What kind of train did you start with

[Anonymous]

I got my first train set when I was three (late 1980s), an HO set containing a Santa Fe diesel with 3 cars and a caboose, which also included was track. The set continues to grow, with a Rivarossi 4-6-6-4 and an Athearn 2-8-2. Soon I hope to build a layout so I can run all of what I own!

Jen

[Anonymous]

Wow,I started this topic a long time ago and am pleased it still survives!I heard a saying today I`m going to share with you....There`s a fine line between "Hobby"and "Mental illness".I think I`m both. Gerald

[Anonymous]

My first train set was a TYCO Clementine 0-8-0 locomotive set w/ smoke. IT smoked for 1/10th of a second as the wire inside the boiler went "up in smoke" but it ran ok and came with a trains worth of cars and a circle of track. I have since dismantled the engine trying to get at that elusive smoke wire...well the engine is in many...many pieces now. My last attempt to use it on a past layout was to put just the boiler and cab in a deep pile of green ground cover and call it an old wreck. The caboose and gold dumping car still work though.
Matt

[Anonymous]

My very first train in 1950 at age 3 was a tinplate Marx set, which I totally trashed as a 3 year old.

My first real train came in 1953 when my dad built me a 4x8 layout with a pair of Lionel FA's and a 2-6-4 steamer, plus a lot of rolling stock. They got everything at Lobaugh's the forerunner of all hobby shops. My favorite car, even more than the operating junk, was an dull pumpkin orange NYC boxcar. I had a grandmother who really disliked me, but got me the nicest gift ever, an N5C PRR porthole caboose.
In a fit of total stupidity, we sold my "obsolete" Lionel stuff for $20 to buy an HO Gilbert set with the switcher and tender. Learning from the first experience, I still have all of my trains since 1959.

[Anonymous]

Some of my earliest memories are of my father running my great-grandfathers lionel sets in the basement of their first house. I would just sit and watch the thing go 'round and 'round, only one of the engines worked, and for some reason, he never thought to have the others looked at. I think we had about 5. When Iwas about 10, I got my first set, the HO scale Clemntine by Tyco. I ran that train for about 6mos, until I stripped the gears out of it by playing with it on the wood floor. Ooops. I still have some of the cars that came with that set, I remember going to Greenbergs train show and buying an Amtrak passenger engine to run the train, I still have that and it still works. I didn't have much interest in model trains as a teen, the discovery of girls and guitars taking most of my time then. Besides, trains weren't cool, I'm sure most of you can relate. Now, after about a 15 yr haitus, I'm running trains again, much to my girlfriends chagrin.

[Anonymous]

I STARTED BACK IN 1948,WHEN MY DAD WENT TO YAKIMA WASH.,AND BOUGHT LIONEL STEAM ENFINE 2020/TENDER,TWO DOME TANK,UNLOADING LOG CAR,WREACKER,MILK CAR, AND CABOOSE,THE ONLY ONE I HAVE RETIRED IS 2020 STEAM ENGINE,VERY MUCH HAS BEEN ADDED TO THIS DATE,BUT DONT HAVE LAYOUT IN mobile HOME, so play on samll layout at rain store in PUYALLUP WASH,AND ENTERTAINE KID OF ALL AGES ,EVERY SAT AND SUNDAY "TRACKSIDE TRAINS"EVERY THING I COLLECT I RUN,JUST HAD GIVEN TOME LAST SAT BNSF RED & SILVER DASH-8,THE PERSON GIVING SAID HE HAD TOOOO MANY ENGINE'S,WEB SITE (TRACKSIDETRAINS.NET)FULL LAYOUT 58 BY 34 IN "L" SHAPE>>>>IN STORE SIZE ABOUT 24 BY 20 IN " L " SHAPE >>>>>> AKA HUB

[Anonymous]

I started 7 years ago, when I was 9, with an HO scale Bachmann Smokey Mountain Express.

I started in O scale 2 years ago with the Lionel Construction Site Set, and have expanded gradually.

[Anonymous]

I asked Santa for some futuristic train that had some type of gray snap together track and carried ore and had conveyors. As I remember the set also had a molded in gear track down the center so the thing could climb walls also. (I don't know how the ore stayed in). Well I was some what disappointed that Christmas of 1972 when he brought me a Tyco set instead. It was a 36" circle of track, Santa fe F7 in frieght blue, with the red caboose that looked more like a Pennsylvania prototype. It came with a B&M blue hopper, A green Western Maryland flat car with tractors and a white JC Penny box car. (I wonder where Santa got it) Well dad put the track on a piece of plywood that he painted green. He also painted light grey roads and a darker grey for the track roadbed. (no ballast) He used tongue depressers as ramps for the road crossings. It had casters so it could roll under a twin sized bed. I can't tell you how many hours or how many scale miles that train put out but I ran it like that for a good 3 years. I still have that original plywood board but I took the track off so I could expand it. (should have seen the look on dads face when he found out). I still have all the components of that original set and the 3 others that Santa brought me over the years. It still can run (about the only thing I did to it was lube the engine and change the couplers to Kadee) I am still in HO today, although I do own some N scale stuff, and I thank my lucky stars that Santa brought me the wrong set.

Kevin

p.s. see some of my model work at www.geocities/krskev

[Anonymous]

Me too,and still have it. About 30 yrs old but needs new wheels. Sure would like to find some.

[Anonymous]

Twenty five years ago (boy has it really been that long) my son Steven was given at christmas by his grandparents a train set. It was a F7 CP loco with several cars, track, power pack - enough track to make up samll oval. We spent time together setting it up and once running Steve soon lost interest (he was more interested in slot cars at the time) but not I - I was hooked for life. I've been as stated above involved in the hobby for over twenty five years and looking forward to another twenty five years (The good Lord willing.) I've come a long way since that Tyco train set but you know what I wish I would have kept that loco as a reminder or those early years. Recently found the instruction booklet that went with that train set and it brought back a flood of happy memories. So a little bit of advice to you guys (and gals) starting out in model railroading - as you progress dont get rid of that very first locomotive - keep it as a reminder of your early skils and as you improuve within the hobby look back at it sometimes and see what a truly wonderful hobby model railroading is.
Keep on trackin

Rudy Montreal Canada

[Anonymous]

Speaking of memories and traditions, I got my start in model railroading from my father who has been a hobbyist all his life. He began before I was born by creating model circuses. He sewed tents, scratchbuilt circus wagons, and hand carved people and animals. His setup would take up about 3/4 of his back yard at the time. After a number of years of this, he became involved in HO gauge railroading around the time of my birth (1967). He created a 5'x9'layout complete with a winter scene based upon Williamsport,Pa. and the PRR.I have vague memories of sitting on his lap being enthralled as the trains went 'round and 'round. During this time he scratchbuilt many different structures out of balsa including a church,little red school house, barn, general store, bank, factory, log cabin and a warehouse. On the bottom of each building he inscribed in pencil such things as "made Feb 1969-for Matt's 2nd birthday; made Feb 1970-for Matt's 3rd birthday" etc.
By the time I was about 6 or so he gave up model railroads in favor of other pursuits and has never got back into the hobby. (He is now an avid fly fisherman and carves duck decoys.)
All my dad's railroad items were packed into his attic (beside the wooden crates of circus stuff).
When I moved out of my parent's home, I became extremely devoted to model railroading and "confiscated" my dad's railroad boxes.My current layout incorporates all my dad's things into it including a wonderful running Rivarossi Hudson and a beautiful PRR 2-8-2. Also all those stuctures have or will have a home on my layout. And though they may not be super-detailed or in some cases not exactly to scale, I would never give them up for a craftsman kit replacement or a "better" proto-typical representation of the real thing.
I love to watch my dad's eyes when he visits my home and sees all his old things being enjoyed by me. I hope that when I'm old and gray my son will respect and take an interest in such memories.

Happy Railroading!!
Matt

[Anonymous]

I vaguely remember getting what was probably a Marx set when I was about 4 that I was too young to even know how to put on the tracks. When I was about 6 and after months of begging I got a Lionel 3 rail set which I have no clue what happened to. I remember dropping it off our oak table unto the floor several times - it was very fast! Nothing ever seemed to hurt it.
I got into 'serious' railroading around 1978 when I was about 10. My mom bought me a Bachmann N scale set with an oval of track and a loco and cars in Burlington Route. We lived near Burlington Northern tracks and I remember thinking it was the same thing! That original set was added to every Christmas and birthday for several years after that. By the time I was in my 20's I had at least 150 cars and several locos.
I also dabbled in HO in high school because I was tired of track problems with N scale. Ironically, I switched back to N later because I found the newer (or maybe I was just an older, more mature track-layer) N stuff more reliable than HO. I also liked that you could pull about as many cars as you had track to put them on with hardly any of the problems associated with long trains in HO.
Anyway, recently I've been buying up HO sets on clearance every year after Christmas when the bug got me again... hard! I've spent the past several months dabbling with the sets I've stockpiled, but have decided to return to N and have already begun planning layouts and buying track. I also have a Lionel Safari set I bought this winter (after Christmas clearance, of course!) that I set up for my twin sons. I can't wait for them to get old enough to share this with me. My 5 year old daughter is already an accomplished engineer!
Well, I guess I've rambled enough...

[Anonymous]

Gerald, I started in 1959 with a lionel o gauge.It was the super chief with four passenger cars. I did the same thing, sold it to finance my ho layout. ALKCNW

[edo1039]

The set I refered to was purchased in 1949.I model in HO and THE NEW HAVEN is what I model late fifties early sixties.Ed

[edo1039]

I received my first train set when I was 10 yrs old my Dad purchsed a Lionel set for me as aChristmas present,dont know who had the most fun with it that day.I still own this set and it comes out every christmas and goes around our tree.After my first son was born I purchased a TYCO set for him on his fifth birthday and I know who had all the fun with it!! He still owns the set today.Ed

[bluepuma]

When I was about 8 (in '56) I got a Marx 0-4-0 NY Central set with tinplate cars with 4 wheels, printed graphics sides (with trucks), plastic couplers (fixed knuckle). I spent my allowance to buy extra track, manual switches. A couple of years later got a Lionel with a GE switcher, like a big version of the 44 ton, maybe 70 ton, and the cars all had magnetic couplers, (electromagnet uncoupler track) plastic bodies, it was pretty deluxe. I prized it. I lost it all when all my stuff when in storage at 16 after mom died. I always took good care of my toys, so my younger brother never broke my trains! Ran both. Made a long run on the concrete patio slab in the summer, had reversing loops at both ends (no short-out problem with 027 3-rail) after I removed the joiners and put them in the other end on one track section. Got a book with model railroads with 3-rail Lionel with scenery, etc. just like we see now in MR, but for me it was the first time I saw trains as models instead of toy. I didn't like the look of 3 rail, but sure liked my train and extra track, stuff better than American Flyer (never saw any add on stuff for that). My track came from Sears (Catalog order) or Montgomery Wards.

Got my Atlas N scale set in '69 for Christmas from my wife at the time, was my first christmas after getting out of the USAF. Santa Fe 4-6-2, I added a Arnold FA2 in Penn Central, some switches, cars, more track. Still dreamed of a real layout. It was noisy, derailed a lot at the switches, ran too fast at the slowest speed, then I clogged the loco gears with carpet lint, took it back to Sears, they exchanged it. (Should have had Kato UniTrack then). I put the set away on the shelf, saw it, thought about the layout I still wanted to build. Two May's ago, got MR, subscribed, ordered some N-scale stuff (eHobbies) and took out my old train set, power pack, etc., bought a 31x48 inch board, set the track/trains on it. Ran stuff.

Even in N scale, I want a bigger layout than I can build or have room for. I want to watch trains, build scenes, still want a long run, turn around loops at both ends. - tom *still a kid at heart*

[BR60103]

It took me a while before I got to the Tri-ang princess. I've always been in Canada.
The first train I can remember was a windup Rheingold in tinplate, probably in the late 40's; then a windup Hornby O-gauge and then an electric Hornby O-gauge. The next one I picked myself and I chose Lionel, which I stuck with until age 13 when I bought an Athearn RDC set and moved into HO and OO.

See you guys at the Great Briti***rain show?

David the Platelayer.

[Anonymous]

i started 7 years ago with a Bachmann HO set--the Smokey Mountain Express. i got my first Lionel 2 yrs ago-- the construction special.

[Anonymous]

In 1979 I was given my mother's Lionel 2035 train set. It was perfect and wonderful with an operating milk car and hobo car. I thought it was the best thing since sliced bread (and I had alot of new fancy toys to compare it to). Best of all, this had been my mother's toy when she was little.

Now, my memory isn't very good as to exactly what happened, but one day the train stopped working. My father and my grandfather were angry and upset with me and told me I had "ruined" it. The train set sat in a box for over 20 years. My father bought a few other engines, a few other tansformers, and some track at garage sales but to the best of my knowlege he never got the train running again. I suspect that reason he never got it to work again was because he didn't have a clue how to set up the train. The other engines he bought were fine (except a bit beat up), the track he bought was a horrible bent up mess, and the other transformers he bought would have burnt down the house.

It never occured to any of these men to actually take the train into a train shop and have someone look at it. After 20 years of wallowing in guilt, my mother and I took out the train set. It was as perfect as I remembered it. She and I made a trip to the local Lionel service stop and it took the man less then 10 minutes to fix the train. It is now up and running in the basement of our home. And, my husband, my mother, and I are planning our first 4 by 8 lay out with tunnels and all.

So, my mother's first and current train is my first and current train. Now, if I can only convince my husband that we can't run the train up a grade higher then 4% (and I'm not even sure the old train will do that) everything will be ok.

[Anonymous]

Although it was about 30 years in between my first and my current model trains, my first one was an American Flyer over/under figure eight freight set with the cardboard trestle pieces. The engine was a C&NW Baldwin diesel switcher with the forward/reverse switch on top of the hood.

My second train and my all-time favorite toy was a Marx "Train With a Brain" set. What a product that was! For those not familiar - it was a plastic, battery powered steam engine switcher with a couple of working freight cars and plastic track. There were cams on the ties and mechanical switches under the loco that caused it to change directions and run into spurs etc. I'd love to find another one someday...... :-)

[Anonymous]

Mike,

You beat me by a few years. In 1952 (London, England) my Dad got me a Triang 'OO' set complete with Pricess Class loco, two coaches and the old gray track with roadbed. We added to the roster and track until about 1959 when we emigrated to Canada. At that point, my Dad got into HO and then the bug got into me. Been railroading ever since! Funny enough, after a lot of childhood train collisions, falling off benches etc, that old Princess still runs........

Robin of Brampton
[e-mail]

[Anonymous]

Good topic & good response Gerald!
My first: plastic windup British OO set in 1948
[ I was 5 ]Then, Trix Twin 3-rail AC set 1951 and I still have the 4-4-0 engine and tender.
Also from 1951, still have an 0-6-2 OO/HO white metal windup engine that ran on the Trix track.
We moved to Canada in 1952.
Next was Marx O27 size set in 1953.Still have the transformer and a couple of freight cars.
Went into HO scale to stay, in 1957, with an Athearn GP9 [GP7]freight set.I still have that engine [converted to an early 60's gear drive from Hi-F rubber band ].It runs very well. All those 1957 freight cars run on my current [5th] HO layout, albeit with weathering, and Kadee wheels and couplers.Added a lot of HO in the 45 years since starting.
regards \Mike\ Meaford Ont Canada

[Anonymous]

I'm very lucky in that in a sense I've had 3 "beginnings". The first actual train set/train I received was a Christmas present, in either '66 or '67; it was a Tri-ang Midland Blue Pullman, scale probably OO, with an oval of track and a transformer. I certainly loved that train set, but unfortunately mine is the story I've seen a few times among these recollections - I didn't appreciate what I'd got, and with time I became seperated from the set, which (predictably enough!) I understand is now quite rare and sought after - indeed, the most recently I saw one was at the National Railway Museum, York (England, in case anyone's wondering!). I only returned to the hobby about a year ago, this time with the intention of doing something more serious and feasible than ever occurs to any but the most practical children (and I don't count myself among their number - otherwise I'd probably still have my Midland Blue Pullman set...); my second "beginning" saw me buy a Hornby "Flying Scotsman" OO set, with a train pack of 3 British Railways crimson Mark I carriages accompanied by ex LNER A-4 Pacific loco "Guillemot" (I love A-4s, and I think it was my primary goal to get at least one model... I now own 9 jointly with my wife, as big - if not bigger - an enthusiast as I am). I'm also lucky in that, because my wife's family is Canadian, we have the opportunity to also model in HO, something we started quite recently, with a Bacmann Spectrum Consolidation (Western Maryland fireball), as well as a Canadian National zebra-liveried F7A, and a set made by Mehano for the "President's Choice" range, featuring the preserved CN Mountain 6060, together with some very nice freight cars.

Sorry to have gone on so long...

Best wishes,

Neil B, Sheffield, UK

[Anonymous]

I guess i am at the lowest of the low.Mine was TYCO.

[Anonymous]

Well I beat you by a few years with my first American Flyer set, 1949. Had a lot of fun with it but really didn't respect it I guess. I use to like to set the track up with one end up on a bed and pylons of books running to the floor. Let the cars run down and smash into things at the bottom. Now I wish I had it back, but like a lot of other things it's gone. (grin) - Walt

[Anonymous]

Gerald,

To the best I can remember, it was an HO Scale Tyco train set about twenty years ago (that would have made me about five years old).

I grew up (literally) within a stones throw of the local station - about a hundred feet or so away in a rural community in NY.

The magic never left me. I still love my trains, although I am a couple of thousands of miles away from NY now and I am into N scale now.

But it is all for the love of the trains, isn't it? :)

Joseph

[Anonymous]

My first train was given to me when I was Two years old in 1969 and it was N scale. My mom took a picture of the first set up on the coffee table with my dad and me putting it together. with regular trips to see the real trains in action and then comming home to play with the trains, I WAS HOOKED:-)! I don't have the old N scale stuff but have some of the later HO stuff Now some 34 years later I Have my 4year old son involved! I started with him as soon as I got him home when He was Born. I have the pictuer of My dad and me when is was two working on my first train next to the pictuer of My son and I working on the christmas layout! I take him to see the real trains as well as the train shows! This hobby can really bond a father and son, and help develop a sence of triditon. Chris

[Anonymous]

Joe, My dad is from around State College PA. We
both model the PRR. I think thats part of my
trouble being so attached to railroading. Is be-
cause of PRR influence with the family.

[snowey]

I know what you mean, Ross, my dad always ha trains set up for us when I was little, but noones interested anymore, exept me. Although, my nefew is starting to show an interest in them. That's right, he has a birthday coming up in a few months. HMMMM....