My love of trains started before I could walk or talk according to my mother. Some of that might relate to me being on the autism spectrum. I never put the trains away thru school and college years. Still enjoy them, just the price and what I enjoy has gotten....well....a bit more expensive as most are either brass or G scale/gauge one live steam. Mike
I am another born and raised on Long Island. My mom says that when I was no more than 4 she would push me in a stroller on a bridge over the LIRR Port Washington branch in Elmhurst Queens. If a train was going underneath I would sit up to see what the racket was all about.
DonRicardo"when did you fall in love with trains?".
Probably around the same time that I fell in love with girls...that would've been when I was three.
Wayne
Growing up in Hannover (Germany) in the 1950/1960s, our family never had a car. Still, we did a lot of hiking trips close to Hannover and once a year a summer vacation on beaches in Denmark or the Netherlands, or in the Austrian alps, all by train. Thus, trains are associated with lots of fond memories of my childhood.
When I was about nine years old, we moved to a different part of Hannover. Our new apartment was about a mile away from one of Germany's major north-south railroad lines between Hannover and Wuerzburg. At least once a week, I would ride my bike to a bridge over this line. In the beginning, there were still trains pulled by steam engines. Then, it was mostly electric locomotives.
Always loved trains, since I was 4 or 5.
Never lived out west, but my first trainset was Santa Fe, have tried to model railroads here where I grew up in PA, but always revert to my primary Santa Fe interest. So that is why my name on here is what it is. At times have dabbled in eastern roads.
We had a big mural of Bryce Canyon on the basement wall behind our train layout. That mural kinda led me to always be in love with the historical American West. I've been to Cajon, Tehachapi, along the ATSF in Az, and have even gotten to Tombstone and Tucson. Of course got to Grand Canyon and Bryce Canyon twice and have ridden the Grand Canyon Railway.
John
I think that trains, for me, were a foregone conclusion. I grew up in South East Michigan so the 1225 and 765 were visited often by my family. A primary vacation activity was going to train museums as well.
i didn't fall in love with them .. i just like them
I got my first HO train set at Christmas following my 8th B-day, it was on a 4x8 Xmas tree platform which went to the basement where I could play with it all year. That lead to a lifetime of fiddeling with anything electro-mechanical.
In the early 60's, Ibuilt my first layout on a 5x9 platform in the attic, with hard shell scenery per the articles in MR. By late high school, I was scratch-building structures and RR cars. Built a portable switching layout.
Late 20's I shifted to scratchbuilding R/C boats... most in HO scale in case a future layout had room for a dock scene. Took a side trip to R/C airplanes for a while. This was followed by years of playing with British sports cars.
After getting "domesticated" (wife & kids), I returned to model trains, I built 2 layouts, which were interrupted by moves; I'm currently on my 3rd room size layout now that we're in our "final retirement house". Now that I have more time to devote to the hobby, I'm enjoying it all the more and delving into new areas.
Jim
A long time ago in a galaxy far far away.
Rio Grande. The Action Road - Focus 1977-1983
When did I fall In love with trains?
December 1996 - Jaunary 1997
Started with the usual Thomas/Brio, used that from 1997-2000
Got my first HO Scale Life-Like Set around Jaunary 1999, had it until mid or late 2001.
Got my first Lehmann Gross Bahn (LGB) Set in June 2001. I still have it today.
Went back to HO Scale sometime in 6th grade and joined a Modular Club in 2013/2014. This will be my tenth year.
I do two scales: G and HO Scale.
Are you a PRR fan? We had Western Maryland running through the bottom of our farm, took the PRR from Harrisburg (loved thos K-4s!) to Buffalo, NY then took the NYC to Erie along the Lake...went to school in Erie.
Loved the WM 2-8-0s too, still love steam!
When I was 4 or 5 years old. I had all the Brio and Thomas ERTL trains. I had my first train set when I was 5 years old and it was a Bachmann HO set. I was mature for my age and I was able to handle it. Ironically it was older people in my life who treated it like a toy and who damaged it by running them too fast and having them fly off the tracks when I tried to run a DC Bachmann diesel at prototypical speed as best as I could on a simple DC controller.
Dogs, cats, kids (an adult is a kid in a matured body), and wives can all be detrimental to the health and well being of a layout.
I built a small n scale layout with my youngest son, Kevin, and my second son, Chris, brought his friend Adam over one day, and set the engines on fire to see how long they would run, Aside form thre fact that we almost had a major conflagration, the lay ot was ruined.
"Son, what's WRONG with you?"
When I was 3 years old my parents took me on the train at our zoo and I got hooked. My first set was a geotrax steamer set. I began watching I love toy trains at 5 years old. In first grade I got my first model train, it was the Bachmann pacific flyer and my collection grew from there.