First Train Memories

[METRO]

What is your first railroading memory and what memory has best shaped your current line?

My first rail memory is staying over at my grandparents house in near Buffalo. From my room I could see the Conrail (old NYC) mainline and every morning I would wake up to the sound of the airhorns. Good Times.

The memories that inspired my current line were the first train ride I remember and the ride my long time girlfriend and I took on our first aniversary. Both rides were on the GO Transit lines in Toronto. The first ride was when my dad took me to my first baseball game at the Skydome when I was three. Years later, I was on the GO with my girlfriend Melissa (who is just as into trains as I am) to have a great dinner on top of the CN Tower. Both rides were behind GO's old speedy green FP7s, which I still think are some of the best looking locomotives of all time.

[Jetrock]

I'm not sure where it was, but I remember riding on some tourist line when I was no older than 3 or 4, which would mean it was someplace around Chicago. I don't remember much other than the cars had reversing seats and I got a very small plastic toy train.

Other than that, my earliest railroad memories were seeing the Southern Pacific trains rolling around downtown Sacramento--and probably the Sacramento Northern and WP as well, since they ran where I saw trains (downtown and near what was then the Swanston Branch of the SN) though I don't remember them as much as the big gray & red SP Geeps.

[Anonymous]

I was about 3 years old when my parents took me to Kansas (on the Santa Fe) to visit grandparents. We were in the Chicago depot. It was the biggest place I had ever seen. I can still recall the phenominal echo of the place. I also vaguely recall eating in the dining car. I suppose we were riding the Super Chief or El Capitan, I'm not sure. At age 3, you don't realize that you need to save those types of details.

The first train that I clearly recall is the L&N, in middle Tennessee, in blue & cream paint job (either E or F locomotive) arriving with my grandmother, probably around 1957. That is clearly when I fell in love with trains. That blue and cream was nothing short of beautiful.

[dknelson]

I am told I always liked trains and toy trains but my earliest RR memory that i can still recall is of a slant nose diesel stopped, facing north, at the Chicago & North Western depot in my hometown of south milwaukee. Passenger trains stopped service there in the late 1950s, and the C&NW had its E6s and E3s off the roster by 1957-58 or so, so assuming my memories are correct, this must have been when I was about 5 or so.
I have recollections from about that same time also of seeing dark smoke over the hill at my house. That hill was at a height so that ordinarily I could not see trains but I could see the tops of C&NW bi-level passenger cars.
It is possible but highly unlikely that this was a steam locomotive (I was born in 1952 -- do the math) so perhaps it was an Alco. Or it might have been a steam powered big hook being taken to a wreck site.
Dave Nelson

[Anonymous]

I grew up in a small So. California farming community, San Jacinto. My mom used to take us boys, once a week, to the "packing plant" to pick up the vegtables that fell on the ground outside the plant during the unloading of the trucks. I remember climbing the ladder at the end of the packing plant and setting on the roof watching the trains coming and going into town. Occasionally one would come right up to the packing plant which really excited me. This was in the mid-50s when I was about 7-9 years old.

[trollw]

My earliest memories are of riding in a roomette on the ATSF Texas Chief from Oklahoma City to Chicago to visit my grandparents. I don't remember how old I was but my mother said I was riding alone from age 4 (my grandfather paid the porter to make sure I stayed in the roomette and he picked me up directly from the roomette in Chicago). My grandfather was originally with the Grand Trunk but later became the Superintendant of Motive Power for the Detroit & Toledo Shore Line. I spent many great hours roaming the roundhouse at Toledo and riding on the switchers in the yard (as well as riding the turntable). The engineers used to let me sit on their lap and control the throttle while we switched cars. For those of you in Canada around London, Ont., there is a portion of the CNR named the Walton Sub after my great Uncle.

[joseph2]

I remember seeing a Nickel Plate Berkshire in 1957.Didn't become a railfan until 1970 when I started working in a grain elevator"s rail yard.Attended Purdue,but was more interested in reading Railway Age then studying. Joe G.

[Anonymous]

When I lived in Detroit, my father worked at the ford's Rouge plant, I and went there pretty often so I got to see lots of eqquipment, hot metal bottle cars, RC switchers, lots of CSX and Chessie equippment, and I think a hump yard (I say that because remember seeing some cars rolling on their own and the line was kinda sloped, does anyone know if there was a hump yard over there?). As for what influenced my modeling, I'd have to say it was the movie Silver Streak, especially the parts where the train goes through some forests, I liked the combination of trains and forests.

[rockisland4309]

My very first train memory would be when I was around 3 or 4 years old and seeing UP's U50C's and U50D's screaming through Marysville, KS on the Gibbon Cutoff.

But, the one memory I remember the most was my parents had friend who worked for UP and he lined it up so I could ride up in the cab of local out of Marysville, KS. I still remember the unit was GP30 and I sat on the engineer's lab and blew the horn at every grade crossing and he gave me a quarter at the end of the ride. I was 5 years old at the time.

[Hawks05]

growing up as a little kid i remember walking along the tracks my dad and our dog Phredd at the time. i remember getting railroad spikes and stuff. that is my first memory of trains. my first ride on a train had to have been down by La Crosse Wisconsin i think. down by Baraboo maybe. not sure though. i know it had a round house and we watched the steam locomotive go in one way then get turned around and come out the other way. then we took like a 15 minute ride and then they had the release the steam or something and it was really loud. good times.

my first railroading memory so far has been going to a hobby shop and getting magazines then going to my friends and getting some books and videos. this saturday i'll be going to a show so i hope i can bring back some stuff then start a layout.

[Anonymous]

My first memories of a train would have to be riding a small "ride on" steam loco at a zoo in Traverse City, Michigan. I was about 3 or 4. Now adays my friend and I walk on the tracks that belong to the Grand Rapids Eastern Railroad and The Mid-Michigan Railroad, picking up old spikes and lumps of coal (believe it or not). The coal can't be that old, the GTW ran steam passenger service longer than any other railroad (I think so anyway) and this track was one of it's lines. Pretty cool.[:)] I've myself a piece of history![:D][:p][:D][;)][:I][:p]

[eastcoast]

I was given a tyco set F7 SantaFe and some various cars by my uncle when
I was 11 years old. I think I put a plain circle of track on plyboard and painted
the wood directly and used matchbox cars and lego houses and people and
just watched it run in loops.
I later built a module after seeing it done in an old issue of MR and then put
things on hold ( and in boxes ) for six years while doing the military thing. But
was ALWAYS antsy to get a layout going to run. The bug had bit me hard.[;)]

My current layout is inspired by all those that got up and did it while I was
unable to. I am intrigued by the eastcoast lines. They have so many
challenges with clearances and such. I grew up in Florida and know about
the area so that is what I want to model. As for the equipment choices,
I am a modern person, so I model modern ( 1970 and up ) trains.[:p]

[Anonymous]

My first memories of trains is of the big diesel frieghts that would "run over" us as we traveled to my Grandmother's house on the interstate between Chatanooga and Knoxville , Tennessee. There was a huge Concrete bridge that spanned the highway and seemed like it was miles up in the air at that age.

My first Model Train set was a Tyco Spirit of '76. I got it when I was five.

Sad thing is I just took the remains of that train, the broken caboose shell, boxcar shell and engine underframe to the train shop to get started back into the hoby again. I traded them for my first new rolling stock.

[Anonymous]

My first memories are from long ago and dismembered. I was only three when I was introduced to rail. My father and grandfather were also railfans.. my father still is. As a child, I remember seeing the Toledo Terminal Railroad moving what I thought were huge trains through what is now abandoned CSXT/NS trackage . Many of my prepubescent memories revolve around walking over the bridge at Bellvue RD and I-475. It's a shame I didn't appreciate it then.

We used to spend a few weeks or so "Up North" and I had the opportunity to see the old Detroit and Macinac and many of the Soo Line in action. Most of those routes are now snowmobile trails and such. I was so young, I remember so very little. Shame, shame... I now take my son to museums to see the same trains I saw so few years ago.

My first 'adult' memories have to be at the Precision yard in Mt. Vernon Illinois. My grandparents moved back there in 1980, and it was at that time I gained a real appreciation for rail. Old Frisco, UP, Illinois Central, and many I can't remember but now feel great remorse for not photographing at the time, were there. These great workhorses are now lost. However, I remember them like it was yesterday. Amazing how time does that, eh?

These days, I take MY son to the hump out at Walbridge, the Stanley yard , the AARR by the new Chrysler plant, the CT Lang yard, and the CSXT yard at the Port of Toledo. He's terribly young, but gets just as excited as I did at that age when we see a big hauler go by. I hope he develops an appreciation for rail in his young years. It may all be gone before he's my age.

I have no layout, and have no plans for one. If it isn't 40 ton or more, I'm not terribly interested... although, the layouts I've seen, impress me greatly. I just don't have the time. No insult intended. :-)

Cheers,

Burp

[Anonymous]

In retrospect, since I have the maps, signal charts, and the pictures from over five generations, perhaps I should at least start working on a Toledo Terminal layout, eh? :-)

Keep on railroading...

Burp

[Roadtrp]

My first memory is riding with my mom and brother in a sleeper car on a train from Omaha, NE to Denver, CO. We lived in Minneapolis, but my dad would drive us down to Omaha and put us on the train to Denver for an extended summer vacation with my mom's relatives in CO. He would drive out later to join us and bring us back to Minneapolis. I have no idea what line it was.

My best early train memory is riding the Milwaukee Road Hiawatha from Minneapolis to Chicago. I just adored that train... I think that even in the years I rode it (late 50's and early 60's) it had one of the most beautiful passenger consists ever.

I am just starting to get into this hobby -- don't even have my first equipment yet. But my first train will be passenger; I've never gotten over my love of passenger trains.

[Anonymous]

My first memory was not as pleasant as it should have been. When I was much younger, I lived in house in James City County, VA right next to a branch line that ran into Chisman's Concrete Factory and DOW Chemical Plant. I was awaken around 2:00 in the morning by a freight rolling through from DOW towards the main line. The most I remember was looking at the clock and feeling the walls and windows shake with a low hum. Many times my cousins and friends and I would go climb up the large rock piles at the concrete factory and watch the freight roll through. We were so high, for little kids, that you could look right down inside the hoppers as they rolled by. Whenever my family and I went anywhere in the car, we often passed the Lee Hall Station and there would be the old sleeping Chessie cat freight cars sitting along the lines. Most of my childhood spent watching the Chessie train in Williamsburg was good, but that first night hearing the diesel rumbling by was a little frightening for me as a small boy.

[BruceJob]

I grew up in Muskegon, Michigan, on the eastern shore of Lake Michigan. All I ever saw were Grand Trunk Alco switchers, dirty old workhorses, moving boxcars on and off the GTW ferry that connected Muskegon to Milwaukee, Wisconsin on the western shore.

When I saw my first commercial train set, it was a shiny steel SF deisel pulling passenger cars. I thought "What's this?! This can't be a 'real' train! It doesn't look like anything I've seen before!" Since then, I've always had a fondness for dirty, well-used Alco or EMD switchers. They just look "right".

Bruce J.

[Anonymous]

Going on vacation with my parents in the dying era of the big steamers, nothing has ever impressed me more than one of these big locomotives just hissing and groaning waiting at the end of the train.

[Anonymous]

My first memory is of age 3/4 riding in a Valley Serie 6-6-4 sleeper on Santa Fe's train 23/24 during the late 60's
Ch

[Anonymous]

My first memory of a train was being rather ill riding with my parents and my extremely sick 3 year-old sister, on a train between Zurich and Munich, I would have been 6 at the time.

My forst good memories were riding the BC Rail excursion between Kamloops and Revelstoke, in the Observation car, as part fo a Rec Centre trip and hiking the old Kettle Valley RR ROW in Myra Canyon as a boy scout, that would have been in the mid-80's so I would have been 8-9 at the time. I started modelling at about 9 afetr my dad built me a sturdy 4x8 table.