Still have your 1st Train? Let's See It!

[Plankowner110]

 Here is my first Lionel train. This pre-war set belonged to my dad and he passed it down to me in 1957 when I was 8 years old. It is still in great shape and runs perfectly. The set consists of 1682 2-4-2 locomotive, 1689 tender, 1679 Baby Ruth boxcar, 1680 Shell tank car, and 1682 Lionel Lines caboose.

Bill Turner, Tallmadge, OH

 

[chatanuga]

http://chatanuga.org/Lionel.html

Everything is still running.  Since the page was made, I've moved the Lionel trains upstairs to my office to keep behind closed doors because of my cats.  It's a smaller loop of track now, but I run it almost every day when I'm in there.  Sometimes, I'll let the cats in, and they like to sit or lay in there and watch it.

Kevin

[Seayakbill]

The 210 Texas Special was my second Lionel complete set 7 years after my 2026 set, both were Christmas presents. There was a couple locos and rolling stock in between the two sets.

 

[8ntruck]

Texas Special freight set from 1958.  I was 2 years old that Christmas.

[arkady]

Seayakbill

First electric train was the Lionel 2026 steamer set for Christmas 1951.

 

What, you too?  I got the same 2026, the same year!  Was that standard issue for Santa Claus that year?  Now I'm going to have to get my wife's digital camera out tomorrow and get a picture of it.

 

[Demay]

My first O gauge train set was this Lionel set.  Prior to this I had quite a few HO trains, but after I got this one I gave all those to my oldest brother.  I still have the receipt for this set.  My parents bought me it for Christmas in 1990 and in my opinion paid more money than they should have given our family's economic condition at the time.  I only ran it at Christmas time for a few years and then joined the Air Force in 1994.  It sat boxed up at my parents house until last year when I finally brought it back out to join my son's set.  The set still runs very well and I even picked up two additional cars to expand it. 

Joe

[Seayakbill]

First electric train was the Lionel 2026 steamer set for Christmas 1951

 

[jwse30]

Here's my first set; the Black River Freight from about '76. The engine and cars have held up fairly well. I lost the drawbar from the engine when I was still in the single digits though. 

 

 

J White

 

[JamesP]

I came across my first train set today, a Marx windup circa 1972.  This battle scarred veteran has run many miles and still runs, despite numerous mishaps from my youth!  The plastic shell of the engine has many corners broken off and my Dad had to wire the mechanism in at some point.  The windup key shown is one of many my Dad made; I just kept losing them!  The tender and caboose survived relatively intact, but the gondola was turned into a flatcar after I stepped on it one time.  All of the original two rail track is gone except for one slightly mangled piece; it was replaced little by little with 3 rail 0-27 from garage sales.  The lid of the box survived, but the rest of the box is gone.  Collectible?  No.  Pristine?  Not since the day I got it!  But 38 years later, it is still around, running, and survived my youth... that's got to be worth something.

 So how about it?  Let's see the trains that you ran into the ground when you were young!

 - James