What got you into trains? I'm sorry if this post has come up before, I searched them, but never found one so hopefully this the first one.
My interest was that CSX trains had always come through my town, and that Savannah has a train show every January around MLK holdiday, and I would always go and buy HO stuff. (I still have enough to make a walmart size layout ) But, I, like every little boy, got my first Lionel Pennsy Flyer set one year (I think I was 9 or 10) and that was were it started, then, fell. I lost interest like evey boy, I didnt have any accessories, and, like usual, I got bored. I put it away, then would drag it out and play with it, then put it away again.
Then, about 2 years ago, I went to a HobbyTown USA in Statesboro, Georgia and bought me about 15 extra long straight sections of 027 straights. (I forgot to mention, I dindnt understand about the quality of O and stuff, but I did get a K-line set when I was about 6, and I still have the transformer, swticher, and the cars, and the track to come with it, but that was when I didnt care what kind of train it was )
After that, I set it up in my living room, and got a mainline color postion signal as my first accessory. My second was a 397 coal loader, and that was the messiest thing I have ever seen. Now, everywhere you go in my house youll find some coal on the floor. .
Then, last Christmas, I went on a shopping spree on trains. I bought a station, 151 PW semaphore, a PW 394 beacon, a PW 154 crossing flasher, and some other nice accesories. I also bought a modern milk car, and a modern coal dump car, as well as a operating track section and uncoupling track section. I set it up, and ran it. Then, on my birthday this year in April, I picked up my favorite postwar set, a modern #2269W B&O freight set, with the 3356 horse and corral car, 3361 log dump car, 6518 double truck transfomer car, 6315 dingle dome tanker, and a 6517 bay window caboose. Was I happy! Controlling that #2368P F3 with my cab 1, and that log dump car and corral car, I was occupied for hours. Now, Im planning my layout for this fall, and Im sure Ill continue to have more years of fun.
Thanks,
Grayson
"Lionel trains are the standard of the world" - Jousha Lionel Cowen
Every year around Christmas time my dad would set up his O gauge trains, mainly pre war stuff, and a Lionel scout set from the 60's. I started setting up the trains around 69 and continued leaving them set up almost all year long in the basement, had only 031 track at that time. Bought a ZW in Stratford CT a year before moving to Reading PA, the ZW needed a wire put back on one of it terminals, parents paid $30.00 for it used and I am still using it today. Did not have a whistling tender in the 60's or 70's, got a whistling tender in the 80's in north Miami FL.
I got to see some New Haven freight cars as a child in Stratford CT, also rode on the NH to NYC to see the Empire State building, went to the 102nd floor.
Also my paternal grandfather worked for the Reading Company doing building repair and maintanance.
Lee F.
..........Lionel
Stan.
THE SOUTHERN SERVES THE SOUTH.
My interest started with my daughter and buying her Thomas and Friends wooden trains. My wife then got me a Lionel Christmas set and now I'm addicted
PJ
My Grandfather had two Marx Tinplate set's that ran around his layout in the basement.
One of which I still have and run, along with some accessories and switche's.
My Cousin has the other set, I think!
Mike
1) My dad's Lionels
2) Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends
I am the monster in your head...And I thought you'd learn by now, It seems you haven't yet.I am the venom in your skin --- Breaking Benjamin
Grandad's post war Berkshire under the Christmas tree in McLean, VA. BTW, that's dad operating the robot arm and my back as a kid.
"No childhood should be without a train!"
I had quite a collection of New Brights when I was a kid. I always loved runnin them, and it only stands to reason that I moved on to Lionels. My first one was given to me by an uncle, a #8904 Steamer. I still have her, but she mostly pulls shelf duty lookin perty with some of my other favorite locomotives.
Lionel collector, stuck in an N scaler's modelling space.
I recieved my first Lionel set on the day I was born.Have had trains ever since.It was the "worlds greatest hobby" long before that phrase was born.
Ed
limeram wrote:my dad always had trains, i wish i had the ones(lionel PW) he SOLD when i was 5. i vowed to NEVER sell any of mine, EVER. Now i just need to get this old house done so my wife will let me start on my layout. i thought if i kept taking more of the living room each X-mas she would get the idea. last year it was 7.5 X 16. dad comes over and just sighs when he sees it and says wish i had those old ones. so it would have been my dad who got me interested.
Welcome to the sight Ernie
Relatives live a block away from the Union Pacific line. We could feel the trains go by in the night, and would watch them during the day.
My father built a 4x8 HO layout for me at about 7, Tyco Cars, buildings (houses), and Atlas track. The switches and building lights were remote controlled. I still have the engines and cars, and occasionally pull them out, and wonder how they stayed in such good shape.
When I was 14, my father and I would visit flea markets, and garage sales in search of Lionel trains. Everyone called him the train man, and I still have those trains. Now that I have children, I have a renewed interest, and have been collecting.
Kurt
When I was very young (age 1) my family moved to a neighborhood with a GTW spur behind our house. It saw several trains each day, enough to have flashers at the grade crossings. Then I got my first Lionel set at age 5.
Joel
Amazing that at 1 yr old you have memories of trains. I have memories between 1 and 2 of certain things but my first memory of real trains was about 3 and that's what hooked me on model trains (I was a few blocks from the New Haven 4 track electric line in NYC in 1959-68 and even closer to the 3rd Ave El. Go figure!
My Dad didn't keep much from his childhood but he did keep his Lionel trains. They sat in the garage. For as long as I could remember I asked him to set them up. Finally when I was in about the 6th grade (1986) he set them up. They were every bit as fun as I imagined. We moved a couple of years later and they went back into storage, but that was where it started.
I set them up again for Christmas 2004. They've stayed up since, though they moved to the basement.
I have no idea! No one in my family had any interest in trains - whether toy. model, or full size. We did not live near any rail tracks. We did travel on a train a couple of times a year on a short run to the nearby port. Somehow I just developed an interest in trains when about 11 years old. I was never given a trainset - when I wanted a train set I had to work to earn the money to buy it myself - a small clockwork Hornby set. That was over 60 years ago! My collection includes the same sort of train today. Trains just seemed to be something I liked, so I cannot answer the question.
Colin Duthie
My brothers and I had a huge (to us) HO figure 8 my dad built on a ping-pong table that took up one of our bedrooms. We enjoyed playing soldiers and running the trains like Gomez Addams. My dad had a pre-war 248 and its two passenger cars, tin-plate freight cars, a 2-6-4, and an R transformer which he had refurbished at Madison Hardware in the early 1980s. But he never really set them up and when the layout came down because my sister was born and the room was needed, I didn't miss them.
I really entered the hobby after discovering Model Railroader in our local library about 8 years ago - I read through five years of issues, bought an N scale train set and eventually built a 3 ft by 5 ft British outline layout. I had a private epiphany when I realized it would be difficult for me to work in this scale as I got older and I frankly found reaching for scale fidelity daunting. I sold the lot and bought a Lionel Ballyhoo circus train set. I loved it. Eventually I claimed my dad's Lionels and the MPC-era sets of my two brothers. I built a basement layout - then another, and discovered trolleys as both an affordable and fun sub-section of the hobby and here I am!
Doug Murphy 'We few, we happy few, we band of brothers...' Henry V.
RIP Chewy - best dog I ever had.
Probably my first fascination was the old and sadly departed O (or Q) gauge layout at Chicago's Museum of Science and Industry. I recall seeing it and being fascinated by it but none of the details. Apparently I had to be dragged away from the thing.
My father brought out his set at Christmas circa 1973 (I was six) and I was hooked pretty much for life. He soon grew to fear (with good reason) young boys playing with his immaculate postwar engine and cars and next Christmas there was a MPC set from Sears (#8310, if anyone's interested - I still have it, too) under the tree. Sadly, the engine appears to have finally given up the ghost, but it has good reason.
I completely fell away from the hobby from about age 14 to age 36 as far as active involvement, but was still enthralled by toy trains. After winning a case that involved a Southern Railway easement, or what was purported to be such an easement, I spotted a Lionel Southern PS-4 in the window of a LHS. I bought it. Other rather uninformed purchases followed.
Over the past two years or so my interest has acclerated dramatically. In 2002 I had four engines. Today I have eleven. My layout was constructed last fall with some plans in the works for expansion. My wife sometimes chastens me about the costs, but is generally tolerant. I've obviously learned a great deal from reading this forum and simply doing - building the layout provided half a hundred lessons that are critical for the next one.
Oh- I finally got that PW set at age forty.
I still remember my 2nd Christmas when my parents got my brother this battery powered train set (looked a lot like brio). Pretty soon they realized that I like the trains more than him. When I was 5 or 6 they got my an HO set an next thing you know I was a train fanatic! My grandfather had a huge HO layout in his basement and here was nothing I loved more than hanging out in his basement, running the trains, and listening to him tell stories about his American Flyer trains and his years in the army.
For my 9th birthday I asked my dad for an HO Amtrak set. My dad saw a lionel Amtrak set and asked if thats what wanted.... I said YES and 12 years later here I am.
Our community is FREE to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account.
Get the Classic Toy Trains newsletter delivered to your inbox twice a month