The Wonderful World of Trains: From the Adler and Rocket to a Christmas Train Full of Imagination
There is something about a train that seems to capture your imagination.
For some, it is the sound and power of a steam locomotive. For others, it is the memory of a toy train circling a Christmas tree. Trains evoke journeys, homecomings, childhood and anticipation – making them especially fitting subjects for the artists of Wilhelm Schweizer.
The Wilhelm Schweizer Train Collection brings together both sides of that story. It begins with two locomotives associated with the earliest days of railway history – the Adler Train FL01 and Rocket Train FL02 – and continues into a very different world with the whimsical Santa’s Christmas Train Collection.
The Adler: The Beginning of Germany’s Railway Age
On December 7, 1835, spectators gathered along a six-kilometer railway line between Nuremberg and Fürth to witness an extraordinary event.
The locomotive Adler, German for “Eagle,” pulled nine passenger cars from Nuremberg to Fürth in approximately nine minutes. It was the first working steam locomotive used in Germany and marked an important beginning for German railway transportation.
Interestingly, the Adler itself was not built in Germany. It was constructed by Robert Stephenson & Co. in Newcastle upon Tyne, England. The locomotive was dismantled for its long journey to Germany, transported by ship, barge and wagon, and then reassembled in Nuremberg.
Wilhelm Schweizer’s FL01 Adler Train captures this landmark locomotive in hand-painted pewter, allowing a small piece of railway history to become part of a collection.
Rocket: The Locomotive That Helped Prove the Future of Rail
Several years before the Adler made its historic journey in Germany, another Stephenson locomotive was making railway history in England.
Robert Stephenson’s Rocket, built in 1829, competed in the famous Rainhill Trials, a competition intended to determine whether steam locomotives could provide practical motive power for the Liverpool & Manchester Railway.
Rocket was the only locomotive to successfully complete the trials. Its innovative design helped establish a pattern that would influence subsequent steam locomotives and demonstrated that railway travel by steam had a remarkable future ahead of it.
There is a fascinating connection between the two locomotives represented by Wilhelm Schweizer: both Rocket and Adler were built by Robert Stephenson & Co. in Newcastle. Rocket appeared in 1829; six years later, the same company built the Adler that would help launch the railway era in Germany.
Wilhelm Schweizer commemorates the earlier locomotive with the FL02 Rocket Train.
Together, FL01 Adler and FL02 Rocket make an especially interesting pairing for collectors – not merely as decorative trains, but as representations of two important chapters in early railway history.
From Railway History to Christmas Storytelling
Then Wilhelm Schweizer takes the idea of the train somewhere entirely different.
Instead of looking backward to the Industrial Revolution, the Christmas Train Collection enters the playful world of Santa Claus.
The series began in 2000 with SC17 Santa’s Locomotive and has continued to grow over the years. Each additional car introduces another tiny Christmas scene, turning the train into an unfolding holiday story.
Santa leads the way aboard SC17 Santa’s Locomotive, followed by cars filled with the characters, gifts and surprises of Christmas.
There is SC17A Train Car with Snowman, followed by SC17B Train Car with Gift Stockings. SC17C Train Car with Soldier and Toy Horse recalls traditional Christmas toys, while SC17D Train Car with Pine Trees and Animal Escorts brings a little of the winter woodland aboard.
Then comes SC17E Train Car with Santa’s Boot, followed by the musical SC17F Train Car with Elf Band and the wonderfully cozy SC17G Cozy Sleeper Train Car.
SC17H Train Car with Christmas Penguin adds another cheerful passenger to the journey, and now SC17I Train Car with Gift Delivery continues the story, giving collectors another scene to add to this ever-growing Christmas journey. Lastly, SC17X Station Clock creates a destination – or perhaps a departure point – for the entire Christmas scene.
A Train Collection That Can Grow One Car at a Time
Perhaps one of the most appealing things about the Christmas Train Collection is that it does not have to be acquired all at once or in a specific order.
A collection can begin with Santa’s Locomotive and one favorite car. Another car might be added the following Christmas, and another the year after that.
Before long, what began as two pieces becomes a family Christmas tradition.
That makes the train particularly well suited to collectors who enjoy building a display gradually. Each new car changes the scene and adds another chapter to the story.
The train can also become a wonderful gift tradition. A locomotive might begin a child’s or grandchild’s collection, followed by a new train car each Christmas. Years later, those individual pieces can represent not only a Wilhelm Schweizer collection, but memories of the Christmases when each one was received.
Two Very Different Ways to Collect Trains
The Wilhelm Schweizer Train Collection offers collectors an unusual choice.
Those fascinated by history can begin with Adler FL01 and Rocket FL02, two designs that recall the remarkable early years when steam power was transforming transportation.
Those drawn to the warmth and imagination of Christmas can build Santa’s train, one delightful car at a time. Or, of course, there is no reason not to collect both.
One celebrates where the railway journey began. The other celebrates where imagination can take it.
And perhaps that is what makes trains such enduring subjects for Wilhelm Schweizer Pewter: whether carrying the first railway passengers of the 19th century or Santa’s Christmas treasures, every train promises a journey – and every journey has a story to tell.