General Discussion (Model Railroader)

 Got Lionel O scale for Christmas between 1958 - 1961 not sure of the exact year.

 Well my railroad career started out with of course Lionel's that were actually my older brothers and after a few weeks he decided he wasn't interested so I inherited them. We then moved onto what we thought was a gigantic HO layout 8'x24' basement empire. Over the years my brother & I accumulated over 350 pieces of rolling stock some 25 locomotive and some where around 50 or 60 structures including a scratch built wooden trestle built by our uncle who was a real engineer on the Erie Lackawanna as well as a model railroader. He gave us each and special freight car lettered for Erie Lackawanna built from I think maybe Ambroid kits. Well after hitting the teen age years at full throttle the trains got used less and less but still on occasion I would make it down stairs and do what I still do now, just sit there and watch the trains go round and round. Well time marches on and my brother goes to college and I go to join the 101st Airborne  but before leaving home I lovingly pack up all my model railroad stuff. Wrap it all in news paper and neatly place every single piece in a couple of wooden crates and sit them next to a dehumidifier I purchased in Two Guys. The "train table" as we used to call it or bench work had to all come down as Dad needed the space for more of his junk and we were too old to be playing with toys anymore.

Time moves forward and I now have kids of my own and my wife buys me an HO train set for Christmas a few years back because she said I was like a little kid in a department store at Christmas when I saw a train layout in a hobby store here in town. One day while visiting the folks I told my brother about the trian-set and he and I started reminiscing about our old layout. So without saying a word the two of us got up from the table and headed off to mom's basement to retrieve out collection we were talking about the equitable split of everything we had so we could each start over now in out late 40's.

We are searching but no trains we yell up to mom hey where did the crazy man ( thats what everyone calls him) put our trains. We hear him from his easy chair yell I threw that crap out years a go, why what the hell do you want with it your too old for that crap. It took a lot to keep from strangling that crazy old S.O.B. The only thing that survived were the two freight cars our uncle had made for use as mom had put them up on a shelf along with all the family pictures and junk. So unfortunately for me and my brother the only thing remaining are those two box cars one of which is sitting in my staging yard awaiting train orders to some day soon roll again.

 My first set from when I was 8 or 9 is long gone.  It was a fleischmann train, German prototype, since my dad was stationed in Germany at the time.  It did not get me started on the hobby, but I do remember it fondly.

Enjoy

Paul

Saw the title and thought it was IT as in Information Technology.  Cliff notes of the original post so I can know what the point is?

I still have my original Lionel's (packed in the original orange Lionel boxes) along with the transformer and accessories stored upstairs in the attic.  I received these in 1950 when we moved to our new house in New Jersey, my dad and I used to set them up under the Christmas tree on a sheet;  later we would move them downstairs to the basement where we set them up on the ping pong table.  Even more interesting is that up in the attic next to my Lionel's are the Lionel's my Dad had as a child, I'd really like to set those up one year under our tree but I'm sure they'd need a lot of work before they could take a lap around the tree. 

The only thing I have from my child hood days is my Lionel Hudson steam engine.  The tendere is missing the sound unit because yours truly took it out as a kid.  I loved to take things apart.

I grew up during WWII when there were no metal toys available, so my first train set was made of cardboard with wood wheels and axles.  The sets came flat and you punched them out of the cardboard sheet, folded the parts, and inserted the tabs in slots.  It even had cardboard track with wood ties.  Unfortunately I wore it out, running it on the living room carpet.  We didn't have electricity, but after the war my parents got me a Marx wind-up lithographed tin train.  It disappeared when my folks moved into a new house while I was away at college -- along with my collection of comic books, including the first issue of World's Finest Comics [Superman].  I was 28 in 1963 when I got my first electric train, supposedly for my three-year-old son.  But both my boys had/have model trains, so it's a family thing now.

Bridge my father scratchbuilt out of sheet metal for our Lionel Trains in 1949...

Yes.  Lionel HO from 1966.  M&StL set.  Engine runs well, caboose survived several inernational headline worthy (in scale) accidents.  Of all my trains, I've lost two cheap diesels to vicious sisters messing with my stuff, a flatcar that held a boat which vanished, and an annoying little steam engine that I never liked.  Otherwise, I've even got some of the original Lionel branded sectional rack pieces, the powerpack, buildings(the church steeple warped a bit) and one more thing.  My father's cousin moved to Germany and gave me his Marx train set.  My sons made me run it constantly last Christmas and at 60+ years old, the drive gear finally striped a little and locked up.  They've got Thomas.  Not as huge a table as yours, but they also get to use the Marx train, the HO trains, other train toys and a few hundred automobiles too.  At this rate, they'll start on planes, boats and spaceships in the next few years and I'll be the proud owner of the toy transportation museum of America.  So again, yes, I still have my first electric trains.  I have my second cousin's first electric trains.  I don't have my first trains like Thomas except they ran on plastic tracks.