I started when my uncle started sending my father and I boxs of new mth trains, little did we know he was terminally ill, the trains to him were his legacy
I started when I was 2 or 3 - my oldest brother John had a Lionel set (No. 1593, “5-Car Diesel Work Train” (1958)) that apparently I dug out of the closet and began setting up. [:D] When I was about 5 or 6, after we had moved to Detroit, my dad bought a new Lionel set for me (which was subsequently stolen during a move - no big loss, as I remember the engine was plastic), then bought some used trains off of someone (good stuff, including a Lionel 671 S-2 Turbine) and built a large layout on two 8x4 sheets of plywood. I played with them up until probably 10 or 12, then they got packed away. Fortunately they survived a couple of moves.
When I moved out on my own in 1991, I decided that a) I wanted a real Christmas tree (my parents had used an artificial tree since (1975)), and b) I wanted to have my old train running around the tree. Well, I did both, then decided to build a display shelf for my mantle to show off my 671 and my Lionel 613 Union Pacific NW2 Switcher. For a few years that’s all I did, then when I got married my wife picked up a PS1 steamer for our first Christmas. Gradually my Christmas layout has gotten more elaborate and my rollingstock has grown. Hopefully someday we’ll move somwhere where real estate is much cheaper than here, so I can get a big enough house to have a dedicated layout.
As an aside, my little guy Tyler has been exposed to trains since he was 9 months old, and now at 3.5 he absolutely loves my Lionel trains. My youngest, Corey, who is 16 months old, is still a little leery of them - he’ll watch them, but he doesn’t get too close.
Sorry about the long-winded oration.
A friend of mine when he was in his late 70’s asked me to build him a portable table to set up some trains on for an annual Thanksgiving weekend start of the Holidays fund raiser. After building the table he asked me to help set up the trains for the show. I got bit by the train bug, HARD. After a couple of years and collecting, I had a portable layout also and we joined the two layout via two bridges. I continued to collect refurb and rebuild locos and accessories. I now have more trains than my friend, and a permenant layout. My friend is in his mid 80’s now and we still put our layout together. Our stuff is all old American Flyer, and I really prefer the old stuff to the new. It is so neat when folks at the train show in their 50’s-80’s look at our layout and reminence, saying “I had one just like that”. There has been many a tear shed when the sound and smell of the steamers trigger memories from long ago. Sorry, I digress. What got me started, it toys I could not afford as a kid. Seeing 50+ year old toys running and the nastalgia. It’s fun. I am a total toy train nut.
Jim
(If you choose to believe it) New Bright sets when I was younger, and now it is Lionels, Aristo-Crafts, and anything N scale with knucke couplers that isn’t Kato.
I think it was 1948 when I got my first Lionel trains set. Had that until mid 50s and then went into HO until late 60s. Stored them away until 2000 when I retired. Decided to go into 3 rail O with all the new electronics and sold off the stored HO on ebay. Love the new O gauge stuff and spend way to much on it.
A question for Eric, what do you have against Kato? I thought the N guys loved their stuff.
What got me started is playing with my daughter with her Thomas the Train toys. It just grew from there.
Please refer to the photo to the left, where I was introduced to the wonderful hobby of toy trains by my late Grandfather Reynolds in West Lebanon, Indiana. I still have the Marx train from 1955.
As a kid, I was growing up with my dad’s layout…it was 4x8, with leaves on either side. I was down in the basement at age 5, playing with the 'ole 675…when I fell asleep. I landed on the ZW’s handle…my parents were upstairs with friends, when my Dad kept hearing the “nnnnnnnnn cluck” sound. I have a pic somewhere of m asleep at the switch…the 675 in pieces all over the concrete floor 
Then growing up, I got into HO. I eventually built a double decker platform…HO on top, Lionel on bottom. HEHEHE…you remember the shanty bldg that ran on a 9v battery, and made diesel idling noises? Well, I figured if you adjusted the voltage, you could make the sound change. I tried hooking it to the main track power…it made a funny noise then BAM! and a sharp pain to my thumb! My Dad wondered what I had did…I blew up a capacitor! OUCH! It could have sliced my thumb!
Anyway, it all got socked away with divorce and me going to Army.
I got it from my Dad about 5 years ago. Intent on restoring a layout…but then my wife and I had troubles…moved…and I stored it in a leaking garage (unknown to me)…and most of it rusted. I sold some for $$, and she destroyed or sold the rest the week after I filed for divorce…
New wife, new plans…new job with railroad, and I wanted to have something to decorate with RR theme…hence Ebay purchases…and now a shelf railroad in the works!
For me, it started when I purchased the Polar Express set for my son last Christmas to put around the tree. OK…He was only 1 1/2 at the time, so I had to run the set. I got a little bored with the loop, so I slowly purchase more track, a few buildings and accessories, and built a layout in the basement. In one year, I’ve purchased about 7 sets, 3 loco’s, and I don’t know how much rolling stock.
I just started playing with my dad’s trains when I was very young (with his help of course [;)])and now… I just can’t get enough of 'em.
Santa came with a Lionel whenI was 6. [:D]
1949 and it was a Lionel set.
There was no MTH.
Santa came with a Lionel 1615 Switcher in 1955. We always had a train under the tree. I still have it and it runs like a scalded dog. I also have my Dad’s Marx set from the 1930’s or 40’s, but it is not running right now. As a kid my Dad’s cousin’s husband had a big layout. He passed on a few years back and his wife gave me his trains. I still use his ZW and run the 1953 UP 2033 Alcos and passenger cars along with his freight set headed by a 2025 steamer(the one that took the nose dive onto the concrete).
Take care,
Mitch
First Lionel set was recieved in 1987. It was the Rock Island 027 DC powered “Rail Blazer” set. Did have some HO as a kid as well.
What really got me going was every Christmas my uncle setting a huge postwar/MPC 072 layout. As a kid it seemed absolutey huge. In reality the layout was really only 8’ x 25’
I never really did like HO.
HO dosent have the features or the appeal that O does to me.
After my childhood, the Lionel train we had disappeared forever. About 12 years ago I got into HO for about 3 or 4 years. I sure wish I had found this forum and Classic Toy train magazines before. When I started needing reading glasses and after seeing a friends O scale 2 rail layout, my interest in 3 rail returned. I sold off my HO stuff and built my 9’ X 5’ (3) rail layout. I can’t tell you how many mistakes I made with layouts along the way, but I learned a lot from those. One of the best decisions I made was to go with Atlas track and switches. More expensive, but I like the look and it has performed well for me and for a 9 X 5 layout, the cost was OK. When I dismantled that to build a 12 X 24 foot layout, I had to save some $ to get the track and switches I needed. I finally did a little better with track planning and scenic planning and expanded my track plan so I could run the Steam locos that require 072 diameter as a minimum. I did a little at a time, as my budget allowed. I am so tight with money its funny. I agonized about spending $130 on a reconditioned Lionel KW transformer, but did not blink an eye when it came to buying my first Lionel scale steam loco that broke the bank for me. Now I have 3 Lionel steamers and 1 Kline steamer and love 'em. But I do not have a collection as some might define it. Once a thread on this forum asked what constituted a collection. The replies were amazing and quite entertaining too. I really like this forum! Sorry for such a long winded reply! [oops]
I got started in 1962 when Santa brought me a Marx wind-up set - all tinplate with 2 rail track. I received a Marx Allstate set in 1965. I went into HO for a 30 year hiatus, then came back to O gauge about 6 years ago, dabbling in S gauge and On30 on the side.
Well, after moving from a 1 bed apt (Mom, Dad, me & 2 brothers) over Grandma & Grandpa’s house, we settled into a 3 bed 1 car garage home with a full length basement (I was 4 in 1959). After awhile I found plywood and 2X4’s in the basement. Dad constructed a set up that was 12X16 layout with a 50’s steamer around the perimeter, a siding for passenger trains and an “EL” for the lone diesel, a Santa Fe unit if I remember, which we didn’t like because it was a diesel!!!
We had the foam mountains and a beacon, the cantilever bridge that worked once and a while, a bunch of Plasticville stuff. Everything was lit up and at night, we shut off all the lights and ran trains. Dad had made a control board from ex-Navy stuff with lights and all, and everything ran off the Lionel ZW. All Lionel (American Flyer & Marx?? God forbid…[;)]). We moved again in 1969 and I never saw much of it until 1998 when Dad had rearraigned the new house. I found some of it, but he just ain’t tellin’ where its all at!! I just got back into it last year with my own NY Central Flyer, and now my first around the Christmas tree Lionel layout!!
I must confess the family was always smitten with railroads, as my Great Grandfather worked for the PRR, and we lived 1/2 mile from the NorthEast Corridor in North Brunswick, NJ
Received my first Lionel set the day I was born in 1950.I really don’t remember not having trains.
Ed