just want to know when or what time in your life you got intrested in trains fro me it was when me and my father went to the railroad tracks when i was a kid and we put pennies on the tracks seeing that train comming and then pass us picking up those pennies that was when i knew i was hooked.
I was born into a railroad family and was around the trains at a very young age…I used to go to the East yard in San Antonio to see my uncles and grand father off to work …my back yard in the house i grew up in was the Kerrville branch of the SP and i got hooked watching the trains go to and fro …I could sit for hours watching the trains go by…I got interested in modeling when I was in the navy and while home on leave, I modeled my first layout for my brother’s 4’ x 8’ train set that he got for christmas…chuck
here’s a picture of me at age 3 giving hand signals dressed as a train engineer…yeah, i’ve been into trains a long time…picture taken in 1961…
I was 11 years old and at the local fair and saw this hugh layout there. It had to be 20’x50’ in size. Being a model builder I got involved with a local group and thats where it all got started. Now my basement is my playground espeically when it rains here and HO rules the basement.[:D][:D][4:-)]
I’ve loved trains all my life.
My father worked for UP for 45-50 years, as did his best friend. I grew up with trains as part of my life. I remember chasing the Freedom Train in '75 or '76 as it passed Omaha when I was 7or 8. Grew up with magazines and reference books around the house. My father helped me with my first layout when I was 10 on the dining room table. He was always the best reference for what trains ran where, when, and in what color. He had any website I’ve seen beat hands down.
Heh, scale pennies on the track - you’d need a fine needle dipped into Testor’s copper paint, and just barely touch the rail head - have some model kid figures watching nearby maybe…
Well, anyway I got into model railroading in the 1970s, given a layout by my parents (still have one freight car from that period - everything else was sold off or discarded in my various cleaning periods). I guess it’s best that I did NOT realize the state of actual, US railroading at that time, as it seems to have been pretty depressing, especially in the North East. Living on Long Island, I didn’t even see a freight car up close till my teen years. While things may be better in many ways, there are still plenty of instances you just want to clunk some CEOs head together (yes, I have watching too much Spike TVs Three Stooges Slap Happy Hour lately)
My Grandpop would take me to a nearby road overpass and we would watch the trains hauling out of the downtown yard of an evening. I was three. I was hooked. That was way back in ‘53 when most of the locos were steam.
I put pennies on the line when I was in the hills outside of Perth and watched as the trains flattened ‘em, I’d count the wagons as the trains rolled by. I eventually got to fire a steam loco on a 2’ NG preservation line.
I’ ve been into model trains since I can remember.
Ah. Trains…
I can’t remember Not being interested in trains… Didn’t put a coin on the rail though until I was about 35… Still have the quarter (inflation you know), and a photo of the CSX AC something or other that flattened it. Suprisingly enough, some of the casting of the quarter can still be seen though not much… It was done at a place we called possum-head crossing near Toledo Ohio. So named because of the remaining part of the critter that didn’t quite make it across the tracks… What a guesome demise that must have been… I guess that taught him to be careful where he plays dead… Sorry folks. Just couldn’t resist that penny on the track story… Have a nice day…
We moved when I was four and a half, so the interest in trains started well before that. I used to drag my mom a few blocks over to wait for the train at least a year before we moved, and we’d sit there for hours while it was dropping and picking up cars out of sight down the track a few blocks, hearing it but not seeing it.
There was a real steam locomotive in the park and we could walk to that and spent hours playing on it. I well remember getting the wooden spoon across the rear end for crossing the street to play near the tracks by myself, and we had a tree in the front yard that we used as a cab, and spent hours up there driving the train all over the track.
I’d have to say all that started when I was three and it never really stopped.
I have an old home movie of me at age 2 running an HO train around the Christmas Tree. OK, so the stops and starts aren’t the smoothest, but I was running trains. So I’ve been hooked at least that long (turn 40 this year).
Careful with those coins on the track. The weight of the loco can and will shoot them out the side like a bullet. When my oldest was about 4, we took hinm to Musikfest in Bethlehem to see Tom Chapin (Harry’s brother, does mostly kids music, very good) and Conrail had the Operation Lifesaver train parked nearby so we got to watch a film produced by UP on railroad safety (cartoon, has a bird and I think it was a coyote, the bird always tries to tell the coyote to do safe things but the coyote always does the wrong thing) and it had the coin thing among other stuff (the usual - don’t walk in tunnels, don’t ride bikes on the railroad track, etc). The we got to climb in the cab of the loco (where I embarrassed a bunch of arrogant teenagers who wouldn’t let my 4 year old have a turn to sit in the engineer’s seat - one smarty was trying to tell his buddies which control was which and had them all wrong). Later that year we went to Strasburg to ride the train (my 5th time, his first) and then while sitting outside the Red Caboose waiting for dinner and the last Strasburg train to pass by, the kids of another family were pointing coins on the track. My son actually went up to the parents and told them they shouldn’t do that, it was dangerous. Then he made me get up an go sit away from the area before the train came. At least I know he was learning something while watchign that movie.
–Randy
Like chutton01, I grew up on Long Island outside of New York. My original Lionels go back to the Eisenhower administration. My great love was always the subways of New York. When I was around 10 or 12, my birthday present was a whole day of riding the subways with my Dad. Cost him 15 cents for each of us, and it gave us a day together that I’ve never forgotten.
wow… 15 cents… just got back from NYC and it was $2.00/ride for the subway. Isn’t inflation great?
Same pennies on the track! Grew up in Cleveland aross the street from a double main line. My Dad and I would take Sunday walks down the tracks.Some times 10 or 15 miles one way.(We’d call Mom and have her come pick us up) One day we came across an F unit coal train as the new crew was coming on board. My Dad asked if they could show me the inside of the loco. The crew was cool and gave us a ride back home. The engineer let me sit on his lap and showed me how to drop sand and work the throttle and brakes.(I was about 8 years old) You should have seen the looks on my friends faces when the loco stopped where they were playing and my Dad and I jumped out of the cab! PRICELESS!!! Who wouldn’t be hooked after somthing like that…
I am a third generation railroader: Granddad hired with the Pennsy, Dad with Penn Central, me with Conrail. When I was little, dad used to take me down to the yard he worked at and let me run the yard engine back and forth in front of the tower.
But I would have to say the Lionel under the Christmas tree, got me into model railroading. I built other models for a while, but always kept coming back to trains.
Nick
I grew up in Miami with my grandmother. Every month when she had to pay the utilitiy bills we rode the bus downtown. To pay one of the bills, we had to cross the many tracks that went across Flagler Street. Big ole steam engines were huffing and puffing back and forth. We would stand between tracks, waiting for one ahead to clear. I continually looked around to see if any were coming up behind or at us. It was both scarry and exciting. I had many dreams of engines chasing me down the street. But I still liked them. I was 3 or 4 when I first remember going there. The year was 1938 or 39.
I remember the Boston and Albany trains rolling by my Grandfathers farm in Oxford, Ma when I was 4. Those huge engines roaring and puffing columns of smoke into the air was a sight that stayed with me all my life. Then when they sold the farm and moved to another part of the town, the New Haven RR tracks ran right behind the house. My cousin and I would go up to the wooden bridge that crossed over the tracks and watch as the trains would pass underneith. We used to try to drop empty soda cans down into the smoke stack, but we only succeeded once. That can shot way up into the air. I have loved steam engines all my life, but what can you expect when you grew up in that age as a boy.
Watch it with pennies they can poke your eye out!!!
Kevin
I was 1 year old,when my parents did bought a Marklin startpacking to me as christmas gift.Today i have become 42 years old and are not using Marklin anymore.Instead i have start by using DCC modelrailway with PRR so far!I`m thinking about by using era 2-4 on the track with PRR and NYC or NEW HAVEN!
agge [8D]
Thomas The Tank Engine got me hooked the day I was born, according to my mom. We used to live about a half a mile from a CSX line. My dad was never much of a train guy but would take me up to the park and we’d sit and watch trains from across the highway. In the last few years I’ve doven deep into model railroading and now I even railfan regulary. The future looks bright!
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