Santa Claus brought me Marx electric trains for Christmas when I was three years old and Lionel starting when I was five. By then, I noticed what was just out the back door...
Gandy Dancer wrote: yougottawanta wrote:What got you started? And which scale do you model N, HO, O, G On30 ? Nothing got me started. All I can figure it was in my blood from birth. I started with HO. I tried O, S, and even switched 100% to N, but always end up going back to HO. I also have Fn3 (G-gage track uses as 3' gauge).
yougottawanta wrote:What got you started? And which scale do you model N, HO, O, G On30 ?
My first trainset was an O scale Lionel that my dad gave me when I was 4. My curiousity got the best of me though when he woke up one morning and saw I had taken the engine apart to see what made it work.
My first real step into the hobby came in the form of an AHM train set with a a figure-8 track arrangement. We mounted that on a sheet of plywood and I was hooked ever since. I soon found out my great-grandfather on my dad's side had modeled the New Haven in HO and all his leftovers were stored in my grandmothers attic so I eagerly rummaged through the boxes and tripled the size of my collection. I still have most of his stuff which is in running condition. Some of the cars have very interesting couplers... well before the standardized X2F horn hooks, never mind Kadee's.
Modeling the fictional B&M Dowe, NH branch in the early 50's.
Humm.... Pyscologically speaking, It could be that, when I was in second grade, the boys down the block had a neat Lionel layout set up on a board in their bedroom. I asked for and got a train (HO) for Christmas and my Dad said he would make a layout and put it up on a board etc. That never happened and probally planted the seed in my subconscious that said "I need a layout on a board.
Of course, it could be I just like trains and enjoy building models and such.....and have a morbid fear of ever having extra money laying around not spent!!!
Tilden
I had told my wife that when our first child was born I was buying a train to go under the Christmas tree. She jumped the gun and bought me a train the Christmas she was pregnant. The next day I discovered a copy of Model Railroader, November 1971 (overseas PX was a little slow in magazines). And so it went from there.
Enjoy
Paul
My dad bought me a train for Christmas when I was 3. I don't have much memory of him trying to take the controls from me, though I do remember him building a plywood prarie for the track.
He likes to tell people we moved to Texas to buy a house so I had someplace to set up my train.
Now I have a building here in Virginia behind my house for the trains. My wife tells people we bought the house for the trains, which is not really far from the truth !
A hand-me-down American Flyer S-gauge train set from my much older cousins...
Tom
https://tstage9.wixsite.com/nyc-modeling
Time...It marches on...without ever turning around to see if anyone is even keeping in step.