Toy Maker Equips Toy Train with Condom




NEW YORK - A 145-year-old German maker of toy trains is giving its adult customers a chance to have a one-track mind.




The miniature train company Marklin is packing a condom alongside a blue freight car emblazoned with the name of Blausiegel, a German condom maker.


Marklin, a Goppingen, Germany-based company that was the first to introduce toy track with its train sets in 1891, produces trains that often carry the names of real companies to emulate actual rail cars. Collectors' editions with less Freudian implications have been sold along with liquor advertised on the cars.


The toy freight car, which comes packaged with a "Billy Boy" condom is available in HO scale, or 1/87th of the actual size of a freight train, just under 4 inches long, and Z scale, which is 1/220th of the size of a real train.


Ralph Israel, partner of Manhattan Train & Hobby store in New York, said he sold two of the models, both to men, the first day they were put in the glass cases in his hobby shop. They are not being marketed to appear under the Christmas tree as gifts for children.


The toy train and the condom, which retail for $35, are packaged in a sleek brushed-metal container the size of a cigar box. The packaging offers no instructions on running the miniature train but does have illustrated instructions on using the condom.

Those crazy Germans!