My dad was driving me around in his old '69 Chevrolet Camaro (which also inspired my other great love) when I was 5, and we stopped at a store in a little town to the north of my hometown called Croton. The store was right next to the tracks, and soon we heard the rumble of a stopping train. It wasn’t my first time seeing a train, but it was my first time I got to get into the cab, though. The mixed freight stopped in Crofton to let a faster intermodal train pass. The engineer asked my dad, “I’ll let you get in the engine if you let me sit in your Camaro there!” And so the engineer got his wish, and I got mine. Man, that was cool. I think the icing on the cake was hearing the engine (along the lines of an SD50) throttle up after the Intermodal train passed. That’s how I got started.
I have just always liked trains, so getting a trainset was a natural progession
Alexander
I have loved trains since I saw my first big steam engine at age 4 on my grandfather’s farm. Then I received my first Lionel train at age 10 for Christmas and enjoyed hours of fun in our cold water flat. Next, when we got our first TV in 1949, again age 10, there was a program on TV a couple of days a week about 4 or 5 in the afternoon that showed American Flyer trains running on fantastic layouts…that was it , I was hooked for life. However, there was a long hiatus of 50 years between then and building my first layout ( now ). My first car, girls, college, Army, Family and 4 kids with their activities, career with long hours, then…retirement!!! Yes, now I have time!!! See how it happens you young engineers?
Sit back, pour a cup of, and read the babblings of an armchair railroader. Sorry for the length!
Back in the early 50’s, my Dad was a shipping foreman for a local sheet metal factory. He had a Lionel setup every Christmas. That was the beginning.
Several years later (60’s), we had moved and one of our new neighbors, who worked in a steel mill, had a layout in his basement. His son and myself had a ball for years running those Lionels to death.
I went to college, got married, and began apartment life. At that time (70’s) we lived in a townhouse and my wife got me a Mantua 4-6-2 for Christmas, and the 2nd bedroom became the layout room.
Pregnancy happened, which created the need for another residence, which had a basement in which I started a double loop 6x12 layout. A second pregnancy led to the place where we now live. It is a slab, so there was no room for a layout. However, over those 35 years, I had accumulated a small empire just waiting to be built. This took me through the 80’s and 90’s, doing nothing but working as a teacher/coach/athletic director, and reading MRR. But life was good!
About two years ago, I was introduced to a group of guys who had been railroading for 30 years together. That really rekindled the disease which now plaques me. We meet once a week to work on their home layouts, watch videos, plan the next trip to who knows where, and in general, just talk trains.
We are now in the 21st century, the kids are now gone, and my son’s room will be the layout room, which comes with a good many restrictions from the CEO. The train gang and myself will begin my empire in the next few months-after I retire. If I ever learn how to display pictures/videos, I will keep everyone abreast when the construction finally starts.
Thanks for taking the time to read the ramblings of an (almost ex-) armchair MRR.
I fell in love with trains after riding the Seaboard Coast Line West Coast Champion from New York City to Tampa, FL in 1967. Actually I don’t remember my first ride, I was several months old when I rode the Seaboard Air Line Silver Meteor in 1962. Anyway, I thought trains were cool. In 1968, a friend of the family gave me an American Flyer train set. It was my first exposure to the hobby. But I was not really hooked until I attended the Florida State Fair in 1969; SCL had a large HO scale layout on display. Passenger trains raced by as a switcher moved freight cars back and forth in a psuedo yard. To my young eyes this was amazing! I stood there to the point where my grandmother had to drag me away. I’ve been hooked ever since.
My dad bought me a (tin plated) O-scale train set when I was 4 years old. He even made me small structures out of wooden blocks. At the time, I thought that was the coolest thing on Earth. 43 years later, I’m still playing with my trains!!!
Thanks dad…
47 years ago I got a Marx tinplate train set for Christmas, which I still have.
45 years ago I got an American Flyer set for Christmas, which I still have.
A few years went by as I grew up; 32 years ago I married my wife, which I still have.
Last Christmas, my wife asked me to put up the trains for Christmas and I caught the bug, which I still have.
This hobby is one of many fond memories I have of my dad. He started me out with a metal HO Mantua 0-4-0 tank engine in the mid 1960s on a small piece of plywood. That was about 38 or 39 years ago.
There was a train within a stones throw all my childhood. The C&EI ran through our north farm, heading from Cayuga IN towards Danville IL. Many trains everyday, had my attention all the time. Our south farm was only 4 miles from Cayuga and I saw C&EI and NKP there all the time. At age 8 I was given Lionel figure 8 with an 0-4-0 and 2 cars and caboose. Wore that thing down. In junior high, I saw an early Aurora Postage Stamp (N scale) train set. I was done with Lionel right then. Saved and saved for that. By the time I was in high school, I worked at the town hobby shop, all through college. Took some time off having a couple of careers, and now back at it with a vengence.
Thanks Grandma, Grandpa and the C&EI
My grandfather also brainwashed me, at an early age, i had my first HO layout when i was 7, it was a a roundy round on a piece of painted green ply, with some trees and a painted road. been hooked ever since!
-James-
I’ve been interested in trains as long as I can remember. When you’re a young boy, anything big, noisy and colourful like a train is just fascinating. Or 21, for that matter. I’ve always liked building models as well, be it cars, planes, or diorama scenes.
At the moment I’m starting my first proper running model railroad, just a small 4 X 7 with a figure 8 loop, but I’m looking forward to building my first layout.
I was given a huge Lionel “Super O” gauge train set with many locos, buildings (Plasticville), and many working accessories when I was a kid in the early 60s. Although it was tinplate, it was built like a tank and worked well. I traded up to HO in the late 60s when brass track and flextrack with fiber ties, Tyco, and AHM were in vogue. Needless to say, it was junk and never ran well - made me want to go back to Lionel. I then discovered Athern, MDC, Atlas and Lambert NS track, and other quality equipment. I then dabbled in N scale. Although the quality of N scale has vastly improved, in the early 70s it left a lot to be desired (especially Aurora’s “Postage Stamp” series). Needless to say, I went back to HO and the narrow gauge bug bit. I then dabbled in some of the larger scales such as Sn3 (extremely pricy), On3 (very pricy) andOn30 (very reasonable cost), and recently Large Scale (some things cheaper than HO - and a scratchbuilders and superdetailers paradise). I currently model in narrow gauge Large Scale for the joy of scratchbuilding and superdetailing individual scenes, structures, and rolling stock and On30 for the excellent equipment, good details, and scenic effects such as trestles, mountains, etc that would require the space the size of a gymnasium to do in Large Scale.
I got my first train set (Lionel 027, real tinplate) for my first Christmas. I teethed on a box car.
Somewhere around age 4 I met a Varney Little Joe when a neighbor let the local kids have a look at his layout. At about the same time I noticed that all of the interesting things had flanged wheels running on steel rails. (3rd Avenue L, street cars and a freight line, all within a few hundred yards of my family’s apartment.)
Started serious HO modeling at the age of 10, changed to HOj 13 years later, and have been at it ever since.
Chuck
When I was about 9, I went to see the Miniature Railroad and Village at the Carnegie Science Center in Pittsburgh. I really liked it and for christmas that year I got a train set and a couple buildings.My first prototype was the Santa Fe but sometime around 1994 I switched over to Conrail since I always liked conrail and it ran through my hometown.
Watched Illinois Central Videos and ran HO and Lionel layouts with my grandpa.
Victor
Happy Railroading.[swg][swg]
Many moons ago back in the 70’s a neighbor was cleaning his attic and gave me a bunch of N scale track and a set of Pennsy passenger cars and a loco. I ran them for a couple of years in a simple oval with two switches. Now I’ve got a house of my own and I’ve moved on to HO. I’m modeling the late 60’s early 70’s fictional RR
i was staying with my grandma for the day, she took me toys r us and she bought me a life-like train set, and it got me hooked now i luv model railroading!!![tup][yeah]
I recieved a HO daredevil model set for birthday back in early 80’s never really played with it much gave it away then in 1990 a freind gave me his N scale starter set and the rest as they say is history as now i got lots of N scale a bit of HO and now within last two years got into large scale not Gscale but live steam also known as 1/8th scale live steam or 7.5 gauge its large enough to acutally ride on powered by any thing from 1/2 hp electric motor to 16 hp B.S 16 HP vangard engine or anything in between for example one of our club Dash 8s weighs 1000lbs and the GP 40 is around 600lbs once you come here and experience it ther is no going back watching your train go around the track and actually bein on it and running it nothing else even comes close other than prototype curious? go to
Maricopalivesteamers.com for detailed information bout us
My dad was a model railroader when I was born. Also we had a hobby shop when I was 4 and 5.
My uncle was an engineer.
Stuff like that. [:D]
And then of course there is the control, the power, the ability to create and manage and manipulate all the little people, HA HA HA HA HA HA HA HA
ahem er um, well anyhow I like building things too.
I had always been a model builder, but didn’t like not having a place for the finished piece. A friend of mine who was a model railroader but in between layouts suggested MRR, because one is constantly building and never finished. I thought “yeah, right, Lionel and tinplate - toy trains. No thank you.” The day after Thanksgiving, 1986, he took me to a pure MRR LHS, slapped me upside the head with the December Model Railroader (I still have that issue and can recall the cover - “You are the Brakeman on the Quincy Local”) until I saw the light. I was awakened unto the world of both modeling and prototype trains.