What made the biggest impression on you? What got you interrested in trains? Was it that first Christmas morning and your first train layout? Or maybe a special store display you visited? Or did it happen when you saw a real train for the first time? Did you have a parent that was interrested in trains?
What about the catalog covers, was there one that struck a chord in you?
Like many of us, I got my first train on Christmas when I was maybe 2 or 3 sometime in the early 70's. I have pictures of myself sitting on the floor going "choo-choo-choo" as the little 237 scout led it's 4 car consist around and around the figure eight on a throw rug in front of the fireplace, but no actual memories of the event. I am told that I kept on making that "choo-choo sound" all day until they dragged me off to bed. I also remember a year later setting up the trains, on the basement floor this time, with my brother, dad and an uncle on a 4 by 8 of homosote painted green. I have pictures of that event too but the only thing I remember vividly was being the only one who could figure out how to assemble the Plasticville signal bridge. I guess that first Christmas with Lionel is the signature event that got me interrested in trains, but it's not the most lasting impression.
No, it was the cover of the 1972 Lionel catalog that made the most lasting memory for me. The dark silhouettes. The red light. The mysterious shapes. Maybe even a little scary. That's what I remember most vividly. I even remember being a little afraid of that catalog when I caught sight of it years later in an old cabinet. Of course, the fear was replaced instantly by glee at the sight of an old friend. My original copy is long gone, thrown out in some cleaning binge I suppose. I've replaced it of course and I look at it often. Sure, 1972 wasn't one of the peak years of Lionel production, but that doesn't matter. It was the way the trains were presented that made an impression on me. There was mystery there and it intrigued me.
Today that little 237 scout has been replaced by a 246 since my 237 no longer runs. But the cars are all there and they ply their way through Plasticville on an O31 oval in my bedroom. There's a Christmas tree in the center, the same old tree that the trains ran around down in the basement all those years ago. The homosote has given way to luan since my parents gave away that old board many years ago to another uncle who used it for American Flyer trains. His trains made an impression on me too, so now I have my own Flyer set running next to my old Scout. Those aren't my only trains of course, but I'm not going to list them all! However, over on the desk waiting in the wings is another train I remember vividly which finally arrived in the mail today. Soon the General will hit the rails of my little holiday layout and another dream of the past will finally come true.
You never can tell what will make the biggest impression on a kid. For this little girl way back in 1970-whatever it was a little Lionel Scout and a sorta scary Lionel catalog!
Merry Christmas!
Becky
Trains, trains, wonderful trains. The more you get, the more you toot!
I have always been interested in electric trains and real trains. A number of my relatives have worked for the Northern Pacific Railway in the Pacific Northwest from its early days up to the formation of the Burlington Northern. I made many trips boarding the Northern Pacific local in Seattle and riding it over the Cascades to relatives in Eastern Washington.
Each fall I looked forward for our local sporting goods store to set-up their operating Lionel layout and load up one aisles with all the latest offerings of Lionel locos, rolling stock and accessories. I would get my free Lionel wish book and study it for hours to make a list of potential Christmas presents from Santa.
The 1960 Lionel catalog with the Dad & Son Santa Fe set on the cover and the Northern Pacific Space Set in the Super O section was my favorite catalog.
Bill T.
A Lionel 12850 set led by the 2322 Virginian FM made the biggest impression for me. My dad purchased this set in 1966. Apparently it was for him because I was not born until 1967. We moved when I was two years old, and the layout was disassembled. The train was not run again until it was given to me by my dad when I was around twenty years old. Surprisingly I have memories of that train layout from when I was only two years old. I must have felt it was important enough to remember at that young of an age! As impressive as the big FM was, it was the operating milk car that truly fascinated me. Watching the little man set the milk cans on the platform was great to watch but I also remember it being a little disturbing. I don't know why, but I must have been unsure whether or not the man was a toy or something alive. Remember I was only two. Fortunately I outgrew that fear and I can now enjoy the milk car at age 43.
Karl
'Happy Thanksgiving!,' ' Merry Christmas!' and a 'Happy And Healthy New Year!'
Hi Becky,
It was: 'E', All of the above.
Whether, in person, photo., or movie.
There's just something exciting that brings on a happy feeling, especially when capturing a particular scene.
Take care,
Ralph
For me, it wasn't a single impression it was my environment. Growing up in Chicago and then following my parents to a northern post war suburb, my life as a child was filled with the variety of what the railroads were. From the "400" to "The Mountaineer" , the North Shore Line, the bulky Baldwins of the EJ&E, the wave from the back of a caboose off to lands unknown..the cryptic slogans on freight cars from Phoebe Snow to "Everywhere West"..the Christmas layout at Fields, the" L" ..From Marx to Flyer, I was on my stomach watching my own dreams of far away places go round the Christmas tree..Nowadays, railroads are so generic and uniform, and colorless, that my toy trains let me re experience that era of childhood curiosity, and it is fun to be creative with it by having a past time as divorced from the mundane as possible..that has absolutely no practical purpose, much like childhood, I am not driven by deadlines, compromises and others directives.. I think also it allows us aging children to exercise our imaginations which is usually not an option in the work a day world. And lastly, play..which I think at least for me keeps me young at heart if not in body as.you dont have to be a Rembrandt or have some other great talent to enjoy it..and experiment. without being devastated ..well, if it goes amuck..you simply re-rail the thing and keep on going, and "everything old is new again"..
Nothing is more fairly distributed than common sense: no one thinks he needs more of it than he already has.
Penny Trains What made the biggest impression on you? What got you interrested in trains? Was it that first Christmas morning and your first train layout? Or maybe a special store display you visited? Or did it happen when you saw a real train for the first time? Did you have a parent that was interrested in trains?
I don't suppose there's one single answer to that question. Santa Claus brought my first train set in 1951, when I was three. It was a Lionel postwar 2026, which is not only still running, it's on a shelf before me as I type.
There was a hardware store near Berwick, PA that was also the local Lionel dealer. They had a huge (well, it seemed huge to my three-year-old self) operating layout. That was where Dad bought my 2026 set. Even though it was only around twelve bucks, Dad was a student on the GI Bill, and, to put it mildly, we didn't have a lot of money. In fact, he had to pay it off in installments, for which I am eternally grateful.
I was exposed to railroads from an early age. I was born in a coal-mining town that was extensively served by the Reading, PRR and Lehigh Valley, so even before I was old enough to talk, I'd been around trains.
Once Dad graduated, we moved to another small town in central Pennsylvania, which was right on the very busy PRR four-track main line. Those were the days! I was always going down to the station to watch the miles-long freights thunder through, steam and diesel both. The passenger trains would stop there, too, and people would get on or off, chatting happily with relatives and friends at the platform.
In fact, one of our neighbors in those days was a PRR conductor. How amazed I was to see him get off the train one day in his uniform, checking his watch and signaling to the engineer once the Railway Express packages had been unloaded from the baggage car! There was even an ice house, a water tower and an interlocking tower (which is still there, and is today a railroad museum). Few people who were born after the Fifties have any real idea just how extremely pervasive railroading was then in everyday American life.
Meanwhile, after our move, the Lionel empire continued to grow. We had no room for a permanent layout (we lived in a second-floor apartment in those days), but Dad built a large raised platform that we put up every Christmas. What an exciting ritual it was, to be assembling the 027 layout in mid-December! The first year, it was just an oval of Marx 027 track from the local 5-and-10, but then came a pair of Marx manual switches. Then the year following that, a pair of Lionel electric switches. A 362 Barrel Loader supplied the local industry, and a set of wooden houses made by my grandfather saw to the housing needs of the Lionelville citizens. There was even a passenger station, which was a bit odd, since we never had any passenger cars. So the little metal figures who waited at the station had to ride in the black NYC gondola, no doubt to their great discomfort. And a Marx beacon shone its guiding light in the dark valley at the back of the Christmas tree.
A Lionel US Army #41 switcher joined the 2026 one year. Noisy as the halls of Hades, but fascinating to watch. Various freight cars followed, including a pair of NYC and Santa Fe operating boxcars whose doors opened over the uncoupling track section. It was great fun, and I used to run the trains for hours. I'd have been content to do without Christmas gifts, as long as I had the trains to operate.
Once I grew up and left home, the Lionel empire went into suspended animation in the attic. Mom and Dad would put a Tyco HO set under the tree each year, but it wasn't the same. But in case you're wondering, I still have every bit of that original equipment. When I reached my mid-twenties, I went back to the attic to retrieve my old railroad empire, a little at a time. It was only this summer that I got the last of it, my father's own prewar #252 that I restored to operating condition.
In the early Fifties, there were two Lionel venues in town. One was in the Toyland that our local department store would open in its upper story on the day after Thanksgiving, and the other was, of all places, a gas station that had a Lionel dealership on the side.
Around the beginning of November was when they would start getting the Lionel consumer catalogs. In those days, they were free -- unlike today's catalogs, for which potential buyers are expected to pay. Rather like charging admission to get into a grocery store, to my way of thinking, but that's another story. Us kids would go down to one store or the other and pick up one of those treasured catalogs like a miraculous gift from Heaven. I'd take mine home and spend days poring over it with scholarly intensity, admiring the magical illustrations, fascinated by the high-end locomotives I knew we could never afford (a GG-1 was something like an astronomical $49 in those tender years), making imaginary track plans in my head, gazing awe-struck at the latest operating cars from the mechanical geniuses at Lionel, imagining one of those beautiful F3s or 681s circling my own layout. By the time Christmas actually rolled around, the catalog was thoroughly worn out. I did manage to buy some 1950 through 1957 catalogs from a dealer when I started collecting in the mid Seventies, and every page was/is a trove of memories.
Just last week, I bought my first 681 turbine, which was one of those unaffordable dream locomotives I I drooled over as a kid, so I guess part of me is still staring, mesmerized, at those catalogs. I even have passenger cars, now!
My father was given a American Flyer train set in the late 40's from a friend, a 312 K-5 Pennsy Pacific and a few cars. He added a Santa Fe set with the streamline passenger car in 1950, a 370 GP7 and later a Rocket freight train set. Since I was born in 51 seeing trains was a part of growing up in my home. We never had them under the Christmas tree but would set up floor layouts about four or five times a year for a day or two. Living only two blocks away from the Chicago North Western main line in Chicago I saw trains all the time on the way to school or church. At a play lot next to the tracks I remember waving at the engineers and men in the caboose as they worked local industrial sidings.
I also remember going to an event called Power Rama in 1955 held at Soldier Field and the adjacent Illinois Central Tracks. That was the first time I got to go into a E-8 locomotive, toot the horn and power up the engine. The fact that I can still vividly remember it since I was only four years old is remarkable. I also had a small plastic train set that had crossing gates and other accessories that I would play with around the same age. I had a Marx wind up train when I was seven and got my first electric train, An American Flyer Frontiersman set in 1959. I still have all of the instruction sheets the small envelope package that held the two little track locks etc. My dad had a 1953 catalog which I still have though it is very dog ear now. To me it is the best Flyer catalog during the post war years. I would spend hours looking at it and dreaming.
I have always like trains and never gave them up. I even took some with me to Germany when I was station there and have made many small layouts at the various Army posts I have been stationed at. It has always been part of my life. Even this past weekend I was at the Pennsylvania Railroad Museum at Strassburg doing an event call Troops and Trains. Since I also do re-enactments and living histories I can combine both interests at this event.
These reflections are so fun to read. It reminds me of the wonderful variety of approaches to the hobby.
For me, I had trains as a yout' -- a figure 8 HO layout on a ping-pong table I shared with my brothers, until it disappeared before my sister was born (and the room was needed). We ran the trains like Gomez Addams - toy soldiers and dinosaurs also haunted the layout. Fast forward 30 years and I discovered Model Railroader magazine in my local library. That led me to a n gauge set, then a tiny 3 by 5 ft layout on a folding table I could slide behind the couch. Then I re-discovered my father's Lionel trains from the 1920s...
Doug Murphy 'We few, we happy few, we band of brothers...' Henry V.
Ive lived near the Long Island railroad my whole life. ive been seeing at least 2 trains a day going to and coming from school from 1999 and I still do now. It started with Thomas the Tank Engine back in the early 90s, this got me into real trains as well, and eventually that interest tapered off into a love of real and model trains. I used to go to my grandparents houe and play with his 2026 and matching postwar cars, sometimes the 681 turbine, and if I was lucky his pre war american flyer set which had a 2-4-2 engine and 5 cars with a light up caboose. Eventually after continually asking for a model train set for years, on christmas of 1999 I got my first set, a New York central flyer set with an atlantic type locomotive and 3 cars. From there my collection started growing as did my interest in real trains.
"No childhood should be without a train!"
You guys are so poetic! You have me laughing out loud, nodding in recognition and even tearing up a little!
I would have to say that trains have been in my life ever since i could remember. I was always intrigued at a young age when to my surprise on Christmas Morning i would have a christmas tree with toys, and under the tree was an operating Lionel train platform. No bigger than 4x8; but still was enough enjoyment for me.
I would be told later in life that my dad would put up the christmas tree, the train platform, assemble all my toys as if it where all brought by Santa himself each year. Dad did that for a few years; but eventually it got to be to much what with all the more complicated toys that would be on my list that would need assemble. That late night playing of Santa, and then turning around to get up at 6 a,m would get to anyone. But it is a memory that i will always hold dear to my heart. Next would come a memory of after every Halloween came to an end that is when my dad and i would start our own 4x8 platform just in time for the holiday season.
That would go on for quite a number of years until i met my wife and things had changed. I am older know and have a family of my own. I have two sons. A three year old and a 3 month old. My older son is quite taken by model trains and my Dad has gotten him the complete Polar Express set which i put up under my own Christmas tree on a 4x8 platform. He enjoys every minute of it. And as for Dad and me we are back at it again, only this time the platform we are working on is in my basement. It is 10x11. We are using Lionel Fastrack which has been quite an expense compared to the old tubular track we used to have; but oh well we like the look and we are sticking to it. It really is a labor of love that i wish we were able to spend more time on. But time is not always on our side what with party's for friends and relatives that seem to always pop up; but we are determined. And now with the weather getting cooler out this is the time we will really put a dent into the scenery and track laying.
I hope all of you have a Merry Christmas from my family to yours!!!
Kevin
1953-1959: Those Lionel operating accessories; heavy steam locomotives with "a lot of wheels;" and the pulling power of a dual motor 1957 F3.
1994: A set of KLine tuscan Pensy heavyweights running on a Raritan Modular Train Club layout at a Greenberg show rekindled my interests
The biggest impression was when dad would get out his Erie Alcos (class of '52) around Christmastime. I distinctly remember trying to build a route with dad's old track on the top of a picnic table we had in the basement at that time. My route was more crooked than the Virgina and Truckee, and--with only an oval and a couple of beat up turnouts to work with--there was no way to complete it. the Dad-CC quickly "authorized" its "abandonment." But that was the first time I knew I wanted to go beyond the oval.
As far as images, it was looking down the track at those Alcos, or dreaming out of a 1958 catalog that dad had dreamed out of (but never gotten anything from) in his own youth.
What I remember is that we, or I, had trains, Lionels. I have no idea where they came from. I doubt they were bought. My dad was never a hobbyist, or much of a father for that matter. There were 2 sets, both diesels, a Union Pacific and a Milwaukee road, an assortment of frieght cars and 2 caboose. One had the cupola in the middle, the other the cupola was at the end. Some silver tie track and a pair of turnouts.
I would set them up and play with them, but don't ever remember them running, instead I'd push them around. I never knew anybody else who had trains, so I never had anybody teach me about them. The only hobby shop within walking distance was a small place run by an old man who really had nothing but H O, with display cases loaded with brass H O steamers. He wasn't much help. In the school and public libraries, the only books I found were on making scenery, which I had no interest in. I wanted to know how to get my trains running.
The only time my dad had anything to do with my trains was to pull my box out of my closet, pick out the Milwaukee road diesel, the caboose with the middle cupola, a hopper car couple other cars and some track. When I asked what he was doing with these, he said he was giving them to one of my cousins. I said why, these are my favourites. He didn't care and my cousin never bothered with them. Boy was I ***.
Every Christmas and at my birthday I would ask for trains but got everything else. Stuff that I never cared for.Clothes that I wouldn't wear and toys that would end up in pieces just days after I received them.It got to a point where when I was asked what I wanted, I'd say I want nothing. The fights would start when the things I did receive were met with no interest. Finally my dad left, we lost the house we were in and I lost track of my remaining trains.
Fast forward many years later, 2004 to be exact, when my girlfriend and I were organizing a health expo and I got to thinking that with all the people we were expecting, there are bound to be a lot of kids, wouldn't it be cool to build a layout to keep them occupied. I had previously run across a layout on the internet that I liked and saved. It is the very same layout recently featured in CTT titled "Improving a 1957 track plan". This is also the basis of the layout I'm building for my grandson, hopefully with his active involvement. Anyway, this is when I stumbled onto Ebay, then onto this website and boy have I soaked up information since. Learning the things I wanted to learn when I was younger and my collection has grown to include items I never knew existed when I was a boy.
I remember watching my dad set up the O gauge trains in the basement in Conneticut in the mid 1960's after Thanksgiving Day, I was about 7 years old then. He had two pre-war steam engines; one pulled a few freight cars, and the other was a passenger car set. When I was 8 or 9 I started setting up the track by myself and needed help wiring the 022 switches for (wired) remote control. A few years later my parents bought me an 027 train set with a # 235 scout engine.
Sometime near 1968 or 69 I bought my Lionel ZW transformer at a hobby shop in Stratford CT. Only three controls worked and I was upset but I found out that a wire was disconnected inside the transformer and I hooked it back up and the four transformer outputs have been working ever since the 1960's for me.
I bought more transformers since the 1960's, but I favor the older transformers for their simplicity and basic power. Got rid of the transformer that came with my dad's set as it quit working and I was told it wasn't worth fixing.
Another item to mention is that my grandfather Clarence worked for the Reading Company, he did building maintenance work. He bought my dad his first Lionel train set in 1939, has a # 249E steam engine with two freight cars and a caboose, that train set still runs and the hopper car still dumps when used with the five rail O gauge uncoupling track.
I bought some H.O. race cars around 1969 and the people included an American Flyer train set with the deal. It was a 295 steam engine from around 1958. Got two switches and some track for the A.F. set, don't remember getting a transformer.
Lee F.
I remember my little brother and I having a Lionel set around 1970. Don't remember the specifics, but I know it was a steam loco and it smoked. I also don't know why my Dad waited so long to get us our first train - maybe because we were kids #6 and 7. Anyway, I played with it once in a while, but we never had any type of layout, so eventually we lost interest. My father would later give that set to a friend of his.
Fast forward 25 years to about my 35th birthday, and I was truly acting like an idiot. I was on the verge of losing my marriage, and likely everything else, when I decided it was time for serious changes. Those changes meant spending more time at home, so I started indulging in some hobbies, mostly diecast cars at first. I decided I wanted a train for the Christmas tree, and sure enough Matchbox Collectibles sent me a catalog with a nice HO train set in it. It was a Mantua set with a couple of limited edition Matchbox cars - 1957 Chevy and Thunderbird - riding on a flat car. I got very hooked, and eventually started building an elaborate layout in my basement. Then Karen gave me my first son.
In keeping with a tradition my father had started, my mother bought my son a Lionel set for his first Christmas. Knowing that all of my nephews' trains ended up lost in closets and/or basements, I wanted better for my boy's train. First, I picked out a set I thought would have pleased my Dad - a WWII Army Troop Train. The following year I built a platform that included a stand and wiring for the Christmas tree, thereby creating my family's first Christmas tradition. I add a little something new to that layout every year.
During this time, I had continued to work on my HO set up. Once Jarrett started to move around the house, I decided that I should finish my basement, and get him off the concrete floor. I trashed my layout, finished the basement, then created new benchwork with a new approach. I ran Bachmann EZ Track, so I could change things at any time, even switch over to slot cars if the mood struck. Then it happened. Karen gave me another son, and that meant another Lionel train was on it's way to my house.
There was no way I could fit a third train layout in my little house, so all of my wonderful HO equipment got boxed up, and I set Logan's Santa Fe Freight up on my benchwork. We've since moved to a bigger house, and I've extended my benchwork a bit. I have yet to find a track plan I really like, so I change it every year, all the while adding more accessories. I'm in the middle of this year's build right now. I can't bring myself to part with my HO trains, so they are now lovingly displayed on my basement wall.
Trains, and toys in general, played a huge part in fixing my life and saving my marriage, and now I get to share them with my boys. I have some ideas for rekindling their interests this year, so hopefully they continue to enjoy them for years to come.
Having steam still in operation while I was young made one H of an impression on me. When visiting my Grandparents, I would spend entire days at the Hollis, Long Island train station watching them. With 4 tracks across, there was ALWAYS at least one train in sight (you could see a few miles in either direction).
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