My dad had got me a G-scale battery operated train for me for Christmas when I was like 3 or 4. I barely remember waking up to see it running laps around the living room. Sadly, it didn't last long.
I got the trainset that got me hooked on model railroading for Christmas when I was six about nine years ago and ive been hooked ever since. It was an HO Chessie GP38-2 with about 5 cars and a caboose. I still have the locomotive all the rolling stock.
Ulrich: well, you know when my Birthday is, but you don't know the year...it was the same year you got your first train, then. I am as old as your station, apparently...
The very first train, I was like 4, and was a Marx O27windup with stamped tinplate cars. That survives various forms of state of being. I have wondered if a 4 wheel powered motor set could be adapted to it to make it run...
My first 'real" train desires came when neighbors had a summer garage sale and had old lionel trains out, a bit rusty and all from lack of use by the kids. They weren't cheap, and I begged my father for them! He said his usual line: wait til Christmas, maybe you'll get a train. I was what, 7?.
So by Christmas I had forgotten the trains, until there, that morning, beside the tree was a Marx O/27 steamer and a few cars, a water tower, some telephone poles, 2 plastic cars, some RR signs. A complete kit/set up that Santa brought. So,1969, 1970? I'd have to look at old photos to be sure.
Then we got a second Marx {diesel} set for Easter the following Easter. Two christmases later my brother got an F series diesel engine.
The train board was a 4x8 board with upright sides until we got older, then it graduated to an "L" shaped of 2 4x8s and 3 interconnected loops so we could run 3 trains...one for me, one for my{younger} brother,and one for my father, at the same time. Sometimes I altered the pattern of the tracks and made "hills nad mountains...we used wood working to build houses and i even used heavy guage cardboard to build buildings. I used whatever was on hand to build things including cereal boxes...dirt from the sandbox/yard worked if glued down.
Then as a teen I had some N scale stuff to play with that a Girlfriend's father was thowing out for a move to N Carolina. That was fun,and comparable, so Tiny.
Life got in the way for many years-fast forward- until what 2006? when I got back into it and got HO scale.Bit space in a trialer home is limited.
Now, IF we finally get the MRRIng space with a house above, I will be able to maybe take my old O/27 to MY house, and/or build a larger HO layout! Won't be a whole basement but maybe 2 4x8 in a "L" shape for the corner...
thank you for this stroll down amnesia lane!
-G
-G .
Just my thoughts, ideas, opinions and experiences. Others may vary.
HO and N Scale.
After long and careful thought, they have convinced me. I have come to the conclusion that they are right. The aliens did it.
As I read these post, they jogged my memory.
The first engine and car set of mine, was a GM Aerotrain set. Don't know who made it.
I also remember taking the body off of an engine and seeing a center mount motor with shafts going to each end. These shafts were connected to the wheels by rubber bands. Don't know who made it.
South Penn
It was 1959 and my grandfather went out and got me a Tyco HO set for my birthday....I can still see him standing there with his pipe in his mouth and a big grin on his face watching me enjoy yhose trains go round and round....
Bob Berger, C.O.O. N-ovation & Northwestern R.R. My patio layout....SEE IT HERE
There's no place like ~/ ;)
Yes and no...or, more acurately, "no and yes".
I got an American Flyer "S" scale set, with scale type track (similar to HO Atlas snap track) sometime in the early 1960's, but I don't remember getting it - it was just always there at Xmas - but only Xmas. I never added on to it or built a layout with it.
In 1971, when I was 13, I got a Tyco HO set for Christmas, and I've been a model railroader ever since. My Dad was a mailman in Minneapolis, and his route on Lake St. included the old Woodcraft Hobby Shop, who sponsored a 15-minute TV show every Saturday. The show got me interested in 'scale' modelling, and my Dad bought the set there.
I got my first trains back in the late 60's. It was a "set" made up fomr am Ahthern Plymouth switcher, a couple of freight cars, a loop of track and an MRC throttle. I put that down on a 4x4 sheet of playwood, with black paint roads ans sawdust grass. Added few Atlas structure kits and I was set to go.
That lasted about 4 or 5 years, when other interests took over my life.
Then, around 1980, my sister bought me an Aurora Red Ball Espress train set for Christmas. (http://www.spookshow.net/loco/mexmdt.html)
Well, if any of you had one of those you know what a disaster it was. Especially the "rail". So went down to the local hobby shop and bought some N scale Atlas code 80 flex, a couple of turnouts, and some cork roadbed. Went back home, cut a sheet of playwood the correct size and proceeded to "fix" the RBE.
I cut up using the RBE's plastic land-forms, to get rid of the Aurora rail and replaced it with the cork & Atlas. then I glued the plastic land-forms down. It looked like crap. So I covered the land forms with paper-towels soaked with diluted white glue. A little paint and ground cover, a few trees, and this thing started looking not too bad.
Oh, by the way, did I mention the Aurora rolling stock wouldn't run on the Atlas track? The wheel guage was to wide. And, being molded as is, it couldn't be adjusted. So it was back to the hobby shot for a Bachmann Amtrak F-9 and some Atlas ore cars. (Huh? Amtrak pulling ore cars? Sorry. I like ore cars, and the F-9 was the only N scale loco thay had... that I could afford.)
Got back home only to find out that Bachmann loco need more than a 6 volt latern battery to run. Ya know, when I said "local" hobby shop, what I really meant was "not awfully TOO far over the state line". But I did manage to get back there before they closed, and got me a cheap throttle.
Well, that was over 30 years ago. Don't have my "re-constructed" Red Ball Express anymore. But I am still in N scale. And I still prefer "smaller" layouts. 2x4 footers being my favorite. Right now I planning a 2x4 version of the Nichole Badge Northern. A short log hauling RR that ran in northern Wisconsin back in the 80's to early 90's.
Roger Hensley= ECI Railroad - http://madisonrails.railfan.net/eci/eci_new.html == Railroads of Madison County - http://madisonrails.railfan.net/ =
troynm - thanks for sgharing this picture with us! It shows a happy father and a happy son - both displaying that typical model railroader´s smile.
I sold all my Marklin stuff when I graduated from high school - also much to my regret. There is now way I could afford to buy back those now antique trains.
I remember it exactly. I have a picture on Christmas day 1959 when I received my first train set. See the picture below. I'm pretty sure I have 8MM movie film converted to VHS of that day too. It was a Marx set purchased from Sears. I traded it for HO stuff when I was in Junior High. I had the original box and accessories all in excellent shape. One of my greatest regrets. I have since pieced the locomotive and cars back together. I lived in Kansas City when I traded it for HO equipment. Fast forward to the late 70s and while at a train show in Des Moines I ran across what I was pretty sure to be my original set being sold as part of an estate from Kansas City. Not a set like mine, but my set. I did not have the money to purchase it.
When I was a kid my father built three 4' X 4' sections that were bolted together and layed on a bedroom floor from after Thanksgiving until mid January. I "inherited my brother's Lionel trains and each Christmas Mom and Dad gave me more.
After I got interested in more teenage activities everything was stored in the attic until I had a son come of train age. Then I brought it all to my house, and put legs on the sections. Then he and I started adding to it again. After he too lost interest off came the legs and every thing went back into storage.
When I semi retired I decided to get back into the trains again and decided on HO thinking the old layout would give me room for a railroad empire. Was I wrong. HO may be small compared to Lionel but those old Lionel trains turned much sharper than the HO.
Pictures of the original sections:
Bob
Don't Ever Give Up
My first memory of model trains is from about 1951-2 when I got a Marx train-set for Christmas. It included a B&O diesel, a F3A I think, a couple of freight cars and a caboose. The whole thing was made of metal. It came with a loop of three-rail track and a simple power supply.
I remember setting it up in our front room and making the appropriate sounds as it stopped, started and passed me by.
During a 2005 visit to the Toy Train Museum in Strasbourg, PA I photographed their model in the display case. Although I can't be sure, it is a close match for my first train.
Unfortunately, I don't remember what happened to it. Probably lost is one of our many moves when I was young.
Still great memories though.
Remember its your railroad
Allan
Track to the BRVRR Website: http://www.brvrr.com/
I remember when I was a kid, I guess when I was about 6-8 years old in the late 1960’s, we had an old Lionel set that had belonged to an older cousin of ours. It was the 233 engine with the whistle in the tender, although we did not have the extra switch to make the whistle blow while the train ran. I still have that set and it still works. I used to set it up with a circle or oval of track now and then and run it for hours. One Christmas I received a Mattell Verti-bird helicopter toy and used to fly the helicopter around above the train and try to land it into the gondola car while the train was moving with mixed results.
When I was a teenager my mom was working for Scott Paper Company and she received a promotion coupon for an AHM freight set with a Scotties 50 foot boxcar and other freight cars with a circle of track. THAT is what got me into scale model railroading and I ran that little set in a circle until the motor in the little Santa Fe Plymouth switcher just died. I wish I had kept it. I do, however, still have that Scotties boxcar as a souvenir of that set. I would set up a large layout of track on the floor and run my trains for what seemed hours. We always had to watch our steps walking through the den so as not to step on the track. Then I was able to set up on a 4 x 8 sheet of plywood on the floor with no scenery and a couple of turnouts to make a shorter loop about half the size of the full 8 foot loop. Another locomotive and more freight cars made it a blast to run and I spent many more hours running it like that.
I soon discovered Model Railroader magazine and saw an ad for the local club that was having a show soon at an area hotel. That was in about March of 1980, and I was 19 years old then. I got involved with the club (Crescent City Model Railroad Club)for a few years, and even had a small layout with a friend from the club that made the rounds from his apartment, to a mini storage unit, to my house once I had gotten my own, and then to my mom’s garage for storage until she had to clear it out. Then Model Railroading took a back seat to other activities for a number of years. I got back in off and on now and then through the 80’s and 90’s but it didn’t quite stick again, yet.
It took a trip to Pittsburgh, Pennsylvania in December of 2012 for my wife’s cousin’s wedding and a side visit to the Western Pennsylvania Model Railroad Museum in Gibsonia for the bug to bite me hard again. I picked up one of their Bowser kits of the club’s road name Mon-Valley System hopper car kits and assembled it when we got home. That was it. Down came the slot car track I had set up in our spare bedroom and out came all of the train stuff that had been packed away for some 20 odd years or more. My wife helped me build our current layout that is in the same spare bedroom. It is not very big, but it is great fun for both of us.
Now I am thinking about re-joining the local club again after many years away. We went to visit them last week and everyone we met was very friendly and welcoming. Most of the guys that were members back then are passed or moved away, but the club still seems to be going strong. The layout has been totally rebuilt from those days, and they still have a structure on the new layout that I built as a teenager many years ago that survived the rebuild.
My first train was a marx o27 steamer number 999 . I have that engine in my train room. The year was 1948. I have ho now & Im still chugging along.
Ever since I can remember (sometime in the late 80s), I've always had a love and fascination with trains. When I was very little I was obsessed with Thomas the Tank Engine and to this day I still have all my little diecast Thomas trains that I will give to my future son/daughter. We moved from South Dakota to Germany in 1994 and when I got a little older I really got into Legos and my parents got me a Lego train set for Christmas in I think 1997. I remember them asking me if I'd rather have a Lego set or a Marklin set and at the time I think the Lego set was the better choice (spazzy 10 year old, Legos were better suited for sure!). I expanded explosively from there with my Lego train and one day my Dad surprised me with a Life-Like HO train set that he ordered for me from the US for me. We setup a small table for me (4x6) and we painted the board together to create a lake and roads. I had a paper route as well in 2000 and after saving up for 6 months I bought myself a Rivarossi Big Boy that was sitting on display in a German train store in Schweinfurt, Germany (Spielwaren Kirchner I think?). It was gargantuan on my little 4x6 layout but it was awesome for sure. I still have that Big Boy on my layout today (with DCC and sound now).
Sir Madog Do you remember the day you received your first train set? The day when it all began? I still have vivid memories of that day which coined my life a lot! It was Christmas 1963, when Santa brought me my first train set and a Faller station kit, which I assembled the same day - my first kit ever! The trains are long gone, but I still have that station building I built as a 7 year old. Over those more than 50 years, the little building has turned into a precious treasure for me. Do you also still have treasures of your model railroading past? I´d like to invite you to share them with us!
Do you remember the day you received your first train set? The day when it all began? I still have vivid memories of that day which coined my life a lot! It was Christmas 1963, when Santa brought me my first train set and a Faller station kit, which I assembled the same day - my first kit ever! The trains are long gone, but I still have that station building I built as a 7 year old.
Over those more than 50 years, the little building has turned into a precious treasure for me.
Do you also still have treasures of your model railroading past? I´d like to invite you to share them with us!
That kit is an early memory for me as well. I built it one day in my old college apartment. Had it on the club layout as well. Think (hope) it's still around somewhere.
I don't remember the exact year (early-80's), but the details I remember well. The Sears Wish Book came out in something like August of that year and for whatever reason, one of the train sets in the book caught my eye. I stared at that page daily until Christmas when lo and behold, Santa brought me one (not the one in the catalogue, but it didn't matter). A Life-Like starter set complete with a grass mat and styrofoam tunnel. I was hooked. For years Toys-R-Us was my hobby shop, and I was only able to visit it when we went to visit my grandparents (3 hours away), as my hometown was no where near big enough to support anything model railroad related. My layout was populated with Life-Like, Tyco, and Bachmann, and boy was I proud of it! A few years later a real hobby shop opened up in a town about a half an hour from home. What a game changer!
Mike
vsmithOMG I actually FOUND it! This is a Sears catalog pic of my first train set, it was for Xmas, either 1967 or more probably 1968, and this is it!
vsmith,
I remember the catalog page for that one. It was just before I got seriously interested in trains. I remember bugging my mom for a train set for a couple of years, not sure why, because I thought it could be a cool toy. What I got instead around Xmas '68, was a hand me down from my uncle...urr, not exactly, although I wished it was just me, but it was for all four of us, including my sister. That's about as radical as my parents got in the 60s, but it was cool that women got included in the concept of RRing, now that I think back about it,,,
dang, vsmith, this is deep, haven't thought about this in decades, in fact may have forgotten about by the end of the 60s, because I was a kid 11-12-13 when this was going on. Now I'm remembering the sequence of things. The bugging mom about a train set (they're even in TV, mom, all the cool kids have them). And getting the set, which I always thought was a PA, but may have been F units instead, no longer sure. But now I'm thinking more about the timing, because we ended up with it...
When my uncle went to 'Nam. Made it through OK as you go then, he actually spent the war in a secure compound near Tan Son Nhut or someplace, counting something for Army HQ (MACV, I'd guess, but don't really know.) But now that I think about it, somewhere in the process we ended up with the Lionel set the next Xmas. It was generous, I always thought and still do. But it also seemed to serve his needs in moving away from home for the first time. Never asked about that, but probably should if I see him.
But somewhere in there (maybe 67!) I saw that and asked mom about it and she said something about trains being compatible, but I didn't really understand the concept of scale that well at the time
So the train sets I now recall I was looking at must have been HO. I just figured they all were "Normal" (and had no idea of the concept of HO), 'cause that's what my friends had. But yeah, I lusted after one of those, too, guess it was good that mom outsmarted the Sears marketers
Eventually everyone else got tired of the Lionel, except me. That's when I got license to do what I wnated with it, which was build a layout, I guess that's what you'd call it. But I did not know about MR and only found a few barren oldish books at the libraries. This percolated for a couple of years, we moved back to IN, I got the Warbonnet, and then quickly figured out the HO thing at last, then found MR, April or June 70 IIRC (I would have to look at the cover to remember) my first live issue. I sold off the Lionel and bought some HO. The rest is history.
Thanks for finding that. Good memories there, mostly because I didn't get the Triang, but not because I didn't think about it.
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL
Late 60's layout shows my highly modified Y6B on my Disputanta and Danville Western climbing an impossible real life grade.
The Y6B, in retrospect, looks interesting in the same way a 1959 Edsel with mudflaps, fuzzy dice and a continental kit would look.
Richard
If I can't fix it, I can fix it so it can't be fixed
One of the things I remember from our train layouts is the Plasticville buildings.
I recieved my first train set when I was around 7 years old. I remember very little about it except that it was either a 240 or 260 three rails ( the type of rails that had tiny rods sticking out theat slid into the next rail. Plastic and it two or three cars and a caboose. LOVED IT. But what really got me hooked was a friend of my fathers had a HO F unit. He let me hold it and I couldnt believe how heavy it was, how detailed it was - it was beautiful !!! From that point on I have been hooked : )
Have fun with your trains
fieryturbo Oh man, this is a great story. That is some serious work. It just proves an article I read awhile back that said we couldn't beat our grandparents in a war. I believe it. Hard times make for hardcore people, and thems was hard times.
RR_Mel He got the machine shop where he worked to make a die of an O gauge rail. It consisted of a solid metal bar of about 10” long by 2” x 1¼”, the machinist cut a grove down the center of the bar the width and depth of a Lionel rail. He made a metal “T” section that would drop down in the slot. MY Dad would cut up tin cans (food cans) to form several strips of tin about an inch and a quarter or so wide by 10” long inches long. We would place the tin strips over the slot and drive the “T” into the slot with a hammer forming a U shaped rail. We would trim the bottom edge leaving a slight flange and used carpet tacks to nail the rails in place. We made “joiners from ½” wide strips of tin in the die then squeezed them enough to slide into the rails and solder them. That’s how I learned to solder at the ripe old age of 8 by using a baseball bat sized soldering iron and solder dipped in acid to make a solid joint.
He got the machine shop where he worked to make a die of an O gauge rail. It consisted of a solid metal bar of about 10” long by 2” x 1¼”, the machinist cut a grove down the center of the bar the width and depth of a Lionel rail. He made a metal “T” section that would drop down in the slot. MY Dad would cut up tin cans (food cans) to form several strips of tin about an inch and a quarter or so wide by 10” long inches long. We would place the tin strips over the slot and drive the “T” into the slot with a hammer forming a U shaped rail. We would trim the bottom edge leaving a slight flange and used carpet tacks to nail the rails in place. We made “joiners from ½” wide strips of tin in the die then squeezed them enough to slide into the rails and solder them. That’s how I learned to solder at the ripe old age of 8 by using a baseball bat sized soldering iron and solder dipped in acid to make a solid joint.
Julian
Modeling Pre-WP merger UP (1974-81)
SouthPenn Putting a penny on the track and waiting for a train to run over it was cool. The penny became almost the size of a silver dollar. Once or twice a day a train guy (conductor?) would hammer a square object to the track by the ears on each side of it. When the next train came by, the square thing would explode with a loud bang. Cool.
Watch out for those pennies. Tried it a couple of times and they flew and got lost. The last time I tried it, the thing smacked me square in the forehead. When I got my wits about me again, I still couldn't find it Wisely decided to quit that...
That square thing? A torpedo. Not for kids, but still pretty cool. Not sure if they still use those. Anyone know?
I don't have any memories of the 'Magic Moment' that I got bit by the train bug. My Dad was a big HO fan and there was always a layout in the basement, so no trains under the tree. He also belonged to the local train club, which I barely remember.
We lived 6 houses away from a B&O double track that came from Cincinati O. I don't remember live steam, but I remember seeing the steam locomotives being towed, probably to the scrap yard. They made a lot of noise even without steam. Clanging and banging. I played on those tracks, putting my ear to the rail to see if a train was comming. Putting a penny on the track and waiting for a train to run over it was cool. The penny became almost the size of a silver dollar. Once or twice a day a train guy (conductor?) would hammer a square object to the track by the ears on each side of it. When the next train came by, the square thing would explode with a loud bang. Cool.
I guess trains have been a part of my life since day one.
PS: My Dad worked for Baldwin-Lima-Hamilton, the locomotive builder. I guess we were a train family too.
Trying again:
Like most of us my first train was a Christmas present in the early '50s. An American Flyer S gage. That lasted me until I got a morning paper route when I was 12. One of my customers had a wonderful HO layout in his basement which I walked by every morning when putting his paper at the top of the stairs by his kitchen door. (How many adult delivery people would do that today?) It even had a trolley that ran in the street. It inspired me to use my paper route income to change to HO. That lasted until I went into the Navy.
That was the end until I had grandchildren. The first two (4 and 7) were big Thomas the Tank Engine fans. I bought an HO Thomas set for them with a 36 inch circle of track. It went over much bigger that I expected, so I bought the Woodland Scenics River Pass for Thomas to run on and helped the eldest construct it. Early on in the construction, the old memories came flooding back and we added 4 switches to the track plan for future expansion.
Moving ahead, the 7 year old is now 17 and a senior in HS. For her 16th birthday she asked for, and we bought, an HO trainset. The one we built at my house now fills my entire 2 car garage. It was converted to DCC long ago, even Thomas and Hogwarts Express. There is now another grandchild, an 8 year old male, who LOVES Papa's train and who has added a TARDIS (Dr. Who). He also has the original 36 six inch circle in his room.
Dave
Lackawanna Route of the Phoebe Snow
That's depressing. The first half of my post disappeared.
Moving ahead, the 7 year old is now 17 and a senior in HS. For her 16th birthday she asked for, and we bought, an HO trainset. The one we built at my house now fills my entire 2 car garage. It was converted to DCC long ago, even Thomas and Hogwarts Express. There is now another grandchild, an 8 year old male, who LOVES Papa's train and who has added a TARDIS. He also has the original 36 six inch circle in his room.