MilwaukeeRoad wrote:Grandpa and I went train watching with me and told me how a steam locomotive worked when I was three. He was in the Korean war and guarded the rail yards. He also bought me I think four train sets. For his birthday last year I made him a small HO diarama. That sure brought a smile to his face.
yougottawanta wrote: MilwaukeeRoad wrote:Grandpa and I went train watching with me and told me how a steam locomotive worked when I was three. He was in the Korean war and guarded the rail yards. He also bought me I think four train sets. For his birthday last year I made him a small HO diarama. That sure brought a smile to his face. Your response brought a little smile to my face and some sadness to my heart. It sounds like you have a great Grand father. My grandfather was crippled with arthritis and he used to sit in his shop and make toys for the grandchildren , he made a wooden stage coach for me (from memory of his earlier days) I love it and cherish it because of the love he poured into it for me. Sadly he has gone on to glory. I miss him much and wish my children could have known him. Dont waste time spend every minute you can find with him.
I am incredibly sorry to hear about your grandpa..I bet he's watching trains go by in heaven as we speak. As for me, I spend a lot of time with my grandpa.
My story is different from all of yours. I was in the depths of Central Joisey (New Jersey), when I passed by Northlandz Resort. I went in there, and was inspired.
Anyone else NOT start off by a train set they somehow got?
Mister Sanders (rest his soul) who was a friend of the family gave me my first train set for Christmas when I was five years old back in 1969. It was made by Marx and was in S scale. It consisted of a NYC 0-4-2 steam loco, coal tender, box car, open hopper and caboose. It no longer runs, but I still have it and have restored it. It now sits on a shelf out in my train room. Anyway, that's what got me started in the hobby. Now I'm an N scaler - but an HO wanta be due to my eye sight not being what it use to...
Tracklayer
I've had 3 starts in Model railroading. The first was as a kid, and it was my uncle's whimsical whole room Lionel 3-rail Xmas theme layout that captured my attention.
My second go around was just out of college. My boss, who was always doing HO locomotive maintenance at his desk during lunch hour, and talking to anyone who would listen about the new locomotive or rolling stock that captured his attention at the time. As it turned out his father was an engineer on the old Wabash and later NW that I grew up around.... and a model railroader to. His enthusiasm was contagious.
My latest and third start came from a meeting of extreme boredom, and ebay. Out of boredom, I was once again trying in vain to come up with an idea for using the HO stuff I'd accumulated, and had come to the conclusion that the only way it would be remotely possible to do anything in HO would require a lot of curved turnouts. I had just bought some computer components on ebay, and it struck me to look around on there to see what was available. Some how I stumbled across an auction for an N scale Kato Super Chief A set...I was hooked.
Reality...an interesting concept with no successful applications, that should always be accompanied by a "Do not try this at home" warning.
Hundreds of years from now, it will not matter what my bank account was, the sort of house I lived in, or the kind of car I drove...But the world may be different because I did something so bafflingly crazy that my ruins become a tourist attraction.
"Oooh...ahhhh...that's how this all starts...but then there's running...and screaming..."
electrolove wrote:I must blame Joe Fugate
Gavriel609 wrote:Anyone else NOT start off by a train set they somehow got?
Yup, right here. If it had not been for my two-year old son's fascination with the choo-choos and "I Love Toy Trains" DVDs, I'd never have even thought about getting started in the hobby.
However, I intend to do my part to "corrupt" the future generations around me by giving my 4-year old (well, he will be by Christmas) nephew a train set come this Christmas.
Gavriel609 wrote: Anyone else NOT start off by a train set they somehow got?
Rio Grande. The Action Road - Focus 1977-1983
when i got married 38 years ago i was into model railroading but then i had 4 kids. so between the kids and the working 2 jobs to feed these guys model railroading went by the wayside. now the kids are gone and i have retired my wife said to me "Do you remember that thing you use to do trains?'. so i went to the local newspaper stand and bought model railroader and railroad model magazine. i was hooked once again. i am in the process of buiding a layout and i use dcc. it's fantastic
Santa brought a Lionel O Gauge train set. And, my grandpa worked for the Burlington for 42 years as a pipe fitter and a stationary boiler engineer; my uncle was in the traffic department of the Rio Grande for 40+ years.
Started my first layout around 1966. Still in HO gauge.
Yours In Model Railroading,
John
Littleton, CO
Don't laugh this is a true story.
I got into model railroading because I liked trains. Always have always will. Anyway I have a habit of biting my fingernails. MY parents said that if I quit biting my fingernails that I could get a trainset. A month later I had a brand spanking new train set.
I bite my fingernails again BTW
-Smoke
Smoke wrote:I bite my fingernails again BTW
yougottawanta wrote:I started this hobby as a way to be home with and involve my family (vs Golfing which I look comical at trying) a way to relax. Plus when I was knee high to a grass hopper I had a friend who started it and from then on I feel i n love with the engines,cars etc... What got you started? And which scale do you model N (Dave W) HO,O,G ON 30 ?
From the far, far reaches of the wild, wild west I am: rtpoteet
R. T. POTEET wrote: yougottawanta wrote:I started this hobby as a way to be home with and involve my family (vs Golfing which I look comical at trying) a way to relax. Plus when I was knee high to a grass hopper I had a friend who started it and from then on I feel i n love with the engines,cars etc... What got you started? And which scale do you model N (Dave W) HO,O,G ON 30 ? I was on a four week TDY at Vandenburg Air Force Patch back in 1962 when the Air Force stranded me there for three extra weeks completely bereft of party money so-o-o-o-o-o-o I bought the July MR and RMC to tide me over and I haven't had any party money since!!!I model in N Scale but I was an HO Scaler for twenty years.
Gandy Dancer wrote: Smoke wrote:I bite my fingernails again BTW Why, sounds like it was pretty easy to quit if you put your mind to it. Just say "no".
It's harder than you think. I am trying to stop biting them though.
It was the proverbial Lionel trains as a kid that got me started. I can still remember my father bringing out his UP passenger train he got as a kid and assembling "Plasticville" around the layout. I moved to HO scale later on in the teen years with the Athearn 'minor assembly' freight car kits and locos until Life-Like started coming out with their Proto stuff.
After giving up the hobby for a number of years, I discovered N scale some years back and was totally amazed with this small scale and the possibilities it offers for layouts. Haven't looked back since then. The quality stuff that keeps being released and improved in N scale is incredible.
There are so many railroads to choose from but my favorites are GN, UP, Soo Line, Milwaukee, C&NW (or CMO the Omaha Road) through MN and Wisconsin.
The main thing I like about model railroading is being able to recreate the outdoors (scenery) with summer greenery, moutains, etc. plus creating your own little towns and I guess world. Plus re-living the long gone past of fallen flag roads/steam engines/the "glory days". The little figures or people sets (like from Preiser) are so fun placing around a layout.
When I was 5 years old my first train set was a used Marx 3 rail metal set with tracks mounted on top of a 4X8 plywood framed base that was given to the family. It sat on the floor in the kids room and I played with it all the time.
Ryan BoudreauxThe Piedmont Division Modeling The Southern Railway, Norfolk & Western & Norfolk Southern in HO during the merger eraCajun Chef Ryan
"Train" was the first word I learned to spell. When I was around 3 years old, my father took me to see a large train display with trains running all over the place. At the time, I didn't know where it was, but I remembered seeing a Keystone sign mext to a large mock-up of a steam locomotive front...later learned it was Lionel's New York showroom. Being able to look out my bedroom window in Little Silver, N.J. and see K4's, Camelbacks, sharks and CNJ Train Masters also helped the "infection" along. On my 7th birthday, I came home to find an HO layout in my room that my father had been secretly building in the basement, complete with scenery, a Tyco B&O F7 set, and a Varney ten-wheeler. It was around this time I was learning to tell the difference between toy trains and scale models. Fifty years later, I'm still in the hobby, even still have my third loco, an AHM 0-4-0 camelback.
Dave
Just be glad you don't have to press "2" for English.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQ_ALEdDUB8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hqFS1GZL4s
http://s73.photobucket.com/user/steemtrayn/media/MovingcoalontheDCM.mp4.html?sort=3&o=27
Well, My Grandpa worked in the RR yards in Frankfort Ind for 38 years, and my Dad worked in the yards for a couple of years, then gave me his HO set when I was a kid. So, it would seem with family working in them and living next to the RR's growing up, I would say the passion is in the blood !
Well I had a train as a kid and everything, most do, but I never stuck with it. I was more into playing with Legos, G.I. Joes, and cars. I was also big into playing sports as well.
My junior year of high school I went to a friends house to help him set up a username for a fantasy basketball league. Our family's had been friends for years and his grandma was my babysitter growing up. Well his dad asked me to come check something out and it was his train room. I fell in love right away with the trains. The scenery and everything, the looks of the trains as they moved along the tracks, the yard he had. Everything was so cool and so interesting and it was something that I wanted to know more about. I talked to his dad for awhile about how much it cost and everything and figured it would be better than spending all my money and drugs and alcohol and it would keep me out of trouble, not like I was getting into any to begin with.
I came home and talked it over with my parents and we figured out a place I could put the trains. Although it wasn't much space it was enough to make use for now. I'll be moving out totally within the next 3-4 years hopefully as I'll be out looking for jobs.
Although I don't do much work I still have the passion for the hobby. I may stray from time to time but I always enjoy looking at my train collection, as I've spent over $2000 on my trains in the last 4 years, something I find impressive for a broke high school/college student. I love going to the hobby shop or train show and looking at everything thinking about what it'll look like when I finally have my own place and room to have a legit layout. Till then I'll just look at pictures online and read the magazines.
Modeling the B&O in the 50-60's
The proverbial Lionel set (from Sears) for Christmas, 1947. That same year I spent some weekends at my uncle's place outside Denver. His house backed up to the (then) Dent Subdivision of the U. P. There was the "Columbine" in the morning, and then a parede of freights in the afternoon - all steam! Just about anything that UP had, from 2-8-2s to Big Boys (usually on a break-in run sfter being shopped at Cheyenne). Of course, I was too young to know to write down engine numbers-I was too young to know how to write. Just last month I got to hear a beautiful steamboat whistle as No. 844 came by on its way to Seattle. Am I lucky, or What!
ardenastationmaster
Smoke wrote:Don't laugh this is a true story.I got into model railroading because I liked trains. Always have always will. Anyway I have a habit of biting my fingernails. MY parents said that if I quit biting my fingernails that I could get a trainset. A month later I had a brand spanking new train set.I bite my fingernails again BTW-Smoke
Did you get another train set when you gave up the second time?
I grew up next to a steep grade on a narrow guage tourist railway. The trains would really labour up those hills with 10 or 11 passenger cars, sometime double heading, and often I would sit at the window and watch then make their way slowly up the hill.
Me and my Dad joke about my interest in model railroads being genetic, and it was him that really started me on the road to actually having a layout. But the first layout we had was a real flop - we had no idea how to build a layout.Dad gave up the idea of building a layout then, but Mum (yep, that right) made the next layout as a simple oval with station, and I think it had one spur.
That layout lasted a while, but eventually I outgrew it, and from then on I have built my own layouts. Now when my Dad visits us, we normally spend at least half a day out in the train room. I model HO. Nearly always have, probably always will.