My original interest in Playmobil was fire an rescue, but in the last seven years, my interest has increasingly centred on the train theme, although this obviously leaves room for fire and rescue, too.
Looking through Playmobil Collector (3rd edition) recently something odd struck me - some of the earliest figures and sets of Playmobil were train themed, but the first trains did not appear until 1981!
The items are as follows (dates in brackets are the production runs). Lyra produced similar sets sometimes using the same number but the contents were not always the same.
3271 Traveller set (1974/75-1976) (This is not to be confused with the later 3271 construction worker set)
http://www.playmobil.de/travaller---set/3271-A.html#imageMainZoom03206 Transport (1975-1976) (This is not to be confused with the later 3206 laundry room set)
http://www.playmobil.de/transport/3206-A.html#imageMainZoom0Note the spares of blue hats and white collars/lapels so Playmobil figures (usually blue ones, I imagine) could be converted to "service men" (see 3323 below).
Although the set name is Transport and it obviously could be used with the Playmobil trucks of the time, it is, I think, very "railwayish", as is:
3323 Service man cart (1975-1978) (This is not to be confused with the later 3323 taxi set)
http://www.playmobil.de/dienstmann-karre/3323-A.html#imageMainZoom0Well, this is just to get things rolling and as it is now 01:23 I'll go back to bed.