distributor of 1/48th scale O gauge model railroad equipment that has strong connections to the Lionel Company, one of the great pioneer makers of train sets since the start of the 20th Century. As well as being a torchbearer for the original Lionel products, MTH has created its own identity as a producer of high value train sets.
About 30 years ago, MTH used to stand for Mike's Train House - a mail order seller of Lionel reproductions that operated, quite literally, from a house: the house of founder Mike Wolf's parents, in Columbia, Maryland. Since that time, MTH has grown to the point where it has become the world's largest manufacturer of O gauge trains. And while MTH train sets can also be bought in other gauges, including HO and G, most young model-railroaders are likely to be introduced to the brand via the O gauge range.
You get What You Pay For.
A typical MTH starter train set contains, as you would expect, everything needed to have the train out of the box and running in as short a time as possible. There's an oval of track, 3 cars, either passenger or freight and a locomotive. There's a power pack, to feed the juice to the rails and even the most basic units have diesel horn and steam loco bell sounds available to the user. In a sophisticated tip of the hat to modern marketing and the digital age, the set will also have a DVD containing layout software - so that the young railroader can immediately get down to the business of empire expansion and plan future birthday and Christmas requests well in advance. The starter train sets retail for around 0.00 and as the prices rise, so do the contents of the boxes. For example, the passenger and freight sets built around the handsome Pennsy 4-6-0 steam loco cost between 0.00 and 0.00, but the locomotive comes equipped with a very realistic steam sound generator. The locomotive detail goes up yet another notch as the prices reach the 0.00 mark, with the gorgeous SD70 diesel sets, marketed in a variety of road colors and with different labeled container stacks on the flatcars included in each set.
The Christmas specials
One particular niche market that MTH has not been slow to exploit with its train sets is the never ending connection between December 25th and that very special first, real electric train set. Again, MTH has a train set, decked out in Christmas colors for every age and budget. Instead of starting at the bottom of the range, I'm actually going to begin at the top with MTH's pricey, but very tasty reproduction of a 1935 Lionel tin-plate 260E locomotive and 3 cars. It's instant nostalgia and costs close to 0.00. But if that's not to your liking, at the 0.00 price point, there's a nice, standard F3 diesel and 3 car set, painted in suitably Christmassy reds and greens, with peppermint stick adornments on the caboose to just finish it all off.
A complete world of model trains.
A further article on MTH train sets might look more fully at the very expansive range of accessories made under the company name - everything in the way of track and buildings to give life and context to the locomotives and cars on a layout. I strongly recommend a closer look at what MTH has to offer the model-railroader in the larger scales, if this little introduction to MTH and its train sets has whetted your appetite.
