This was my very first purchase. A BLI Hudson with QSI sound.
I had received several train related goodies early on, but the first thing I saved up for and bought for myself was a Trix 2-10-0 PRR foobie, and a set of Lima passenger cars. The locomotive lingered around in the junk box till about 3 years ago when a guy on another forum needed it for parts, but I still have a couple of the passenger cars, now sporting their fifth or sixth paint job...
As a point of reference, I believe the whole shootin' match cost $45 or less... This was in '78 or so.
Lee
Route of the Alpha Jets www.wmrywesternlines.net
My first significant purchase was a Tyco-Mantua "Big-Six" 0-6-0 kit, which I upgraded over the years to a road locomotive by adding a 2 wheel pilot truck and replacing the slope-back tender with a scratchbuild one making a somewhat credible 2-6-0.
The most fun was adding the valve gear... it looks like an eggbeater going down the rails.
Not my best lokie, but its still my favorite.
Jim
My first purchase was a HO Athearn flat car in early 1970. I'm pretty sure it was undecorated. Even if it was not, I don't recall what it was decorated. It ended up in my hand-painted fantasy road scheme, the Tonopah & Sumpter Valley. I'm not at home right now so I can't check to be sure, but I think I still have it around.
Hey Cox47, it wasn't purchased at McMillan Sports in Terre Haute, although I can remeber dropping some bucks there a few times. I dbought the flat car in the old hobby shop that was just north of the square in Bloomington, Indiana. I sold off some Lionel stuff I'd inherited from my Uncle Billy Joe so I could afford to make the switch to HO scale when I discovered the space limitations of O27.
Mike Lehman
Urbana, IL
My first train related purchase was some life-like train set. GP38-2 ATSF, a reefer, and a caboose; when I was three. Amazingly, I still have the reefer (fixed up as good as new, albiet weathered). Don't have the other car, and the engine has been scrapped.
My first real purchase was a P2K SD9, in BN #6232. 45 bucks, the same as that trainset. I still have this, I only got it a few months ago, but it's in need of a new hardwired decoder. (circuit board with a decoder doesn't have enough power for my LEDs; they have a minimum voltage of 3.2 volts, and a 540 ohm resistor does the trick) Afer I removed the circuit board, I found out there was a lot of room, enough for a sound system. ($31 from the local MR club)
Vincent
Wants: 1. high-quality, sound equipped, SD40-2s, C636s, C30-7s, and F-units in BN. As for ones that don't cost an arm and a leg, that's out of the question....
2. An end to the limited-production and other crap that makes models harder to get and more expensive.
Philip,
What a fun question. Our first purchase was the MDC 2-Truck Shay pictured below. It has had a NWSL regear kit and it still one of our favorite work horses to send to the landing.
Sue & Larry
Anything is possible if you do not know what you are talking about.
A 60' CSX athearn boxcar. Sold it when i switched to N, kinda wish i had kept it.
Tim
1956. My buddy Rich Miller in Grass Valley was getting rid of some HO cars he built because he wanted to go into a larger scale. I remember them. Still have some of them. A Varney steel boxcar--MKT, steel reefer--ART, steel flatcar-MILW, an Ulrich metal gondola-C&EI, an Athearn metal boxcar-SP and a Silver Streak wood caboose-SP. I've still got the Varney's and the Silver Streak wood caboose. New trucks and couplers. Still run them, especially the caboose.
Tom
Tom View my layout photos! http://s299.photobucket.com/albums/mm310/TWhite-014/Rio%20Grande%20Yuba%20River%20Sub One can NEVER have too many Articulateds!
We all started out somewhere in the hobby.
My question to you is, what was your first model railroad related purchase (besides a magazine)?
As a side note, do you still have it, or any pictures of it?
Mine was an HO Tyco Spirit of '76 train set (pn. 7330) with a bicenntenial painted Alco Century 430. It's long gone now though.