Which came first? Modeling or Railfanning?

[steve-in-kville]

I was told over on the other forum that every railfan eventually discovers the hobby of modeling. So what came first for you? Models or watching the real thing?

[riogrande5761]

steve-in-kville

I was told over on the other forum that every railfan eventually discovers the hobby of modeling. So what came first? Models or watching the real thing?

Considering real trains came along before models of any real usable type, railfanning seems the logical answer.  Very likely you could watch trains before there was a practical ability to model them, unless carving a train from a piece of wood constitutes "modeling".  I suppose techincally it does, but not in the modern sense.

[steve-in-kville]

I actually meant for you as an individual. I edited my post to clarify. I am rather new to the hobby. Took my first real train ride this past summer and have been fascinated since. I do some track-side watching at least once a week. My children are showing interest in model trains, hence my entrance into the hobby.

[Tinplate Toddler]

I was a toddler when my dad took me to the train station to watch trains, so I guess railfanning came before model railroading. I got my first train set aged 7.

[RR_Mel]

I was 8 when I got my first train for Christmas 1945.  Don’t know for sure but I don’t think I saw a train until my teens when the company my father worked for transferred him to El Paso in 1949.  The company arranged for my mother brother and I to ride the UP City of Los Angeles from Salt Lake City to LA and the SP Golden State to El Paso.

 

The City of Los Angeles got stuck in snow on Donner Pass (December 21, 1949) for 16 hours, memorable moment for a teen.  

 

 

Mel

 

 

My Model Railroad   

http://melvineperry.blogspot.com/

 

Bakersfield, California

 

I'm beginning to realize that aging is not for wimps.

[doctorwayne]

I remember watching trains (steam and diesel) while playing on the front veranda at the age of three...they ran past our house, on an elevated right-of-way, literally right across the street.

I discovered HO (it might have been OO) at the age of five, when a classmate's older brother brought his train set over and set it up on our livingroom floor.  I don't recall the maker, but it was in a beautiful lacquered wooden case, with a colourful steam locomotive and, as I recall, very nicely-detailed passenger coaches.  I can't comment with certainty on its origin - may have been German or British, or possibly Japanese, as the classmate's family was of Japanese origin.

I got my own HO at the age of nine:  an ABBA set of Globe F7s (one powered) and an assortment of freight cars...Varney (metal and plastic), Athearn (metal), MDC and Authenticast (metal), and a Silver Streak caboose (wood and metal).  Kadee K-type coupers on all, and working rubber diaphragms between the diesels.  Some of those freight cars are still in service on my current layout.

Wayne

[Harrison]

When I was very little, my parents dragged me to the local train station to see the Amtrak. A couple years later I saw the ADK&LC layout at the local train show, but didn't start playing with model trains until about 8. Now I drag my parents to the station.

[SeeYou190]

Model railroading came first.

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I grew up in Gainesville, Florida. Not much railfanning for a kid there.

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-Kevin

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[Wolf359]

SeeYou190

 

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I grew up in Gainesville, Florida. Not much railfanning for a kid there.

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-Kevin

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Small world! I was born in Gainesville, Florida, but spent the first few years of my childhood in Ocala, Florida. As for the topic at hand, I got into trains through Thomas the Tank Engine, and got my first Lionel for Christmas shortly there after when I was 5? I think. I'm not sure when I got my first HO scale set, but I've been hooked on that scale and model railroading ever since.

[SPSOT fan]

steve-in-kville

I was told over on the other forum that every railfan eventually discovers the hobby of modeling. So what came first for you? Models or watching the real thing? 

In my personal case, that statement is completely incorrect, which I suppose by nature of the statement makes it kind of wrong.

I‘d say I definitely started as a modeler (using the term loosely... let’s say modeler=enjoying running trains) and then as I started looking into the prototypes more I became what you might call a railfan. I would still consider myself a modeler first and then a railfan.

On the flip side I do know there are plenty of rail fans not involved in the model8ng aspect of the hobby. Still there is ALOT of overlap between the two!

[rrinker]

 Pretty sure it was models - my parents had a large (room size) layout in what ended up being my room, so it all had to come down, but a loop was set up under the tree every Christmas. I have an 8mm silent movie of me, less than age 2, running the train. The earliest evidence I have of me interacting with a real train wasn;t until 2 years later when I went to Strasburg for the first time. Beside Stransburg and other tourist lines, the only palce I saw real trains as a youngster was at the end of the street my grandparents lived on, on the other side of a high mesh fence was where completed steel handling cars from the Treadwell Corporation were stored and picked up by the Lehigh Valley on the Easton and Northern branch. And the Summer before I started kindergarten, we camped at Hersheypark, and at the end of the road was the Reading main to Harrisburg, which I would run down to and watch the trains when I heard them.

                                            --Randy

 

[mbinsewi]

Both at almost the same time for me.  The house I spent the first 4 years of my life, was right next to the East Troy Electric Railroad.

The next Christmas in this same house, my dad gave me my first train set, a Marx.

Mike.

[IRONROOSTER]

If by railfanning you mean the casual oservation of trains as they pass by, then that came first.  And I still stop to watch a train pass by.

OTOH if we're talking about railfanning as hobby where one seeks out trains to observe; buys book and guides to be able to identify locomotives, cars, signals, etc.; keeps a record of locomotives observed; takes pictures of railroads; etc. then I'm not a railfan.

I do like reading about railroads and their history.

For me, model railroading as a hobby started when I was 22.  I had trains as a child. But I wouldn't say it was a hobby as I liked racing them with my brothers trains and staging collisions.

Paul

[Medina1128]

doctorwayne

I remember watching trains (steam and diesel) while playing on the front veranda at the age of three...they ran past our house, on an elevated right-of-way, literally right across the street.

Your parents let you play on a Veranda?? Lucky kid! 

[doctorwayne]

Medina1128

doctorwayne

I remember watching trains (steam and diesel) while playing on the front veranda at the age of three...they ran past our house, on an elevated right-of-way, literally right across the street.

 

Your parents let you play on a Veranda?? Lucky kid! 

 

 

Well, that's what it was called, although in some places it would be a "porch" or maybe a "stoop". 
The one on the side of the house, where hoboes would sometimes come looking for something to eat, was "the stoop".  My Mother would give them a sandwich and a glass or milk or water, but I wasn't allowed to be outside when one was around. 

Here's half of the house, with its mirror-image other-half, to the left, already torn down....

 

 

Next to that was Mr. Donelly's barber shop - one chair in the front room of the house, and next door to that was Queen Victoria Public School, an impressive brick structure from that earlier era.  It had been torn down before I thought to take a photo.  I do have a scan of a postcard featuring it, but can't locate it at the moment. 
The grey structure to the right was the fish & chip shop, (now a hairdresser's place, I think) but for me it was even more of a lure than the variety store across the corner from it, where there were all sorts of penny candies and ice cream cones for a nickel/scoop.  A paper cone full of chips (french fries) doused in malt vinegar and salt, for only a nickel, easily outdrew the penny candy for me.

 

Just across the street from the school, and also on the embankment of the right-of-way, was a steel water tower, with the main station a couple of blocks away...

 

My veranda finally moved a couple of years ago, but likely in the back on a dump truck or in a dumpster, rather than on rails.  The station still stands, and is still in use.

Wayne

 

[ATLANTIC CENTRAL]

For me, modeling clearly came first. My father set up a very elaborate Christmas garden/train layout going back to when I was only two or three.

Set up permenantly as soon as we had a house with a basement, that layout was passed to me at about age 10.

We lived in the rural suburbs and there was little in the way of real trains to see, except on various trips to Baltimore.

We did have the little Baltimore & Annapolis short line, which ran one or two short trains a week, and could be seen if we happened to be near the tracks in Severna Park.

But that operation had pretty much stopped by the time I was old enough to get around on my own.

As for railfanning now, I'm not one. CSX (ex B&O mainline) and AMTRAK (ex PRR mainline) are both near my home here in northeastern Maryland, and I pass by, cross over/under them all the time. I can't say I make much effort to watch the trains.

My modeling interests are in a time before I was born, 1954. I have not kept up with the details of modern railroading, I doubt I could correctly identify any of the locos I see.

It really does not interest me, and my spare time for hobby related activities is currently limited, I'm not going to spend time on stuff that would take away from my modeling time. Maybe some day, not today.

The only "railfanning" I do, is to travel to Strasburg PA, less than an hour from my home, and ride and watch the historic trains there. Because it is so close, I am typically there three or four times a year, and have been known to just go and sit and watch trains for several hours.

In the peak season, about 10 months of the year, Strasburg runs all day, every day, seven days a week, trains every hour, sometimes every 1/2 hour from 9am to 5 or 6pm. Historic steam, pulling historic cars, on a real schedule. And steam moving real freight, as they are also provide local team track operation. 

Sheldon

[Darth Santa Fe]

It started with the models for me.  We have video of when my dad put a train around the Christmas tree (I was about 6 months old), and my focus was totally on the train.  After that, I mostly played with the battery operated toy trains my brother had lost interest in until I finally got some nicer stuff.  I think I was 5 or 6 when I got my first N scale model (Bachmann PCC trolley), and eventually moved to HO.

Because of where I grew up, I didn't have much exposure to real trains.  NS and Amtrak come through here, but I was too far away to just go out and watch them.  What I saw was mostly in books and on TV, and my internet access while growing up was poor at best.

[BRAKIE]

steve-in-kville

So what came first for you? Models or watching the real thing?

In my case both.. My dad was a modeler and railfan so,I started both hobbies early in life. I started my solo railfan trips when I was seven on my Schwinn bicycle with a Kodak camera..That was in 1955.

Thankfully the Columbus(Oh) Union Station and PRR's Cleveland Ave yard was a few city blocks away. I saved my lunch money and allowence to buy film.

[gmpullman]

I started out on the big stuff but models came along not much later. Here I am on C&O Berkshire 2707 at the Brookside Zoo Park in Cleveland in my dad's arms:

 

April_RR_C&O2707 by Edmund, on Flickr

Maybe two years later we had a rudimentary HO layout on a piece of 4 x 8 plywood painted green.

Cheers, Ed

[Eilif]

Grew up next to the CNW line and a couple blocks from the EJ&E in West Chicago Illinois, so trains were always just there.  Models definitely came first for me with my first train set around kindergarten.   

When I re-entered the hobby a couple years ago, it was almost simultaneous that I started acquiring trains and taking photographs of the real thing. Even now I'm not a serious railfan but I take alot of pictures of trains. 

[wjstix]

I've long found it interesting that for model railroaders their beginning stories are pretty much always one of two stories...either the person got a train set for a birthday or Xmas and got interested in real trains because of the models/toys, or they grew up near a train line,  had a relative who was a railroader, etc. and got into model railroading because of their primary interest in real trains.

It would be fun to track say 50 of each group and see how their layouts and operating ideas etc. differed. I'm sure there would be a difference, but not sure what it would be exactly.

Anyway, for the first 46 years of my life I lived across the street from a railroad line, so I had exposure to real trains for quite a while before I became a model railroader. But my knowledge that there was such a thing as model railroading came from the weekly 15-min. local TV show sponsored by the Woodcraft Hobby Shop in Minneapolis. Without that, I might not have ever known about model railroading and might have been content to just be a 'train buff'.

[Billwiz]

I'm another in the "both" camp.  Some of my earliest memories are my dad's trains (Lionel and Marx) and my Uncle setting up his American Flyers for Christmas.  On the other hand, when we went to my Aunt's house (nearly every Sunday) we often had to stop for the Phoenix Steel train to pass by carrying very hot slag. 

 

[dknelson]

Believe me I know plenty of railfans, and accomplished and serious ones at that, names you might recognize, who have no interest whatever in model trains and do not understand the attraction they have for anybody.  David P Morgan the great editor of Trains magazine for decades was said to hold model railroaders in pretty much complete disdain, and MR once published a letter from him to that effect (although from time to time Morgan would write an evocative essay for MR to accompany a particularly interesting photo of a model scene).

I have also known excellent and accomplished model railroaders who profess to have no particular interest in "real" trains or in railfanning.  One such had his wonderful layout in Model Railroad Craftsman and on NMRA National Convention tours.  He was not a prototype modeler either and made that view very clear to those who'd try to mention that the rolling stock on his layout crossed eras in some highly improbable ways.  He was so vocal on that point that a highly regarded editor for MR refused to operate on his layout, even though the layout featured sophisticated car forwarding which should have appealed to him.

In my own case I have a clear childhood memory of seeing a slant nosed passenger diesel on the C&NW stop at our local station, and whether it was an E3 or an E6 if the memory is accurate it likely dates to no later than my age 3 or 4, and maybe earlier than that, like age 2.  I know I loved seeing trains go by which happened surprisingly often going to or coming home from Sunday church, whether we walked or drove.  At that same age, 3 or 4, and before I had Lionel, I had Marx wind-up trains which I loved.  What is not clear to me however is that I really associated the wind up trains (approximately 0-27 sized) with real trains.  I knew it was a neat and noisy toy that moved.  I did realize the Lionel set that came a year or two later represented real trains, but I am just not sure about that windup set.

Thus I am tempted to say that for me, interest in real trains came before model trains.  But they were so close in time that it is a coin toss.

Dave Nelson 

[Attuvian]

First electric train was probably when I was six or seven, a smattering of cars behind a Lionel Pennsy 6-8-6 turbine.  Likely my parents' response to my interest in the steamers and diesels that I saw everyday a block up the street - where the NYC 2-track mainline between Detroit and Chicago defined the northern boundary of the neighborhood.  Might have had a pull-around wooden train earlier, but don't remember.

What I DO remember even before that O-guage for Christmas, were the old individual serving Kellogg's cereal boxes. Split them down the middle at the perforation, open the flaps, slice through the wax paper and pour your milk. I distinctly remember that for some time the boxes were printed as engines and freight cars.  When you finished your Corn Pops, you could get rid of the soggy inside, cut away the back flaps, turn the box over and run it around with your hand on the kitchen table.  Likely kept three of four for a week or two.  Do any of you older guys remember these packages?  Yikes - probably haven't thought about those things in 40 years!!

John

[BigDaddy]

American Flyer at 4 or 5.   I think I remember seeing a double headed PRR steam freight, on the way to my grand parents.  I was more impressed that there were 100 cars, not that they were steam engines.

I remember the Ma and Pa exactly once, crossing York Rd. in 1957 or 1958.  I remember hoping I would see it again, never did, and then they tore the overpass down.   Web page says "Fair use"

[E-L man tom]

For me it was railfanning.

I grew up along the Delaware Division of the Erie. The house we lived in at the time was just across a back street from the double track main, a busy line that connected Buffalo NY to the New Jersey-NY metro area (Port Jervis). The small depot was right next door to a feed mill and I was fascinated by the trains as I would watch them from the front window, probably as early as 4 years old. I was especially fascinated by the local way freight as it switched cars at the rail-served feed mill.

My older brother and I got our first Loinel set when I was about 5. My brother didn't get the "train bug", so I inherited the set, which I expanded, adding a few  cars and some turnouts. I held on to that Lionel equipment until, in 1992 when my wife and I moved, it was stolen by the movers, which I didn't discover some months later when i went to get it to put up under the Christmas tree. That was when I got into HO and started collecting track, turnouts, locomotives, cars, etc. back in 1993. Been hooked ever since!  

 

[rrinker]

 Modern stuff just doesn't excite me - I'll watch if I'm at a grade crossing, or somewhere near tracks and a train goes by, but I don't actively plan to go sit trackside and watch trains. Now take me to a tourist line or museum running vintage equipment and I'll watch all day. If I were closer, I might go railfan the DL, since they run all vintage Alcos. I am 95% modeler and 5% railfan, maybe.

                                           --Randy

 

[steve-in-kville]

rrinker

 Modern stuff just doesn't excite me - I'll watch if I'm at a grade crossing, or somewhere near tracks and a train goes by, but I don't actively plan to go sit trackside and watch trains. Now take me to a tourist line or museum running vintage equipment and I'll watch all day. If I were closer, I might go railfan the DL, since they run all vintage Alcos. I am 95% modeler and 5% railfan, maybe.

                                           --Randy

 

 

 

I'd be the opposite. The steamer bug never bit me (yet!). Being railside with a radio and listening for consists coming, trying to guess which crossing they're at and timing them before they come into view.... I could so that for a few hours.

[ricktrains4824]

For me, I think it was railfan first, then modeler.

My Grandparents (Mom's side) house was a couple of blocks northeast of GE's Erie locomotive plant.

Seeing Conrail trains racing by on the old NYC 3 track main through that area, and NS single track main (including the street running segment) was something I liked. My Grandfather picked up early on my liking trains, so we would go watch them, or to a nearby museum to look at them on many occasions.

Trips to see my Grandparents were always accompanied by at least a few minutes trackside, even if it was simply on the way to or from their house.

Became a serious modeler around 12-13, with my first HO set. When I was younger, I had a couple of the various "toy trains", some battery powered, some "0-5-0” powered. 

I now do "railfan" in the general sense of actively seeking trains out, oftentimes for photography purposes, other times just to enjoy seeing them roll by.

Unrelated note - I also enjoy cars, and airplanes, and anything else that is big and moves. Maybe this actually is related to liking trains....

[Trainguy0524]

I know for me modeling came first