How old where you when you got started in model railroading?

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

I was a model railroader and railfan from Day 1 (I’m 12 now).

2

17, in 1976. When I was younger, my folks wouldn’t let me have a train set cuz I was too rough on my toys, and they were right.

3

I’m afraid I don’t really remember anymore. Guess we always rain a train underneath our X-Mas tree when I was a kid and I remember getting an N scale Postage Stamp train set when I was around 10. Guess that’s close enough to being Day 1!

4

I didn’t really get serious about model railroading until I was 3 years old, although had a train or two before that. Started with a Marx tinplate and I mean TIN. According to my baby book, the 9th word I spoke as “choo-choo.”
When I studied fractions in third grade, I realized I could measure real life objects like doors, windows and houses and lay out scale models on cardboard with 1/4" = 1’. I was puzzled at first because they looked a little oversize alongside my 027 trains. I later learned my homemade buildings etc were scale, the 027 trains were undersized.

5

My dad had a house full of trains before I was born. I started working with him on the layout when I was 5, the same year he got me my first very own engine (Atlas GP38 in UP livery that I still run). I’m 26 now.

Warren

6

I’ve been fascinated with trains since I was a kid, but I didn’t really get into the hobby until my early teens (14 or so).[8D]

7

Aound 6, when our neighbor gave use a 4x8 layout, oval with a figure 8 inside that shared one end of the oval. My dad got us a Fleischmann set to run on it, a bit later I got a Tyco F9 in Santa Fe freight.

8

hmm well im 17 now i know its been atleat 4 years i have been railfanning so im gonna say 13 or 14 best bet.

9

1st. electric train: 6 or 7 years old Christmas - Santa droped off a Williams Crooks trainset. This explains my bent toward Woodburning American Standards.

10

1 or 2. I had a bunch of Thomas the Tank Engine stuff. Then when I was 5 or 6 my dad brought home an HO train set. I was hooked.

11

I had various toys or whatever when I was a child. But I got into serious railroading when about 13 or 14.

12

I was four years old when I received my first train set for Christmas.

13

Got a Lionel train in 1949 (I was 2). Switched to HO about 1960 and haven’t stopped modeling since.

14

My mother told me that the outfit that I wore at my first Thanksgiving had a train on it. When I could crawl, I had plastic “push” trains (like Brio). When we drove the 5 mile distance to visit my grandmother, we crossed 5 different sets of railroad tracks, and sometimes we stopped at the top of a small bluff that overlooked a C&NW (ex M&StL) yard , and watched the trains. When I was 4 I got a Marx train set, and have never been without trains ever since. This will be my 30th year in the NMRA!!!

I’m 42.[:D]Time flies when you’re having fun!!!

15

i was about 5 when my dad built a LIONEL track around the christmas tree.i stuck with the hobby getting HO scale stuff, got drafted during the viet-nam war ,retired from the service in 1992 and got back into it BIG TIME and a loving wife to let me do it, i’m 49 and loving it.

16
  1. 3 months ago to be exact. back in like 1992 or so when i was 5 or so my parents got me a train set. i wouldn’t say i was hooked but played with that a lot. now i’m getting hooked though. i’m spending a lot of time at the LHS, at shops and just reading about trains. so i first got serious when i was 17.
17

I guess I would have been about 4 when my dad got me started into model railroading.
That was 31 years ago.

Gordon

18

Dad got me started at age 4 in 1965 with a 4x4 platform,a circle of track, and a Lionel HO set. Every year Dad built more houses and stuff, and the platform started growing, and was 4X8 in a few years time. From there I was on my own and still going!!!

19

I was five. My first train was a spring wind up toy that could be set on a counter top. The spring in the engine did not last long. It all evolved from there. Sortly after that it turned into the HO trainset package.
John

20

I’m 17 now and think I’ve loved trains since the womb! I had some kids’ toy trains when I was little and got my first electric train, a Playmobil G scale set, when I was 4. When I was about 5 I got a Bachmann starter set. I quickly started getting more and more HO trains and I had a 4x8 board with indoor-outdoor carpeting on it that I would lay on our livingroom floor to set up my HO trains on. When I was in about grade 2 my dad built me my first layout on a large “L” shaped board. I could run 3 trains on it and it had 4 sidings and a bridge. It just kept growing from there. Believe it or not, part of my current layout uses the original one, although I’ve made many changes to it since it was first built.