General Information

The following information has been collected from original newspapers, catalogs, and magazines, some of which are freely available for reference below. The rest can be found in the site’s gallery. No aggregate catalogs (BrickLink, Brickset, etc.) were used.

The same instruction book was used for all train track supplements.

1968 Instructions 1969+ Instructions

Advertised Part Count(s):

150 Straight Track - 17 pieces 151 Curved Track - 17 pieces 154 Switch Track - 4 pieces (2 advertised + 2 1x1 cylinders) 155 Cross Track - 10 pieces

First Year Confirmed Available: 1968

First seen in a 1968 Dealer Catalog Insert, though there is something to address which we go into below.

Most Likely Retirement Date: 1971

They last appear in the LEGO Samsonite 1971 Dealer Catalog, and would not have survived the 1972 restructuring of all of Samsonite's toy lines.

Last Year Seen Available: 1971

The Lima News, August 1st, 1971

Retail Price(s): $2.00 (USA)

This is possibly on the higher side, and I only have one source with a retail price.

Rarity Score (Rarity Index): 2/7

Known Box/Packing Variants

There are Canadian variants of each of these sets, which will be covered in a separate article on the Canadian side of the site in the future. This will only focus on the US.

There are no known variants for the US boxes.

Box/Overview

The box for the 150 Straight Track:

The box for the 151 Curved Track:

Then the 154 Switch Track:

And finally the 155 Cross Track:

However, I'd like to take a moment to note fundamental differences between the 150/151 and the 154/155. It is especially apparent when looking at the sides of the set:

To me, the 150/151 seem to have been designed in 1967 while the 154/155 were in 1968, and we have a pretty significant clue to back that up. The 150/151 have two patents on their boxes, a distinct trait of boxes from 1962-67. The 154/155 have eight patents, a distinct trait of boxes 1968-72.

Why? Well, remember that the 113 Motorized Train Set released in the US in 1967, meaning at least the straight and curved track elements were available to Samsonite by 1967, just not the more advanced ones. So it appears design work for the supplement boxes began before the 1968 season, and they could very well have released in 1967. However, such is not evident at this time.

Interestingly, also worthy of note, US Samsonite had a reduced line of train accessories available compared to the rest of the world, including their Canadian subsidiary. It's difficult to track when Samsonite of Canada had started releasing train track supplements, so it may be a little unfair of a comparison. I'm not sure if the specialty pieces like signals and crossings had to imported or what, but US Samsonite never sold any sets or supplements with those pieces, having removed them entirely from European derived sets like the 118 Freight/Passenger Train Set.

Contents

While in the future I'd like to have illustrative images of the inventories of each set, I've not yet taken the time. Instead, each set's inventory can be found via the included instruction sheet.

About the only amendment I will clarify is that 154 also included two 1x1 yellow cylinders, but they are not included in the parts list for whatever reason.