What sparked my interest in toy trains? My love of real trains, I suppose. I'm really not sure just how or why I came to love trains, but I've been enamored by them for longer than I can remember.
I can pinpoint the source of my love of O gauge toy trains specifically, however. Back in the 50's, my uncle had a Lionel Scout set. It was no longer around by the time I was born, but there is a photograph of my mom, aunt and uncle playing with it. From the first time I saw that picture as a little kid, I HAD to have a train like that! This lead to a quest for an "antique Lionel train". I had HO and G scale, but still desperately wanted a Lionel. I can remember as a kid being under the false assumption that Lionel trains and three-rail track were no longer made and were all collector's items worth thousands of dollars. My dad once put an ad in the paper looking for Lionel and the only response we got was a woman with a bottom-of-the-line set from the 60's with a 1060 or simmilar steam engine that she wanted $500 for. It had the box and I remember her saying that it was especially rare because the number on the engine and the set number on the box didn't match up! And no-we did not buy it!
When I was 10, I finally got a vintage O gauge train. It was a boxed Marx four-wheel plastic set from the late 60's/early 70's with a 490 steam engine, NYC tender, blue NYC gondola and bright orange NYC Pacemaker caboose, plus a six-inch tin DL&W hopper car in electric blue (to this day one of my all-time favourite Marx cars) and a big pile of track. I was ecstatic! My O gauge collection slowly grew with another Marx plastic set and a couple of Lionel cars and when I was 12, I finally got my first Lionel engine, a 1955 600 M-K-T NW-2 switcher. I'm 20 now and have lost none of my love for toy trains.
When I was 7 years old in 1957, I received a Lionel 205 Missouri Pacific train set for Christmas.
Two Years ago, when visiting a local train show, all the memories of that train set under the Christmas tree came back. So now I have been building this Lionel Postwar 027 layout. All of the engines, cars, accessories and scenery that I only dreamed about as a child have come true!
RIP Chewy - best dog I ever had.
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.
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.
"Lionel trains are the standard of the world" - Jousha Lionel Cowen
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.
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 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.
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!
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.
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
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
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
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.
"No childhood should be without a train!"
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.
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
1) My dad's Lionels
2) Thomas the Tank Engine & Friends
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
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