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Child Guidance Musical Railroad (~1963)
First written April 3, 2024The Guild Guidance Musical Railroad is a motorized train toy released by Child Guidance of New York. A large steam locomotive travels around a circle of track with a hammer hanging beneath its drive unit that would strike tuned metal "notes" that could be placed in-between the rail's sleepers like a sort of xylophone. Sources seems to disagree on when exactly this toy was in production, with some saying that it was first released in the 1950s which feels a little bit early to me and others saying it was last on sale in 1968 despite appearing in the 1970 Sears Wishbook. The set has also been reproduced (apparently from the original toolings) in fairly modern times by American Classic Toy. One year I have seen a few times is 1963, which seems fairly reasonable as an initial release year. The patent for the toy dates to 1966.
The same concept of a train hitting xylophone-style notes toys were also produced as the Musical Tune Tooter Railroad by Marx, the "Twinkle Tune" Musical Train by Sonsco, and the Melody Train from Cragstan. The 1968 Child Guidance dealer's catalogue touts the mechanism of their train being superior to other similar toys.
An earlier release of the Musical Railroad uses large radius track and comes with more notes, but the more common later version has a smaller circle and less notes.
Child Guidance Musical Railroad No. 4000
The larger (and seemingly potentially earlier) Child Guidance Musical Railroad set come with six large-radius curves with white rail toppers and 54 musical notes. This set came in a larger box showing both a boy and girl playing with the set. This set includes a seventh and eighth notes, white "7" notes and a second size of small red "1." notes.
Child Guidance Musical Railroad No. 4010
The only copy of the Musical Railroad which I have had in my possession thus far is this fairly late example of the smaller version of the set which comes with four all-black curve rails and fewer musical notes. Earlier examples of this smaller circle set came with slightly more notes and different instructions. This version is advertised as the "new economy priced" version of the toy in the 1968 Child Guidance catalogue and it was sold into the 1970s, which is probably where this later style with one less type of note and black and white instructions instead of the color ones advertised on the box (presumably a holdover from the late 1960s production examples).
Set contents
| Quantity |
Item |
Photo |
|---|---|---|
| 1 |
Locomotive |
 |
| 4 | Curved Track |
 |
| 32 | Musical notes |
 |
The Musical Railroad train was produced in several variations of cycling red, blue, and yellow around between the running board and chassis, boiler and cab roof, and cab. The front has a nice cheery face and a driver sticker is applied to the cab. The boiler of the engine opens to hold a D battery.
The power switch in the locomotive is fairly basic, with a sliding plastic switch pushing the rear battery contact forward.
The set includes four curves rails with elastic string suspensions that the metal notes fit into. The notes are different sizes and produce different tones when hit, and the suspension strings let them vibrate and ring. This later type set does not include any of the seven or one-dot note variations, which were included in earlier larger sets as well as earlier examples of the smaller set.
The box states that color-coded instructions are included but the instructions in my set are just black and white with numbered notes. The earlier larger sets as well as earlier copies of this smaller set do seem to have included color instructions, but this later copy seemingly does not.
My copy was given to Ronnie from Jackie for Christmas some year long ago. It was also inspected by inspector number 115.
Here are London Bridge and Oh! Susanna played by my seemingly later example of the Musical Railroad. Click the GIFs for the video version with sound.