What brough you into the model train world

[Billwiz]

Dad set up the Lionel's at Christmas, my uncle set up the American Flyers. I have great memories of those trains.

 

I eventually went HO. 

Also had a wind up Marx. Today dad's trains still run next to the HO.

[crhostler61]

I was born into the hobby...so to speak. There were trains under the Christmas tree when I came into the world kicking and screaming. Between the Christmas railroad, my dad's enthusiasm for trains, watching Reading trains in Reading, and riding to Philadelphia on the train with my family...did nothing but boost the intersest. But the magic happened when I was 9 and my dad arranged a ride on a Reading freight train with a locomotive engineer relative of his. That was it...I was sold. My first real locomotive was a Reading RS3. I got the train bug...and it's been with me since. That was 44 years ago. I did rounds with clubs, some RR volunteer work and some time as a RR professional.

The proverbial snowball just kept getting bigger.

I'll probably get buried with my trains...when the time comes. LOL.

Mark H

[dknelson]

At some point, before my earliest very specific memories which start about age 2 or 3, I was given a wind-up train set, likely Marx.  It was a black metal streamlined steam loco (shaped somewhat like the Hiawatha 4-4-2 steam loco) and a few cars, with tab and slot couplers.  I believe it was used when I got it because I remember chips in the paint right from the start.  I clearly remember having it and playing with it - I do not remember getting it.  Then I got a second wind up train that ran on the same track and had the same couplers so it was likely also Marx.  It had a plastic steam locomotive and if memory serves, a battery powered headlight you could turn on and off.  It is quite possible it was bought used as well. The two rail track was probably 0-27 in size.   I don't remember getting that one either.

I had various kiddie train books too so I assume I exhibited interest in the trains that ran through town even before getting the toys and books.

I was probably five when I got my first Lionel train set, an oval of track with the 520 electric locomotive.  I do remember getting that at Christmas, and opening the brownish cross-hatched Lionel Electric Trains box it came in.  I even remember the smell!   It came with a pulp paper 1957 Lionel Accessories catalog in the box which I just about wore out.   It said on the cover "Gee Pop, you got 'em."  I wanted everything in that catalog!  I did not succeed.

I just found a photo of it online; here is the link

http://www.lioneltrainspaper.com/annual/acc1956.jpg

 

I wish I still had all those trains.  And all my Lionel catalogs.  But decades later when I was an adult my mom found two complete Lionel trainsets at rummage sales that she got me sort of as joke gifts.  She paid $15 for one set (track, transformer, plastic steam locomotive and "chuffing" tender, and two cars plus caboose) and an amazing $1 for another complete set that had a die cast 2-4-2 steam loco.   Now and then I set up a Lionel oval under a Christmas tree. 

I got into HO in the early 1960s - not sure of the exact year but my first HO trainset was from when Penn Line trains were being sold at close out prices, so early 1960s.  Maybe age 9 or 10.  I still have three of the Penn Line freight cars but not the F7 or caboose.  My dad did splurge on a MRC Ampack which I still have.  It probably cost as much as the train set. 

I started buying MR in late 1964 and my subscription started with January 1965. 

Even after I switched from Lionel to HO I kept getting the yearly Lionel catalogs because they were free and could sill generate powerful reactions -- I was fascinated with the big Berkshire and the NYC F units.  I would also get the yearly Tyco catalogs;  they remind me most of the Lionel.  We are talking mid 1960s here. 

I didn't start buying Trains magazine until 1966 or so.

Dave Nelson

 

[zstripe]

''insanity''.  

Seriously: S-scale 1946/47, Trainset....HO-scale 1950/51, Varney trainset. I was born in Chgo.....no matter where You turned, there was a streetcar, Train or truck....very easy, to fall in line, with sooo many to choose from.

Take Care! 

Frank

[Doughless]

A visit to the Museum of Science and Industry's HO scale display when I was 6 years old.

[MJ4562]

Model train sets as a kid and Grandpa played with trains.  

traintravler

If you have a local hobby shop that came up for sale and could buy it, would you buy it? (just curios).

I like cake too but doesn't mean I want to own a bakery.

[stokesda]

When I was a kid, my dad dabbled briefly in the hobby. He started to build a layout on a 4x8 sheet of plywood, but never made it out of the benchwork stage. He bought a few Athearn BB locomotives from a local hobby shop. One set was a powered and dummy U33B decorated for SCL (both had the same road number, mind you!). The other was an Amtrak FP45, with a few Amtrak passenger cars to go with it. We also had a Tyco steam engine train set - the Clementine 0-8-0 with the mechanism in the tender. As kids, my brother and I had fun playing with them and running them on brass track that we put together on the floor.

I still have those old locomotives. I converted one U33B to a U36B and super detailed it a few years ago. I stripped the FP45 and plan to detail it and paint it in the ATSF Super Fleet scheme one of these days. Not sure what I'll do with the old Clementine loco.

[Steven S]

Before I was born my father bought some American Flyer trains for my older sisters.   I think they only set it up around the Christmas tree each year.   When I got to be about 7, my dad built a permanent layout for them.   It was 'L' shaped and was about 13' x 8'.   There wasn't much in the way of scenery, just a couple of papier-mache mountains and some trees and bushes made from pine cones and sweetgum balls.   It was only a foot off the ground so I could walk around on it if a car needed rerailing.

 

Steve S

[RR_Mel]

I got my start with a Christmas gift in 1945, my Dad somehow found a Lionel O-27 2-6-2 train set and put it under the tree.  WWII had made finding a train set almost impossible but my Dad found one.  Later on in life I found out what that gift really cost.  We were living in northern Utah and that winter was a real bad one.  My Dad needed a tire for the car and tires were rationed.  My Dad had a ration coupon the tire, the tire and the train were both $8.  Money was very tight and my Dad chose to walk two miles to work in the snow and gave me the train.  That Christmas gift hooked me on trains forever!

 

Later on in 1951 I was shopping with my Mother and saw a Model Railroad Handbook and I talked her into buying it.  There was a four page article on John Allen’s Gorre & Daphetid Railroad and that did it for me.  I’ve been a HO scale Model Railroader ever since.  John was my Model Railroad Mentor, my first two layouts were copies of the G&DRR.

 

Mel

 

 

Modeling the SP in HO scale since 1951

 

My Model Railroad   

http://melvineperry.blogspot.com/

 

Bakersfield, California

 

[traintravler]

I was taking care of things in the yard when I started thinking about how I got into model trains and rc vehicles.  Way back when i was in kindegarten or first grade, I was given a small train set that consisted of an engine and maybe 2 or 3 cars. A couple of years later I got a rc 3 wheeler. I went back and forth between the two i played with and wore both of them out. Never sure what happened to the train set after that. I build a few other rc cars and lost interest for a while. Maybe 5 or 6 years ago i really got back into model trains and started doing something with it off and on.

 

So, How did others here in the forum start? 

If you have a local hobby shop that came up for sale and could buy it, would you buy it? (just curios).