Most of us talk about our current layouts and how we built them. The new fancy locomotives, rolling stock, and structures we just purchased. We either got in to trains after being an armchair railroader for a while, when we retired, empty nester with a room available. But A lot of us began out love affair with model trains when we were children. As either a pre-teen or a teenager. How did you start out? What kind of trains and Layout? Was it a continuous loop or figure eight on the living room floor, or your bedroom? What did you do for scenery, buildings? I started in the late 50's with American Flyer and my first mountain/Tunnel was made from old shoe boxes, buildings from pop-cycle sticks. How about you? Want to share your story. See ya Ron
I guess I'll skip the part when I got my first trainset in 1962 m/l... when I was 5. Back at that time the tinplate O scale battery operated gift was more of a toy than a hobby. BUT... It left an impression on me because about 3 years later I met a friend that had electric Lionel trains and that sparked my interest in model railroading. I think that friends FATHER was the real model railroader... but... it was really the first time I saw trains as a hobby and not just a toy. That year I got my first electric train for Xmas... it was HO of course.
Started out as a little feller I was brought up alongside the PRR tracks in western PA, and almost all of the grandpappies and uncles worked on the railroad in one form or another. My first train was Christmas 1952 as a 4 year old watching the wind up Marx running under the tree and keeping it up under my bed year round. I stayed with model railroading and went to Lionel, but had some hiatus when we moved to Florida, we had to use my layout in a hurricane to panel a window, I started chasing women, sports, college, marriage, and my last of many restarts was back in 1982 when I was injured playing tennis. I never stopped, but changed to N in 1982. Maintained the enthusiasm and energy level since. Ken "FloridaBoy"Willaman
Before I started school in 1968, Dad had a small set up of Lionel on the basement floor and our neighbor had a S scale setup on a 4x8. A few years later he brought home an over/under figure 8 in HO. The actual bug didn't bite until 1976 when I bought my first Tyco trainset. Then while in high school, a friend showed me the light, his N scale 4x8. And know you know the rest of the story....
I started out with a pull toy that did not have tracks but soon graduated to "helping" my older brothers with their Marx 027 tin plate. In the early 1960's one of my brothers built me a Lone Star 000 layout on a 3X4 foot plywood base. Although the rails were 9mm apart and the scale was roughly N, I still had problems defining the overall scale. (Kids will play) I acquired more track, some European structures and started redesigning the layout. However it soon became evident that I needed more room. So I moved on to a 4X6 foot plywood base and laid out a new track plan using cork roadbed and Atlas flex track and snap track. Unfortunately I can not find any photos of that layout. But I sure had fun running trains round and round on it. This is the track plan that I found in some old paperwork I recently rediscovered.
When I was little I used to scoot dads (now I know VERY nice Kato's) around his layout. Friends as well as dad would cringe and say DON'Tdo that!!! I really got started myself at about 9 years old. Highball GP38 SP speed lettered, I had got some cheap acrylic paing at the store and repainted it. That dummy got so many paint jobs that the door and hinge detail started to disappear!!! Then after a while I discovered the wonderful thing that was dads Badger A200... Then there was also the crude 6' x 3' layout... One has to start somewhere.
Sometime around THIS: I don't have an exact date but I think summer of 1976...it should be pretty easy to figure out with a little research. But I believe that I was very close to turning 4 years old in this photo. In reality, I *think* I had some toy trains at this point and I believe I would get my first Lionel set a few months later.
About 1949-1950 with a old three rail Lionel and 1958-59 with HO. Started with N scale in about 1972-73.
Christmas 1954 Santa gave me a Lionel train set. I was 6. I've still got it, though it doesn't run very well. I think I wore out the brushes. An HO trainset arrived sometime in High School. I've still got it. Started in N Christmas of 1971. There is a pattern ther.
Christmas 1958 , Mtn Home Idaho . My dad had just retired from the Air Force and he must have been feeling something as that was the best Christmas I ever had as the rest was all down hill after that . Anyway I got my first Lionel train set and still have the engine # 2026 2-6-4 something ... about 22 years later : Pacific Wide West & Rocky Bar Rail Road was first conceived in 1979 in Corona CA. Its first rail was laid on a 2’ x 3’ plywood board in the owner’s garage and served nopurpose other than to go round and round on an oval track. In 1981 the line expanded in Long Beach CA to a mining operation and small MOW crew to serve a single engine branch. It used UP track for a time to bring ore to the smelter located some twenty miles from the mine. At this time it owned one FM 10-44 while UP was running steam ( I think ) and a GP of unknown origin ( not bad for a 1940’s rail road ) . When the line went bankrupt in 1983 , the owener got divorced and the road was moved back to Mtn Home Idaho where the owner was from, along with 3 daughters who could give a hoot about trains , the logging operation attempted to compete with Boise Cascade ….Silly people … Needless to say … it went bankrupt again and moved to Sandpoint Idaho now with second wife and five children , now 4 girls still not giving a hoot as they now discovered boys and one boy who's intrest was in body building and weight lifting, in 1989. After licking its wounds and being dormant for nearly 20 years, the owner thinks he hit the lottery and started up the line once again, hoping the creek don’t rise. This time, with a blessing from the Lord , and limited financial support but no practical experience in running a rail road, the owner enlisted the aid of many worthy rail road owners from the Train Board with the hopes that this time …. He may be more successful. If you have been issued a pass on the PWW&RB RR, you will need to ride on thelog car/s as we do not have passenger cars or caboose’s as of yet. May Godbless you and hang on tight! Pretty much sums up 55 years of on and off rail roading first in O27 then in N ... Paul
Somewhere around the late 70s, I want to say summer of 1978 I kept bugging my Dad to get the trains out of the closet. I was only 3 at the time. Well finally he gave in and got some of his HO scale setup on the family room floor with a loop of track, a couple cars, a loco, and a caboose. I was hooked instantly. Shortly there after, my Mom found out she was pregnant and the HO scale got sold off and we downsized to N scale in 1979. As a kid, I lived about a mile away from the crossing in Napavine, Wa and I could hear the trains grinding their way up the hill coming out of Chehalis. When I would hear the trains coming up the hill I would hopion my Schwinn Stingray and ride down to the crossing with my 110 instamatic camera in hand. You would not believe some of the stuff I saw in consists. Well that is just a short story of how I got "the bug". Now with me having a 6 yr old boy, he has also got bitten with "the bug", I just can't imagine where he got it from! LOL
I was allowed to play with my eight-year older brother's Lionels in the late 1930's. In 1947 we sold all the pre-war Lionel equipment (DUMB!!!!) and switched to HO. I sold all my HO equipment in 1977, much of it 30 years old...also DUMB! Wife took pity in 1981 and bought me some N cars, and it has been downhill ever since. LOL
I would have to say that the Model Train Bug got me in 1982 while in Germany there was a Large train display in Nurnburgh Germany leading into Christmas. I was hooked watching those nicely detailed cars go around that beautiful scenery in the town square. I went back there days later and purchased a Mintrix set and my home has never been without a layout since. And in recent years like the last ten it's grown by leaps and bounds.
I was born into a family which had quite a few past and current to that time railroaders. Surrounded by so many people and friends in that industry- Slightly influential? Then I received the model RR book that started me off for my birthday in 1953. (Crumbling from age, I still have it!) Back then I had a wooden tracked train and that evolved into Lionel and then, and... Watched the last of steam clanking around noisily and other great stuff, enjoyed that. Here I am today, now forty years of N scale and more.
When i was about 6 i started out with some tootsietoy trains made of metal that i would push along my grandmothers livingroom floor, then when i was abuot 12 i got the mattel HOTLINE trains that ran on HOT WHEELS track my first real model trains came along about a year later when i got a Bachmann GP40 train set with 4 cars,a caboose ,a power pack and a circle of track, then i was really hooked.next came more track,styrofoam mountains,srructures,cars,people.and the rest is history.
Rick's Lament. Gosh darn Switchman, I wish I had a nickel for everytime I answered this question. Here we go again! I grew up (or was supposed to have done that) in a family of Rails. For those who don't know what that means. A family of "Railroad Employees" aka "Rails," who operated the prototypes and used a vernacular unfamiliar to most toy train model railroad enthusiast. "Turnout" my @$$, "Switch" as in "Switchman". Anyway they worked for the Rio Grande, Santa Fe, and some on the Alaskan Railway. Did I have a choice? AT, 12 years old and I'ma 63 years old this September...you do the math. Drat it! I started my serious experience in model railroading. Wanting the prototype, operating like the prototype and using the vernacular I heard used on a daily basis. Ending up with caricatures, fellow model rails scoffing at my verbage and disputing anything I had to say about the prototypes. Friendly group...don't you think? Oh never mind. After all we were having loads of.... fun? I had fun (a good laugh now and then)...not sure they did. My first experience with model railroading was a Marx wind-up (I had to fix it before it would run...story of my life), followed by a Brand New, S Scale, American Flyer, green passenger car consist. Thanks to my cousins, and those dratted traction tires both managed to put an end to that experience. My first serious train layout was HO, with a Revell SW7 and some freight cars. All new trains were gifts from grandparents at Christmas time. No Santa $#!+ for me. What, what, what did he say? Oh heck, I play Santa at Christmas time but, seriously looking at retiring the suit and put a stop to all that fun stuff this coming Christmas. Enough is enough! Thinking that way about my train layout. Tired of working on it and ending up taking three steps backwards. Partly because of my diabetic vision and I don't find it easy to bend, stoop and crawl around under it, ANYMORE. It's supposed to be fun and when it's not fun, it's just WORK. GRRRRRRR! Ok, so I'ma not in such a good mood. I wonder why? Maybe it's because for one reason or another I never had the layout I wanted. Elaborating: None to completion....but then who wants to finish it. Oh well! Did I answer the OP's original question?
When did you first become a model train enthusiasts? My first experience was around 1975, around the age of 2, with a Santa Fe F3 "bump" of some sort...it ran on a hard floor, bumped in to a wall, turned and went on, until it bumped another wall. According to my mom, it entertained me for hours! My dad always had the wartime Lionel, but by 1978ish, we moved in to a house, and dad built a 4x8 HO layout. It was flat, painted black, and I remember the yellow dots he painted where the track would be placed. It was a busy layout, with a crossover I "accidentally" had crashes at! Oops!! I grew up outside DC, in Maryland, loving ol' Chessie! We had several girder bridges nearby, and some classy viaduct ones, too! My favorite bridge was 1/2 mile away on Connecticut Ave...the trains went under the road, and we'd walk there to watch. At the bottom on the other side was a little depot and train station. I'm eager to go to moms house and find photos, now! Moved to S. Florida in 82, and we built a large U shaped HO set that was 15x5 in the garage. Moved down the street in 84, and by 89 dad saw a MR mags with some awesome scenery....2 foot drop with a hand made trestle, a wharf area, coal mine, all sorts of cool stuff. Before dad passed in 96, he had envisioned a garden layout. Hmmm...I got married in 2000, and by 2005 convinced my wife we needed a G scale under the tree...oh yeah, honey, AND a G scale in our front yard!! Well, with big eyes and money to burn, I blew a ton...2 dash 9's, a gp30, gp7, and two steamers, plus 42 cars of various sorts...I way over bought...only had 24x5 to play with. Oops! We have a 10yo daughter and a 5yo son. My wife bought a $10 train set, left over from the holidays, from Walgreens back in April. It was broken, so we returned it. It sparked a rage in him for his own train set. By mid-May, I bought a Kato starter set, and, subconscientiously, a Santa Fe. Started a modified WS scenic ridge, with 2% grade, and a second main line around the outside of the primary. On a 4x8... ...but wife said it was too big. Salvaged what I could, and started a 36x80 HCD set... All of course, for my 5yo!! We have a FVM BNSF gevo, Kato CSX SD70ace, and the Kato Santa Fe F3 A&B, both powered. Cars include 3 kato maxi IVs, a Maxi 1, and a bethgon coal porter set. Also some misc freight cars. And that's the quick and dirty on me!
Got my first Lionel set in '59 or so,but only ran it at Christmas.Around '67 or so,I got a TRIX N scale set from Sears for Christmas,and a Matchbox kinda "layout in a suitcase" to run it on.I used it occasionally when I was bored,I "liked" trains,but they,at least at the time,didn't do much for me.Right after I graduated in '74,I met my buddy Hank,who,laughingly,hasn't touched a train in years,yet,turned me into a monster..Dang you,Hank...He was painting and decaling HO stuff.I was a long time car model builder,but model cars didn't do squat after you finished them..Here was Hank,building trains,and actually RUNNING them!!! I was hooked,found out about different locos,joined a club,became a heavy duty,camera carrying railfan.I built my first railroad in '77 or so,a 3X5,I have pics somewhere.Started another in a big extra room in my house after that,built dozens since...
When I was about 2 or 3 with Thomas the Tank Engine. When I was about 6 I looked at, not read, Model Railroader's pictures and stopped for a few years. Then when I was about 10 or 11 picked up a MR and read it and since then I'm a enthusiast.
