How did you get started in the hobby? What was your first locomotive?

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
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I am curious to see how some of the forum members got started in the hobby of model railroading. Also I think it would be interesting to see what were people’s first engines. Do people still have them? Let’s start a discussion!

For me personally I’ve been interested in model trains since I was about three, when my grandpa took me to his train club and we ran his Pere Marquette/C&O E7. I was content with runing my grandpa’s trains when I visited until a year and a half ago, when I went to a train show and returned with a used HO Bachmann 70 tonner and two used boxcars. Around the same time a Kadee logging caboose and Bowser two bay covered hopper appeared at my house. The engine ran poorly so I soon replaced it with a battered Life-Like SW7 in GN paint that was well used but runs beautifully. I have acquired some more HO stuff since.

Additionally last summer in the middle of a move I switched to N scale and put the HO stuff in storage. I miss HOs detail but N fits my space better. I bought a Arnold U28C in NP and four microtrains cars.

And that my story of how I got into the hobby. I am curious to hearing others stories. How did you get started in the hobby? Expecting a lot of Lionel and American Flyer! Please feel free to reply below!

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[#welcome]

A gift from my Grandfather for my 10th birthday. It was a Bachmann, N scale Bicentennial Spirit of 76 train set.

My brother and I had already been crafty, building lots of models and things. N scale model railroading began, after that gift.

That locomotive is a Seaboard Coast Line 4670 U36B Diesel Spirit of 76. I still have it. It doesn’t work and it’s beat up. I keep it as sentimental value and have purchased one that does work.

TF

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My parents had a large layout set up long before I came along. Earliest I have proof of in an 8mm silent movie of me running HO trains around the Christmas Tree when I was 2.

My first loco that was truly mine was a blue and yellow Santa Fe F unit from a Tyco train set. I initially set up the included track on the dining room table but soon moved the loco and rolling stock to the layout we set up for the holidays every year down in the family room. Not sure how old I was when I got that one, perhaps 6.

–Randy

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Like many others here, I got my first taste of trains in the 1950s.

My three brothers and I got one combined Christmas present one year – a used Lionel set. A beat-up locomotive and several cars with broken parts, some bent and dirty track, and the prize – a watchman who would come out a door when a train approached.

Used, broken, and bent – it didn’t matter. It was the greatest Christmas present ever!

Like most of my other friends, model railroads went away during high school, then college, then marriage and career.

Two years ago I retired, worked on a bunch of home projects, and then became bored when those were completed.

I told my wife I was going to work on a lifelong dream, a model railroad.

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In 1961 when I was five, my father built a 4x8 double oval with a spur from an Atlas track planning book. It had Atlas switches with their controls along with Selector blocks. He bought a Tyco 4-6-2 Pacific in Santa Fe livery with five cars and a caboose. This was my Christmas present. I learned model railroading utilizing that layout for about twenty years. I then gave the train table layout to a couple of boys who lived next door for their enjoyment. Everything still worked. I did however keep the locomotive, tender and cars. The loco still works, even the headlight. It has not been converted to DCC but sits on a spur track on my 10x17 layout in my shop where it is surrounded by Union Pacific Locomotives and cars. The following year I got an Athearn F3 with a consist, but that F3 quit working within a week. That was the last of Athearn until I started buying some Blue Box kits when I was stationed in Puerto Rico with the USN from 1981-84. I built my sons a 4x6 N scale layout when they were 6 and 8 but they never really developed much of a lasting interest. Too many other things going on in their lives. My granddaughter is fascinated with my current layout at age three so we will see what happens as she gets a little older. - Mike in WA

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I guess it’s about time for this topic to come around again. [:|]

For me, my dad got me a Marx set, I was about 5, he died when I was 6, as did the trains. He was 24.

No other family involvement or family member into railroading, model or otherwise.

My dad was a youg up and coming engineering student with a manufacturer named Waukesha Motors. (Currently GE. Energy)

About 3 years later, my mother remarried a rowdy local hired farm hand [:|] No trains, no time for trains, as we moved from farm to farm, as tennant farmers.

My Marx set found it’s way to the sand box, entertaining my new step brothers and sisters.

As a teen, I did have a small HO set, a Christmas present. I messed with it alot, made paper mache’ mountains, etc. I even added an Aurora HO scale racing set. It all ended up in a couple of boxes. Time for work, and to pitch in “my share”.

Fast forward to the early 80’s, now I have a son and a daughter. I bought my son a train set, Bachmann I believe, and it fired up my interest in trains.

Son and I built a couple of 4x8’s, painted cars and diesels, had fun. 1987 and the WC ( Wisconsin Central) started up, using the long abandoned Soo Line Lakes States Division main line, and I was off and running, to the point where I am now.

I never had the urge or the want to model the 50’s, 60’s, and even the 70’s. I’m glad it’s over. I was never around, or new anything about steam locomotives.

My story is nothing romantic, with a family setting and history of family involvement.

The problem with threads like this, very few actually read through them, they see the topic, and jump in. So It’s an exercise in typing, and reminding yourself.

Mike.

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While I had trains a boy, it was my wife that got me started (although not intentionally). She was pregnant with our first child and I told her I would get him a train his first Christmas after he was born. Well she bought me a train that Christmas before he was born. The next day I found Model Railroader on the newstand and learned there was an actual hobby.

My first train was a Tyco 4-6-0 quickly followed by a Tyco 0-6-0, Atlas track, and Atlas buildings. I built my first layout following a plan in John Armstrong’s book Track Planning for Realistic Operaion. That layout was in the spare bedroom and lasted a few months until our son was born. Then I built the 2nd layout in the master bedroom (it was a rather large bedroom).

And so it went from there. 47 years later I have changed scales twice, I still have everything from the beginning except some of the brass track. A little later I got my boyhood train (that my mother had accidentally saved - most of my boyhood stuff was given away). It’s a Fleischman set that still runs after 60 some odd years.

Paul

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Good question… I can’t remember not being around the hobby or real trains.

My dad was a railroader,model railroader and part time railfan.

As for the first engine my Dad bought me a Penn-Line PRR 2-8-0 when I was 10 and I had to build it under his supervision. I did all the needed work including,filing, drilling and tapping handrail holes.

I’m proud to say it turn out quite well and was a very smooth runner…I changed the motor from a Pitman DC70 to a Pitman DC80.

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For Christmas when I was about five my parents bought some used trainsets for my older brother and me. It was all they could afford. My brothers worked but there was a part missing from mine so all I could do was pull it around the track. We never did acquire the missing part.

A few years later, I came down on Christmas morning to see an over and under figure 8 layout on the rug that I think was probably and American Flyer set. It had a box car, tank car, gondala, and caboose. It was mine. It was a gift from the lady that lived next door. We learned sometime later that she had been embezzling from her employer and I guess this was her way of easing her conscience. I ran the heck out of it but eventually the loco broke down.

A few years later my brother and I went halves to buy a used 4X8 HO layout. It had 3 operating locos including the old Athearn rubber band drive which we ran as if it were a slot car. That thing could really motor. Had a lot of fun with that layout but eventually all the locos broke down for one reason or another and we ended up giving it away.

About 15 years later as a young adult I got back into the hobby, again with HO. I started with a small layout in my apartment spare bedroom before moving into my first house. Had a good sized layout that filled half the basement which was an 11X28 section. Made a lot of mistakes and learned a lot from that layout. Eventually job and other responsibilities took me away from it and for about ten years I did no modeling at all. In 2001 I retired and built my dream home with a large basement. The layout is nearing a point of completion. I never dreamed it would take so long. Hopefully I’ll have enough years left to enjoy what I’ve built.

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Mine is pretty simple and straight forward. Got a Gilbert American Flyer S-scale train set for Christmas in 1947. It was a 4-6-2 Pacific with smoke a few cars and it grew to four switches, more cars, more track and started to get too big for the floor, LOL. A few trips to the LHS showed Me the ultimate scale, HO. In 1950 I got a Varney HO scale train set, with a Varney clone F7 A, with Mantua couplers, not horn-hook, I was hooked…litarally… been in HO, ever since, going on 72 yrs. now. No other family member of mine had any interest in Trains…I had to learn everything on My own…much of it from My LHS owned by two brothers, which was a bike ride away. That’s when a LHS was really great to learn things and they helped.

Take Care! [:D]

Frank

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Well, I have told this story before, but I see a lot new faces so here goes.

I was born in 1957. When I was a small child, as far back as I remember, and as far back as the home movies go, my father set up a very elaborate train display for Christmas.

When I was even younger, his bother owned a hobby shop. Originally my father had American Flyer, but traded it all in with his brother for HO. His brother passed away at a young age, I don’t really remember him.

My father had two train platforms that were 5’ x 9’, made from marine plywood which came in that larger size.

Every year on Thanksgiving Day, they moved all the furniture around and set up these two platforms joined together in the living room. My father would then get the trains out and starting setting them up.

Our Christmas tree would only be about 4 feet tall so it could sit on the platform at one end. He would work on the train layout every evening and weekends until it was ready for Christmas Day.

The track was TruScale wood roadbed track, both my parents built both plastic and wood kits for the layout and every year added a few more. All the houses had lights, there were street lamps, and an Aristo Craft working trolley bus loop.

There would be mountains in the background made from a product sold by Life Like in those days called “mountain paper”. It was heavy craft paper with “mountain” colors and a little glitter here and there. You crumpled it up and stapled it to some wood supports - presto! mountains.

As two loops of track made their way around, they went into a tunnel in the back under that mountain, and there were passing sidings to stage additional trains.

The rolling stock consisted of mostly Athearn and Varney, both metal and plastic cars. Locos included a Mantua Pacific and Mikado, PennLine GG1, and a set of Varney F3’s pulling a set of aluminum streamlined passenger cars.

This layout would generally stay in the living room

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The earliest I can remember, (so it’s probably the first) is a Lionel “Coastal Limited” set I got for Christmas when I was either 4 or 5 years old. I’m 28 now, and I still have it in the original box, and it still runs great. I’m mainly into HO, but I still take out and run my older O and G scale sets every now and then to keep them loose. I just can’t part with them.[:D]

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I remember sitting on my grandfather’s knee when I was around 4 or 5 watching him run his Lionel setup. Wasn’t elaborate, just a figure 8 inside a loop with a small yard off to one side. But I sure was enamored with those Sante Fe warbonets pulling the shiny passenger cars. When I was 7, we moved to Decatur IL, being as the house wasn’t ready yet ,we lived in a motel downtown, hated taking a taxi to school, but the N&W mainline wasn’t far, and neither was the hobby shop. That Christmas I was drooling over the train sets in the Sears wishbook, not thinking I would be so lucky. But that year I was blessed with a Cox trainset, comprising of a GP-35 in Burlington red and grey, a loop of track with a spur, and 4 cars. When we got into the house, my dad built us a layout comprised of 3 4x8 sections. It came down when we moved again, and never had another layout until a short-lived one a few years ago. Nothing remains from my youth, but I am quite fortunate that my wife likes trains as much as I do. Kevin in WA

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Ok, here goes. My first train was a Marx Key wind up. This was in the 40s. Then it was a Marx electric and then we went to a bigger and better Marx in the 50s. I went to the Navy and when I came home, no Marx. :frowning:

1970, I went to Woolworth’s and bought a bunch of HO for my kids, bulit a 4x8 and then and then… Yes, it was my hobby, not theirs. I’ve never looked back.

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My first train was Christmas 1943 at 8 years old. I have no idea how my Dad found it, everything was rationed. It was a Lionel 027 2-6-2 with a box car, gondola and caboose. My dad built a 4’ x 8’ main layout in our basement with a around the wall shelf to a 4’ x 4’ loop back.

We moved to El Paso December 1949 and in 1951 I saw the four page article of John Allen’s G&D in the MR magazine and I was hooked forever on HO. I bought my first HO locomotive for $6.85 with paper route money. It was a MDC 0-6-0, I still have it and it runs like new. I installed a Digitrax Sound decoder in it about 6 years ago.

My current and final layout was started in 1989 and is about 85% finished. It is 14’ x 10’ built on casters so that it can be rolled out of the garage for garage cleaning. When it’s out on the driveway it’s a neighbor kid magnet (and their Dads too).

Mel

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well, when the LION was but a wee little cub him wanted a train for christmas.

In the eye of the LION him saw a toy wooden train pulled around by a string. Him was a little embarassed to as for that, hime being a little older than a train on a string.

What I found under the tree was an American Flyer train loop with a Hudson locomotive and several freight cars.

I mean, really, what good are freight cars. The only trains I had ever seen were passenger (commuter) trains.

At least a young LION could eat the passengers!

And to add insult to injury, they would only go around and around in a circle. What good is that? A toy train on a string could go wherever I wanted it to go.

The Imagination untamed!

ROAR

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Hello All,

Check out this thread http://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/88/t/272369.aspx

Hope this helps.

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My first was an HO scale Tyco Royal Blue deluxe set from Sears at Christmas 1978. I killed the motor in it pretty quickly. Ended up with a MPC Era Lionel set for my birthday the following March. I got back into HO at 16 years old with an Atlas/Kato N&W Alco RS3, what I consider my first “hobby grade” vs toy train quality engine. Mike the Aspie

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.I first got into the hobby back around 2009-2010ish with an Atlas O TMCC C630 and Lionel Legacy 990 controller. Soon moved to HO, but still kept collecting O. Currently I have the C630 minus its smoke unit, Lionel TMCC Gp30, and A Legacy NS 911 SD60E. I also have around 30 HO DCC/Sound locos from various manufacturers

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My grandpa had a train room, and although he died before I can remember, the train room did stay around for a few years before it was torn out due to mold. We did keep the trains though, and I’ve done my best to keep them in good condition.

My first locomotive was a Life-Like N-scale F40PH, undecorated. My interest didn’t stay in N for long, and I ended up getting an HO scale Life-Like train set with a Santa Fe GP38-2 from a garage sale for about $5. It never ran that well, but the set did allow me to run my grandpa’s trains, and I liked how much easier it was to play and work on HO scale.