43. Recently purchased CAB-1, and a TMCC engine to go with it, but I still love my PW!
flower123 wrote: Unfortunately, I've been to some train shows in which the vendors are complaing about the young kids.
I have young kids....That's how I ended up with the 125 Whistle Shack...My 3-yo couldn't stop playing with it.
RockIsland52 wrote: Hey Laz! I'm either getting younger or the guys responding to these age surveys are getting older. Jack
Hey Laz! I'm either getting younger or the guys responding to these age surveys are getting older.
Jack
JACK, when you hit that certain age seems like everything is in reverse?
laz57
IF IT WON'T COME LOOSE BY TAPPING ON IT, DON'T TRY TO FORCE IT. USE A BIGGER HAMMER.
Well GIZ,
I had a few extra minutes and did a calculation and if all were truthful with there ages came up with a 51.60 year old average. So far.
I am 55.
My initiation into the hobby took place on Christmas morning 1958. While I was asleep the night before, Santa and his elves set up a train table in our living room with a Lionel U.P. 202 Alco and 4 cars.
As I grew older, my fascination with trains diminished and I became interested in slot car racing instead. My parents wisely packed the trains away in their attic where they stayed until the mid 80's when my own sons were born.
Unpacking and setting up my old trains for my two sons to play with rekindled my interest in the hobby. I've spent more time collecting and playing with O gauge trains as an adult than I ever did as a child! Who says they're for kids?
Now it's 2008 and I have a granddaughter who seems very interested in "Papa's" toy train collection! Something tells me I'm going to need to get one of those pink trains sets before too much longer!
-Cooper
Just turned 65. Guess I'm a 'senior citizen' no matter how you want to look at it. Never thought it would happen to me. I swear that when I look in the mirror I see a child looking back at me. Guess I'm in my third or fourth chilhood by now but I still participate in whitewater kayaking and go on long river rafting trips in the Summer with my dog and friends.
My passion for trains began in 1947 when I received an American Flyer trainset at Christmas at the tender age of four ( I'm pretty sure my dad couldn't wait to give me train for Christmas that he could play with ). It was the #322 Hudson freight set with an operating coal dumping car, searchlight car, cattle car and Reading Lines caboose bringing up the rear.
Needless to say, I've never been the same since. Even worked for Southern Pacific and eventually Union Pacific for thirty-seven years ( my last nineteen years as a locomotive engineer ). I've been retired for almost five years now and am currently building a train layout for the Lionel trains I've collected since lusting for them ever since seeing all the neat Lionel stuff my friends had when I was a kid growing up.
John
I don't consider myself to be a "train buff." At age 70, when I run my trains, I am always fully clothed. This is widely appreciated in the 'hood.
First one was a Lionel steam train with the old box-type couplers bought for Christmas in 1945 or so. Loved it! Can't remember the numbers. Never saw it again after I went off to college and my parents sold the homestead. Sure wish they had sent me their new address....
jefelectric wrote: RockIsland52 wrote:Don't want to get off topic, but it would be interesting if everyone replied to their own post here, listing their very first train, if that's OK with the author of this thread, Reading T-1.Jack I think it was 1947 when I was 9. Don't remember the exact set, but it was Lionel. I had it a few years, but at that age I had the nasty habit of taking everything apart to see what made it tick and didn't always get things back together again. I know the set still had the electromagnetic couplers on it.
RockIsland52 wrote:Don't want to get off topic, but it would be interesting if everyone replied to their own post here, listing their very first train, if that's OK with the author of this thread, Reading T-1.Jack
Don't want to get off topic, but it would be interesting if everyone replied to their own post here, listing their very first train, if that's OK with the author of this thread, Reading T-1.
I think it was 1947 when I was 9. Don't remember the exact set, but it was Lionel. I had it a few years, but at that age I had the nasty habit of taking everything apart to see what made it tick and didn't always get things back together again. I know the set still had the electromagnetic couplers on it.
Now I don't feel so bad. My first train was a Lionel scout set. I want to say 1947. I just had to see what made it "tick". Found what what made Dad tick!!
I'm 191 and I came to this planet against my will. I figure since I'm here, I might as well do something fun until my ride comes back --- so I build layouts. Once my sci-fi layout is finished in about 15 years, I'll start looking to the sky for a family sign.
Just kidding. I'm 47 going on 10 !!
I'm 50.
But I'm working hard to get my young nephews hooked on O-gauge trains. I grew up with my fathers Marx and Lionel, why not them. They love to come over to see the trains run on the layout, but better yet, they have more fun running the Marx on a simple loop on the floor.
A conflict between brothers? Those trains of yesteryears can take it, until an adult steps in and brings order to the railroad.
We need youth, turn them loose with some less than desirables, and educate them as we were. The future is there, let's cultivate it.
Rod l.
If you guys must know I am 50 and will be 51 by the end of May. Got into O gauge trains first then some S gauge and I liked the S gauge for being more realistic by having only two rail track. Got into H.O. in the last ten years or so, not as impressed with H.O. as I thought that I might be, the track size for curves is not that small, 027 track can have smaller curve radius than H.O. track.
I have two pre war O gauge sets that are my dad's. He don't care much about them anymore but he knows I will keep them running and maintaned well.
The only thing H.O. that I really like are my Aroura race(Thunderjet 500's, pre AFX) cars, even have some antigue H.O. race cars.
Lee F.
Give me steam locomotives or give me DEATH!
Berkshire Junction, bringing fourth the cry of the Iron Horse since 1900.
"No childhood should be without a train!"
My first train is shown in my avatar, but in all honesty I don't even remember what it was. The next one, which still makes an occaissional museum run is my Wabash GP7, #2337, as well as the cars and transformer that came with the set circa 1956/57. Like a lot of others I was away from it for a very long while but returned to the hobby as a reult of helping out at a company sponsored kids Chritmas party. I was to help set up his trains as he was recovering from a back issue, everything went fine for the first couple of hours but slowly attrition was taking a toll on his locos. When the last one died just before lunch I came and dug out the Geep that hadn't seen the light of day in Lord knows how many years. Did a quick clean and lube and she ran for the next four hours with just a few stops for wheel cleans, didn't take to well to nickle-silver track.
Been having a ball with it ever since, especially after joining the SD3Railers. With a few exceptions I feel like a forum elder. As far as the hobby future maybe it skips a generation, our daughter could care less about the trains but my grandson is a bigger train nut than grampa.
Remember the Veterans. Past, present and future.
www.sd3r.org
Proud New Member Of The NRA
I'm 65 years old and retired in Northern Michigan. Just stating a layout for the first time in years ( have more time now). Love it in the north, I'm on the east side of the state and watch the sunrise very morning, its great!!!
Lew
I am 52 and bought my first train 8 years ago. We could not afford trains when I was a kid.
Jim
Donna, this one does:
http://centramod.org/show2008.htm
It's only a dollar; and you have to be 65. Last year I was in the ticket line intending to claim it, when a member of their club who obviously hadn't sold his quota offered me a deeper discount, so I took it.
Bob Nelson
Donna Pass wrote:traindaddy, I think I'm in love!
I'm 54 and have been in it I guess the whole life. The trainset was there from my earliest memory, though it took a hiatus from about 1973-1979. There was a flirtation with HO in 1970-71 that didn't go anywhere really (mainly getting the track laid right and it just flopped).
This last statement leads to a question that I have: I have always felt that HO and smaller scales are much more difficult for the child to work with, but O-gauge has that simplicity of stick it together and go, and imagination for your kids. O-gauge is ideally suited for this age group. This is what I think held my interest and got me back when I reached age 25. So do any of you think that the real hope is to get this scale into the hands of 6-10 year olds and 45 years from now they will be the 52 year-olds that will play with them again?
No matter what fun toys and ecreation are developed there is no disputing that a toy train is a singular unique train that is peerless?
Donna Pass wrote:Reading this delightfully informative thread, it is understandable why train shows don't give "senior discounts."
If we were as great looking as you, we would get in for free.
Lionel 2031 Rock Island FA diesels and the 242x series passenger cars from Santa on Christmas 1954 at the age of 3.89, still running strong. My father collected 3 HO sets, never opened because we couldn't pull ourselves away from O27, and they are packed away. Slot cars wormed their way into the mix, long gone.
______________________________________________________________
RockIsland52 wrote: I'm 57 and "officially" got into the electric train hobby Christmas 1954. I say "officially" because my father started buying trains before I was born, hence two engines I have that predate my birth. Unless, of course, it was my mother who started buying them as a closet train fanatic. My folks started giving them to me when Dad's thumb and forefinger wore out winding up the engine on some wind up train he had previously given to me.....he told me that later in life.The first "permanent" layout lasted about 20 years along with a loop around the tree at each Christmas. Then it all got packed away, the layout long since dormant, as some have said, replaced by girls, cars, and then families. As others have noted, this type of thread is very popular. On this Forum there was one survey within the past 5 months (45 average age I think). And the link Bob Nelson provided was from a 1/05 survey, no averages provided.Either some of you guys are aging slower or stopped counting . Just kidding.Don't want to get off topic, but it would be interesting if everyone replied to their own post here, listing their very first train, if that's OK with the author of this thread, Reading T-1.Jack
I'm 57 and "officially" got into the electric train hobby Christmas 1954. I say "officially" because my father started buying trains before I was born, hence two engines I have that predate my birth. Unless, of course, it was my mother who started buying them as a closet train fanatic. My folks started giving them to me when Dad's thumb and forefinger wore out winding up the engine on some wind up train he had previously given to me.....he told me that later in life.
The first "permanent" layout lasted about 20 years along with a loop around the tree at each Christmas. Then it all got packed away, the layout long since dormant, as some have said, replaced by girls, cars, and then families.
As others have noted, this type of thread is very popular. On this Forum there was one survey within the past 5 months (45 average age I think). And the link Bob Nelson provided was from a 1/05 survey, no averages provided.
Either some of you guys are aging slower or stopped counting . Just kidding.
I'll be 41 in June. Had HO on a 4x8 as a kid, then dabbled a little in N scale until HS. I got hooked on O when I bought a Pennsy Flyer to go under the Christmas tree for my then 3yo daughter (and me of course) in 2003.
Don
I am a 'newby' at 74. 75 soon. I am doing what I dreamed of when there was NO money to put onto rails. I've been into this new wonderful world for about three years, have a modest starter layout and a wierd mix of trains. I want to stay with tinplate, but some newer stuff has crept in too. I'm in N.Calif. and there seems to be little interest that I can find here. I know of only one true train shop within 150 miles.
I think I'll post a question as to location.
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