How you got started...

[Anonymous]

I've always loved trains, and at 63, am old enough to have steam in action. Got my first Lionel set at 5, but the interest went "on hold" for many years. When we started having kids, I started building Christmas layouts...first HO, then S, and have now have had a O Christmas layout for 18 years. This year, started building a year-round O, put G in a flower bed, and started a small N layout a few weeks ago. Needless to say, my 7 Grandchildren like to visit. Joe

[Anonymous]

just read my profile, i have it in there

[robengland]

ALways got a thrill seeing a steam loco, but the fascination was and is tiny models and intricate engineering. I've learned to like railroads but that wasn't the entry point.

[Trainnut484]

QUOTE: Originally posted by JawboneSub

Hi guys,

This is my first post here so I thought this would be a good thread to start in!

I grew up in Manhattan Beach California where Santa Fe had a branch line that ran right across the street! Yuppies have since replaced it with a jogging path.

Also having a Lionel train around the tree every x-mas probably contributed to my interest in model trains. I think my grandmother secretly loved them too since she always seemed to be buying more and more trains. That and travelling on Amtrak a lot as a kid.

Now that I'm 28, I'm just getting back into the hobby. So I'm starting fresh, not a lot of salvagable rolling stock or structures from my childhood HO scale layout survived, or is in good enough condition to use. Plus I've always tended to model the present day with hints of the past here and there.

Jawbone Sub, [#welcome]back to the hobby [:)]

HO has improved in quality since your childhood layout. Have fun collecting and running your trains again.

Russell

[Trainnut484]

I was fortunate to have family working for the railroad. My father and an uncle was an engineer and track welder respectively for the Santa Fe. Their both long gone, but they planted a big model railroad and railfan bug in me.

Here's a pic of me and my very first HO train set, "Silver Streak" I got for Christmas. I was about six or seven. To this day, I still have all of cars except the locomotive (I worn it out [:D]) from that set sitting in a box somewhere.


Take care,

Russell

[Anonymous]

Hi guys,

This is my first post here so I thought this would be a good thread to start in!

I grew up in Manhattan Beach California where Santa Fe had a branch line that ran right across the street! Yuppies have since replaced it with a jogging path.

Also having a Lionel train around the tree every x-mas probably contributed to my interest in model trains. I think my grandmother secretly loved them too since she always seemed to be buying more and more trains. That and travelling on Amtrak a lot as a kid.

Now that I'm 28, I'm just getting back into the hobby. So I'm starting fresh, not a lot of salvagable rolling stock or structures from my childhood HO scale layout survived, or is in good enough condition to use. Plus I've always tended to model the present day with hints of the past here and there.

[JWARNELL]

I've been a model builder all my life, and had gotten tired of just building kits. I got a copy of model railroader and was instantly hooked. I"ve always liked trains but new very little about them. Now trains are a big deal to me. My modeling skills have more than doubled, because of the different techniques you use for weathering and such. I have recently started building craftsman kits and scratch building. I'm having more fun building models than I ever thought possible, because of one model rr magazine.

[Shopcat]

I grew up right on the C&EI, and saw trains all my life. I had a Lionel when I was a kid, it was treated as a toy. But when I saw the first N scale stuff...the Postage Stamp series....I was hooked. I was fortunate enough to get a job in high school in my local hobby shop that lasted all through high school, and all through college. After that came adult life, and I fell out of the hobby until I stumbled back in recently. But the itch has been there the whole time....

[mustanggt]

My dad. He bought me a Bachmann HO set for my 3rd B-day or something. A year later for Christmas, he built me a 4x6 foot layout, complete with grass mat, brass track, and matchbox vehicles. That layout eventually grew over a period of 5 years, and 7 years after it's last renovation I tore it down to build a new one. 2.5 years later and Thousands of childhood dollars, I still havn't finished it yet.
Up next: a new DCC system, more trackage, and more vehicles for my collection.[^]

[Cox 47]

I got started Christmas of 1953 with a American Flyer set and a 4 by 4 sheet of plywood The set did not have any strait track so I forever went in circles. Man I wish I had that set back! Bug got me again in 1966 when a guy I was working with had a model rail road mag at work and I have been at it ever sense then...Cox 47

[scubaterry]

Grandfather was an engineer on the NYC. The bug layed real low in the back of my brain for many decades until about five years ago my (then) girlfriend gave me a cheap LL train set she was about to throw out of her sons. I took it home and put together a circle of track on the living room rug and played with it until the early morning hours. Next day went to the LHS and bought my first Loco, a Athearn Genisis Mike. No idea what I was doing but it looked cool and was in NYC colors. And about $2500.00 later here I am. Wish I would have started earlier but I came in just as DCC was getting popular so I think it was easier to learn than DC. I went right for the "Super Chief" and have been very happy with it. About to fini***he trackwork on my third layout.
Terry

[dgwinup]

I never got 'started', I was sort of born into it.

Both my Father and his Father worked for the railroads. Grandpa was either MoPac or Frisco, maybe both, I never knew him that well. Dad worked for the MoPac before WW2, but left the railroads for the transportation industry (multi-modal). During the war, he was called back occassionally to ride the troop trains as a railroad agent (every troop train had to carry a railroad employee as an agent).

My first memory of trains is a 4 x 8 green-painted plywood Lionel set-up with a figure-eight in the middle and two outer loops, all interconnected. I don't know when it was set-up. I was two years old when we moved into that house and I only know it was there as I was growing up. I played with it often and Dad would run trains with me sometimes. I received my own Santa Fe switch engine and 2 Lionel passenger cars when I was about 6 or 7.

The house next door had two kids about my age. Their Dad was a captain on an oil tanker for Amoco Oil Co. They had TWO identical Lionel layouts in their attic (no fighting that way!). Another friend down the street had a 4 x 8 HO layout with a Civil War era steam engine. That's what got me interested in HO, so when the family moved to a new house, the Lionel came down and the HO took it's place. That lasted until my early teens, when the auto bug bit me and HO race cars became a passion (followed quickly by the 1:1 variety and a short stint with the Sports Car Club of America racing program). But I digress. Down came the HO, up went the race tracks. Before I graduated from high school, the trains had made a reappearance, mixing in just fine, thank you, with the cars. It was a kids layout and wasn't integrated very well nor was it scenicked, either.

While in college, I visited a hobby shop at about the time N scale was making an appearance. I was hooked again. N scale was almost the perfect size for a working college student in a small apartment. Those first N scale trains are with me today. The Lionel, sadly, was sold or given away when Dad retired and the folks sold their house to move back to Illinois. The cars disappeared somewhere along the way. Some may still be in boxes in my basement.

After I got married and bought my own house, I started a huge N scale layout that didn't progress much beyond the track and roadbed stage but was fun to operate long trains on gentle grades as the train progressed around a 20 x 25 layout. Then I moved. Although I had great plans to build at the new location, too many other responsibilities came first and the trains lay dormant in boxes. I managed to hang on to them through the divorce (another horror story). But even with another move, the trains still waited for my return. About 4 years ago, I decided I wanted to build a small layout, expecially since I now had grandsons. The plan was to build a little layout, work on it until the grandsons were old enough to take care of things and give the layout to them and start on my "Dream Layout". Alas, the youngsters weren't interested that much in trains. So I still have them, even though the little layout (with it's later addition) is as finished as it's going to get.

Don't despair, though. My other son came through with a grandson who, at the age of three, is TOTALLY captivated by trains!! YaHOOOOOOOO!!!! And he now has a little brother who has already started playing with big brother's trains (the wooden Thomas-like ones). I built them a small layout for the Thomas stuff and they are busy for hours at a time with it.

I got started by being born into a railroad family (my older brother also worked for MoPac for a while). My grandsons are getting started at an early age. I hope the hobby stays with them as it has stayed with me for all these years. Yes, the hobby did change dramatically over the years, but it is still the mainstay of our family.

Thanks for making it this far through my history. Sorry to go on so long, but you DID ask!

Darrell, railroading into the future and staying quiet...for now

[grayfox1119]

My interest started with my first Lionel set for Christmas way back in 1947. Then in 1949, seeing that weekly TV show with American Flyer trains on beautiful layouts. I hungered for those layouts, but we were renting in a cold water flat, and far too poor to afford even buiyng switches for my Lionel set. I would watch the big steam engines go by my grandfathers farm, and also from the windows of the Shortline buses as the bus seemed to race the engine on the old B&A run.
Now turn the clock ahead to 2000 and retirement. Finally I have the time to get back to a lifelong dream and desire....I am building the layout that I once saw on B&W TV in 1949.

[claycts]

1952 got my Lionel at age 4. Got pictues to prove it. Sold everything , that is another story, in 1974. Got back into trains in 2001. Boy had things changed!!
Now I am using it as therapy to lower my blood pressure.
George P.

[rolleiman]

My grandfather was a fireman and then Engineer on the Wabash RR... When he went to work for the union and moved to St. Louis as a general chairman of the BLF&E (so I'm told) we live in his house which backed onto the Oakwood yard of what is now the NS.. Was the N&W then (ex Wabash)... I've been exposed to trains all my life so I guess it was kind of natural for me..

Jeff

[Anonymous]

I was born a railroader!
I must have inherted it from my Grandfather (a railfan) whom I never met.

[PennsyHoosier]

My dad gave me a Lionel train set when I was 2! (Guess who really wanted it?) Couple that with riding the C&NW into Chicago weekly from the time I was 10, and, well, let's just say I didn't have a chance. [^]

[Anonymous]

My uncle and Dad both had model railroads. That's all it took to give me the bug.

[Tracklayer]

How I got started... Well. Back in about mid February of 1963, my mom and dad got into a romantic mood. Oh, wait. You meant with trains... In that case, it could be blamed on the Marx set I got for Christmas when I was about five years old. Then when I was about eleven, I got an HO set again for Christmas. Back in 1989, someone left a magazine in the lunch room where I was worked that had an article in it about model railroading, and within a couple of weeks after seeing that, I was building my first N scale layout and have been into the hobby more or less ever since.

Tracklayer

[Javern]

I grew up with a Milwaukee Road line by my house, I recall the livestock cars and the open auto racks. One day in a super market I saw a issue of MR on the shelf so I bought it.....then I got into building my own empire

[Adelie]

My dad had an HO set based on a Mantua 0-4-0 tanker on a piece of plywood. We had that until I was probably 6 or 7 and I loved it. That was the start.

My grandparents (his parents) lived on a street in St. Louis that dead-ended against the MoPac mainline. We used to go to their house on Sundays, and whenever I would hear a train I would run out the front door and look down the half-block or so watch it.

The Mantua setup later became a 4x8, then another 4x8 attached to that. Then we moved and I started a larger layout that never got beyond tracklaying. After college, I drifted away from trains for about 10 years until I started working with some people in northern California that were into model railroading. I started a small HO Pennsy steam brass collection (still have, along with the Mantua tanker). When I moved east and got married, we moved to a place with a basement and I started an HO layout, which morphed into N-scale after benchwork was complete. Then we moved again and I restarted again. Now I am hold again, pending another possible move when I will start all over again!

[Texas Zepher]

I remember my Father having trains. I had some plastic ones that fit on HO scale track in 1962 or so. We also lived in Pueblo Colorado (massive yards) and Grand Mother lived in Lamar (AT&SF race track city). So I had constant exposure to AT&SF, C&S, Mopac, D&RGW, and RI. Then we started having financial problems and most of the trains got sold. In our poor years, I had one "book" called "Practical Guide to Model Railroading" that I re-read through grade school so many times it disendegraded. In 1969 we started coming out of our financial ills. I got an N-scale set and I discovered Model Railroading Magazine and made special trips to the library to read it. In 1972 I got a MR subscription for Christmas. Those first years issues were also read until the covers wore out. I've been a subscriber ever since. Developed my first freelance (based on an article in MRC), for a school project in 1972. Have continually refined it through the years....

So in short I would say exposure to 1. models at a young age 2. literature 3. the prototype. Can't say which was first (chicken and egg thing).

I was also exposed to models of airplanes, tanks, ships etc. None of those "took".

[rrinker]

Well, before I was born my parents had a layout in a spare room, that became not so spare. But a loop remaine around the tree every Christmas (HO) and there is an old home movie of me running the train at age 2. We moved to a larger house when I was 4, and the layout started to grow, but still only durign the holiday season. First a 4x4, then a 4x4 with a small N scale layout tacked ont he side, then a ful 4x8 HO, and in its final version, the 4x8 with a 2' extension on one end and other extensions along the other 2 sides - just wide enough for a single track. It all came apart to store in the basement. Then I got to build a 2x4 N scale layout that I was allowed to have all year, since we did have room for that. I ha 2 small N scale layouts, then I went back to HO, first with a 4x4 variation of one of the original layouts, and then a full 4x8,all in my bedroom. Then it was back to N scale with a 3x6 in my bedroom. Then it was off to high school and college, and I didn't have a lot of time for trains. After college it was back in, but I only ever had one small shelf layout made up of 2 sections in an L shape, 2x6 and 2x8.
So I guess it was because we had model trains around from the time I was a baby. I just naturally grew into an interest.

--Randy

[Anonymous]

My father caused my addiction by setting up a Lionel O gauge train set in the basement of our house. It had a decent sized freight consist with an NYC Hudson steam locomotive as well as a Santa Fe F unit.

Not long after that I began hanging around the local rail road station and got to watch the New Haven self destruct into the Penn Central...

Erik

[Anonymous]

Living in the Chicago metro area having seven major passenger stations in the city and my first set
being American Flyer was sufficient influence. Back in those old-old days my favorite sighting was the Q's CZ zipping through out through the wester burbs kicking up whirwind of dust highballing to
Denver. Like others I too left and returned to the hobby.

[Anonymous]

Well, i'm a old man--old enough to have been around when trains were everywhere (including steam-powered trains) and when trains were the toy-of-choice for just about every young boy. I guess my interest in the hobby dates back to running an old Lionel freight set (which actually belonged to my older sister) around the Christmas tree and getting lost in an imaginary world where I would create scenarios and stories with the little figures and structures, etc., that were part of the under-tree display. At some point in those early years I saw my first Lionel catalog, and that really ignited the spark. Like many, I left the hobby for about 15 years or so while I was finding my way in the world, but I came back in the 70s and haven't left since.

[edkowal]

I've heard any number of times that the public's exposure to prototype railroads has gotten less and less. This is certainly true in comparison to the 1920's and even the 1960's. But I'm not certain that this is a major route by which model railroaders enter this hobby anymore.

For example, I'll give you a specific case, me.

I got started in this hobby as a result of seeing, then buying a copy of Model Railroader at a grocery store. This was around 1966 or so. Although I was aware that railroads existed, prior to reading that magazine, and looking at what I thought were incredibly realistic pictures, I wasn't interested in railroads at all. But seeing those models made me want to do what I saw in those pictures.

As a result of wanting to be a model railroader , I _became_ interested in railroads, and have remained so to this day. Not, as is often assumed, the other way around.

I know of at least two other cases similar to mine in the local area. Both of these guys started in model railroading years before I did. One, I think, started in the early or late forties. He found a Model Railroader magazine left behind on the seat of a trolley car !

So my question to the forum is, were you interested in trains before you became a model railroader, or did you develop an interest in the hobby first, and then in the prototype ?

-Ed