I started out with wooden Thomas trains around the age of three. I got my first set at age 5, a bachmann Santa Fe flyer. So now I've been in the hobby for about 9 years, and I'm 14 now. I have had more of the opposite experience to what many are saying about being a young model railroader. Many old folks are very happy by the fact that there are still young people in the hobby, and are willing to help me out in my endeavors. Maybe it is just Minnesota nice, I don't know.
-Peter. Mantua collector, 3D printing enthusiast, Korail modeler.
I started in 1969 when my first PFM HO NKP Berkshire cost $64.95. I did not evey ask for a discount!!!! As the years progressed, my PSC Berkshires cost about $ 600 and the DVP cost way more.
A footnote about my interests in trains. I received my first American Flyer Royal Blue 4-6-2 in 1948. That interest in both prototype and model trains has been active a long time.
The 2nd release of the P2K Berkshires with the proper driver sized tires were a bargain compared to any of my brass models, but I still have them all. Over the forty five years of HO models, the joy and delights of the hobby has improved. This may be the best of times for our hobby of Model Railroading.
And now I hear the GETEL Turbine is coming out! What is next??
CZ
I first got into model railroading in the late 1960s, when I was in junior high, somewhere around age 13-14. Somebody had given us an old 4'x8' plywood layout, made with brass Atlas sectional track, a hokey styrofoam mountain, green sawdust "grass" and a few piece of cheap rolling stock.
Unfortunately the combination of cheap loco and brass track made for a very frustrating experience. (Plus, I really wanted a steam loco and thought the diesel was rather boring.) Also, I had no money, and no access to a hobby shop, so I had no way to improve anything. Eventually we had to move and couldn't take the layout with us.
A couple years later I tried building an N scale layout, using what little money I made from mowing lawns. Still couldn't afford a steam loco though, and still had trouble with dirty track and getting it to run smoothly and reliably. But I did get to do some scenery and structures, and found I really liked that.
When we needed room and had to get rid of the layout, I switched making dioramas of buildings for a while.
I spent many years dreaming of having a layout but lacking funds and space. Finally after getting married in 1983, I started building an HOn30" layout in our garage. Got the benchwork up and was handlaying track. Then we needed to remodel and everything had to be torn up. I kept the sections of benchwork for a few years in hopes of maybe getting it together again someday, but finally gave up and had it hauled off.
Then in December 2005 I saw a "large scale" starter set on display at a store, marked down to $100. It was a bit toylike, but it was a steam loco and had very realistic sound, so I bought it and soon added some extra track. I had it set up on our front patio, but wanted something more permanent.
The only part of our yard that wasn't already occupied was a narrow strip on a steep slope in the backyard. After giving it a great deal of thought, I figured out how I could fit a layout into that space, and convinced "SWMBO" to let me have it.
I broke ground right around the beginning of 2006, and worked on it pretty much full time the first few years. It took me two and a half years to get the track in and trains running. The past few years have been spent on the much more time consuming work of creating structures and scenery details.
It's kind of hard to believe that this January will be the 10th anniversary of when I started this project!
I've been a railfan since the age of 5 thanks to my wonderful father who shared with me his love of trains. I received a Lionel set when I was 7 and discovered HO and the realism of scale modeling when I reached the age of 12. From that point on I started my model railroading hobby and have maintained my interest to the present day.
I got my first train when I was 2. It was a special run Marklin SNCF 2-10-0. It would get hauled out every Christmas, and I was allowed to play with it then. I couldn't build structures...yet, and being in the Army meant that much of it would have been crushed during moves. The Tyco trainset I got for my 8th birthday though was the one that built and built and built. I ended up taking over much of the attic with it. That 0-8-0 lasted for YEARS. It finally died when it ran out of carbon for the brushes, and I couldn't find anymore.
With lack of space I couldn't set up until we finally moved home to Wisconsin and my Grandfather let me set up in his basement. I built some car kits, but nothing much and eventually I took it down and gave the basement back to my grandfather. My senior year of college and the following year the layout came out in my dorm room and it enjoyed a fine run for those two years as everyone that knew about couldn't resist dropping by for a run or three. (4x8 twin loops with a turning wye on top of my desk.)
After grad school I finally got to build my first true layout and it wasn't much, because when you're poor you can't afford much. After I got married I was finally able to really get to building...in a club, the home layout has to wait as multipule home remodeling projects in multipule homes have stood in the way of my basement empire. But the club layout has satisfied much of my desires for structures, and empire building....Though some day...
Hi trainman440
I got my first train set when I was four so thats fifty years ago.
Train around the christmass tree no chance not with propper glass decorations
and it's not a great tradition in the UK like it is in the US.
I still have a couple of the glass tree decorations from when I was a child.
but none of the first train set.
regards John
Currently, I'm 29 and tying to get my feet back into the hobby. My fiancée and I are starting to look at houses, and that's making me think about starting something with trains again. I started to buy stuff and build kits when I was a sophomore or junior in high school about 12 years ago. Hit it hard right out of the gate and bought a lot of stuff. Now, I'm regretting some of those purchases, but it was fun going to shows and dreaming. In college, things took a back seat. I was lucky enough to live in an apartment right next to a Canadian Pacific main line, so I could watch 15+ trains a day go past. My hope is to take the 4x8 my dad set up 12 years ago and bring it to the new house. I've seen a few ideas I like and it'd be a good start. I know the family will start to grow in a few years, so maybe something small to start with will be best.
I got a battery powered "G" guage set at about 4 years old. Then had the Thomas trains for a while, then had nothing until I received an HO set at 13. Been runing trains ever since.
I am now 29.
However, real trains have always been a part of my life. My Grandparents lived 6 blocks away from GE in Erie. (Really GE is in Lawrance Park, my Grandparents lived just into Harborcreek, "on the border" with Lawrence Park.) My Grandfather took me to my first train museum when I was 4-5 years old, on my first train ride between 3-4 years old. (at least that I can remember.) My Dad and Grandfather took me to watch trains (railfanning trip!) when I was 4. (Conrail. Fast, frequent, and loud! And for me, HUGE!) Been hooked ever since!
So, even when I wasn't modeling, I was doing something with trains, even if it was just watching them. So, you could say I was "in" the hobby for as long as I can remember.
Ricky W.
HO scale Proto-freelancer.
My Railroad rules:
1: It's my railroad, my rules.
2: It's for having fun and enjoyment.
3: Any objections, consult above rules.
At age 3, I was helping my Dad 'run his trains'. At age 8 or 9 I started helping him build his layout. All hand layed track at that time. At age 12 my Dad died and so did my interest in model railroads. At age 32 I was a Dad and my uncle gave my son a bunch of snap track, an engine, and some cars. I'm now 67 and I am still building and running model trains.
South Penn
Depends on how one qaulifys starting. If it is anything goes I started when I was around 10 years old and a friend let me hold his F unit and run trains on his HO gauge - I fell in love then and started buying and building my own stuff. Very poorly I might add - so if that counts as a start then forty some years ago. Now I have a room full of stuff !!!
Haven't even thought of that aspect. I will add to that, though, that they are also seen as "kids toys" because most peeps are only familiar with wooden train sets. Our roots, Lionel Flyer Marx and TYCO, they all remember going out of business, don't even bother looking for them if they do keep an interest. It's a sad world out there.
tinplatacis It's not necessarily frowned upon, but is not promoted in the same way as it used to because of how broken our society is today. Swhy you see fewer younger individuals.
It's not necessarily frowned upon, but is not promoted in the same way as it used to because of how broken our society is today. Swhy you see fewer younger individuals.
My mom's dad worked for the PRR on the Elmira Branch after a transfer from Wilkes-Barre in the mid-'40s. Dad has a Lionel torpedo that was pulled out for the holidays every year. With that background, it was inevitable that I'd end up "playing with trains." I got my first engine (Athearn PRR F7 in PRR passenger colors) and freight cars in 1977. I was into it for a few years, but got away from trains in high school and college, then slowly started getting back into it in the late '80s. My original goal was a model of the Elmira Branch, till I decided to model the SAL, CofG, and especially ACL,but the layout never got off the ground. I then briefly thought about doing T&P and MP in N, before getting married and settling on an N scale representation of the Lackawanna and Lehigh Valley (with some Erie), and an HO layout that would let me run those purple engines I'd bought 10+ years before. Still trying to figure out how to make two layouts fit into an 8.5' x 24.5' room, and find the time to build stuff for them.
I go waaaaay back to last year around this time, when I bought my Roco DCC set off eBay. I spent most of this year deciding if I wanted to seriously get into this hobby.
Sometime in the '80s, my dad built a 4x8 and put down that crappy green flock paper, and we had some track, but never built anything. I seem to remember getting enough track down by myself to run a Santa Fe F unit in a circle, that's about it. I couldn't reach the other side of the table (the 4x8 was shoved in a corner, which was not well thought out.)
If I remember right, his plan was to combine my HO slot cars (Tyco US-1) with some rail stuff on the 4x8. Looking back, this would have been a disaster with those high speed cars flying off the track all the time. At eye level (as it would have been for me at that time) it would have been really dangerous.
Julian
Modeling Pre-WP merger UP (1974-81)
My dad was a model RRer from way back and I got started when my folks got me an American Flyer train set one Christmas around age 5. My dad built me a small layout. That would have been around 1961. When I was 8, I sold that and bought some HO stuff and my dad and I built an HO layout.
I the early years of N scale, I started modeling in that, eventually building three layouts, each a bit more extensive than the last. However, most of the N scale stuff back then ran poorly, so by my college years, I was back into HO. Being a member of the NEB&W at RPI helped my craft and raised my standards quite a bit.
My current layout is about 30 years and three houses in the making. Not too much happened while the kids were young, but now I'm getting to spend some time and get things accomplished.
-Don (Random stuff, mostly about trains - what else? http://blerfblog.blogspot.com/)
In 1952 when I was three, I received my first trainset of an American Flyer steam loco with a couple of cars. Over the following years the set grew until I was nine. I received my first HO set and my brother got the AF trains. After I graduated High School I packed the trains away when I started working and while I was in the Army. A few years later I built a switching layout in HO. Switched to N in 1979 but still dabbled in HO, and still do. When I retired 16 years ago I joined a club and model with N as my main interest but I still collect and run HO at the club and at shows. Back then being interested in trains was a normal thing not being frowned upon like it is now. Very few of my friends didn't have them.
I, like a lot of others, got involved in trains when I was a youth; starting with some track, with turnouts, on a sheet of plywood and a Marklin trainset. Years later, our first Lionel trainsets. I started my first "permanent" layout when my son was about 4. I've been working on my current layout, with a year off for health reasons, since 2001. So, I'd have to say almost 55 years, off and on. Girls, cars, and the military caused some lapses in-between.
Marlon
See pictures of the Clinton-Golden Valley RR
I learned a couple of years ago that our family lived about an easy 15 minute walk from the Southern Pacific engine terminal-roundhouse-turntable in Eugene Oregon. From 1965-1967. (age 7-9) Now everyone KNEW I was nuts about trains. How come nobody ever took me down there to check out the action??? I'm suffering retro child train fix neglect!
Modelling HO Scale with a focus on the West and Midwest USA
Trainman440 Just curious, How long have you been in this hobby? When did you get into this hobby? All comments welcomed! I got into this hobby since I was 8, and I've been in it since! (been in this hobby for almost 7 years!) Yes I am quite young as a model railroader(and people treat me like I know nothing) Thanks, Charles
Just curious,
How long have you been in this hobby?
When did you get into this hobby?
All comments welcomed!
I got into this hobby since I was 8, and I've been in it since! (been in this hobby for almost 7 years!) Yes I am quite young as a model railroader(and people treat me like I know nothing)
Thanks,
Charles
Charles, don't worry, others have started at a young age and been through the same thing - just keep working and your modeling will speak for itself.
I grew up with model trains, my father built me a complete working layout when I was 10-11 and at age 13 I was building wood craftsman kits, die cast loco kits, hand laying track, wiring control systems, etc.
At age 14 I was working in a local hobby shop, doing the repairs, and building professional diorama models. I was also one of the youngest members ever at the Severna Park Model Railroad Club to not require a "sponsor".
As a young adult, around 20 years old, I was the train department manager of another local hobby shop for several years.
Now at 58 my modeling spans some 48 years.
Sheldon
I built my first layout when I was 8 as well, in HO, that was 32 years ago. I have not been without a layout of some kind since. I never did the large scale set or train under the tree thing. My grandfather retired from the Bangor & Aroostook and I worked for the Gettysburg & Northern and NS. No one else in my family is a model railroader, but no one ever said anything negative to me about it.
Hi Charles:
My interest in model railroading started when I was very young. My older brothers were given a Marx O scale train set. I watched them play with it for hours but they forbid me from touching anything! By the time I was old enough to operate the train they had managed to burn out the motor so the whole thing went into storage. Thank goodness my parents who were raised during the Great Depression in the 1930s were taught to never throw anything out.
Years later, when I was in my late 40s, my mom asked me if I wanted the stuff. Of course I didn't say no. I found a replacement engine and set the track up on some plywood in the garage, and I was in heaven finally being able to run trains. However, the novelty soon wore off because the O scale tinplate was too toy like to satisfy me (absolutely no offense to the tin plate crowd - each to his own).
I expressed my frustration to my loving wife, and she went out and bought me an HO train set! It was Harry Potter's Hogwarts Express and I loved the finer detail and smoother operation.
That was about 15 years ago. Since then I have had a ball planning my layout, scratch building structures and even some small diesel switchers, as well as acquiring rolling stock, installing sound, bringing cars up to NMRA recommended standards, going nuts with LEDs, and much much more.
For family reasons I still don't have a layout but I'm getting closer to starting to build. Although that has been frustrating it has not really diminished my enjoyment of the hobby.
As far as your situation, seven years experience is more than a lot of people have in this hobby so don't let those who assume you don't know anything get you down. Let that be their problem.
Wishing you all the best in your future model railroading adventures!
Dave
I'm just a dude with a bad back having a lot of fun with model trains, and finally building a layout!
1974, I was 8. Got the typical train set for Christmas. My dad built a room about 8'x20' in our garage and we built a Ho layout in there. It lasted until I moved out at 18 and was torn down. I next built a small N scale layont on a piece of scrap plywood, that I still have. Built another out of a 6"x4" piece of blue foam. Never liked it, so it is sitting in the basement in pieces. I then built benchwork and everything I would need for a New N layout. It is still sitting in the basement. 7 day weeks and 12 hour days got in the way and now I am disabled and can`t even get down there to start on it. So I guess you could say have I have been a model railroader for 41 years but that last few the fire has been dropped from my box..... I would really like to at least try and get something going for my grandsons with what I built but no one else in the family has the "bug".
I was born in January, 1946. That's 69 years, nine months and two weeks ago. I don't know when I first became interested in trains, but it is certain that I was very upset when my mother and I took a trip in 1950 and went by bus instead of by train. I would have been four years old. Dad and I started out with Marx and Lionel, but by about 1960 I had decided that I was more interested in something that was closer to scale. Dad accepted that but wasn't too happy about it. Those of us who grew up in the 1950's learned about life because Christmas brought toys that had something to do with real life: Lincoln Logs; Erector Sets; chemistry sets; camping and scouting equipment; Balsa or Plastic scale models. These were things you had to tinker with and build, so they encouraged the development of problem solving skills. As a result, I was one of the many who loved to tinker. Still do.
I also loved to read, and railroad books and magazines held an importance equal to that of current events, history, and literature. Over the years my railroad interests have broadened. I've never thought of myself as a great modeler, but I try. My strength is in the history and practice of prototype railroading.
Possibly the most important issue mentioned above is the question of younger folks who enter the hobby with a willingness to learn, but limited experience. These young people need for us old fogeys to accept them for what they are: bright young people who like the same things we do, but who simply haven't had the time and opportunity to learn what we have learned. We can also fall into the trap of assuming they know less than they actually do know. They have strengths we don't have because they grew up in a different era. I'm lost in the high tech world; they seem to know that stuff intuitively, which is utterly amazing to me. We old guys can learn from them. They didn't grow up with the same experiences we grew up with, so they will invariably draw a few wrong conclusions and go up a few blind alleys on their pursuit of understanding. But thats OK. That's the learning/education process at work. Fairness dictates that we accord them the respect that they deserve, simply because they are trying to learn and develop in the same way that we did fifty or more years ago.
Back then, we learned from the older generation. Now I'm amazed to realize that WE are the older generation. We have a responsibility to pass the torch.
Tom
(edited)
I been in this hobby since the age of 2. My parents say I was born into loving trains and railroading. And they don't know where it came from.
Amtrak America, 1971-Present.
Wow, thankyou everyone for contributing!
So a lot of people started this hobby when they're 8-9 years old.
It's interesting how many people started this hobby with the little train around the christmas tree!
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Modeling the PRR & NYC in HO
Youtube Channel: www.youtube.com/@trainman440
Instagram (where I share projects!): https://www.instagram.com/trainman440
About 6 or 7 A neighbor was going in the Airforce and gave me his HO stuff I've been hooked ever since. Now 46yrs later I'm really trying to get back into the hobby hard.