Everyone loves the choo-choos

Mothballed. (Fairfax picture)

The old English Electric trains that have so faithfully served Wellington since 1938 are being retired.

The trains' owners were hoping to sell some of the old work horses instead of condemning them to the scrapheap. So they were very excited when their auction on Trade Me, the New Zealand equivalent of Ebay, received a bid for almost $30,000, from smiley134.

A litle jig may have been danced somewhere in the offices of Metlink, the trains' owners.

Until they recived the following email: ''I'm really sorry, my 4-year-old was playing and placed a bid, I don't actually want to buy the train, can my bid please be removed?''

''For a moment I thought I was falling in love with you, smiley! But then you blew it all,'' Metlink customer services manager Zelda MacKenzie replied, according to the Dominion Post.

Trade Me allowed them to remove the bid. The question remains, though, about how a 4-year-old kid could have figured out this whole auction thing.

Everyone's a child, it seems, when it comes to trains. There were lots of comments posted under the auction, funny comments patiently answered by the owners.

Rick1012 asked, ''Would you swap this for my wife?'', and was told ''Absolutely not, we're not into trafficking people, just trains. And if you don't want your wife, why would I?''