Hey everyone last weekend my Dad bought my 2 year old son his first electric train set, a Bachman starter set my son loves it he is figured out the throttle pretty well although he likes to highball it. It’s an all wheel drive F9 runs really quiet and smooth for a 26 dollar set. Any way got me thinking of my first train my Dad got for me i was three and it was 1966 woke up Christmas morning to a beautiful Lionel set up in the living room waiting for me to hit the throttle. Sure wish i still had that train my Dad doesn’t remember what happened to it and neither do i. Great memories railroading with my Dad as he has recently started an HO layout in his 30 by 46 polebarn and it takes up most of the barn. My son loves Grandpas trains he pulls 35-40 cars with two trains running, my son also has a fisher price geo trak train takes up most of his room After seeing Grandpas guess what he has every piece of rolling stock about 19 cars behind his geo trak engine.pretty cool. Sorry about the long thread just had to share my excitement. Thanks to all. Three generations working on model trains this hobby really is great.
I remember my first train set…
It was a complete piece of crap, but I loved the heck out of it. [:D] Back in 1986, my dad bought me a Bachmann HO set with an Amtrak passenger train. The engine was an E60CP with the piece-of-garbage single-truck pancake-motor drive that never worked right, and it spent most of its life as a paperweight.
My dad meant well. He bought it as a Christmas present for me even though he knew nothing about trains. Even though it was a piece of crap, I fell in love with trains for the rest of my life.
Now, 20 years later, I have 26 locos in my roster, including an Athearn AMD103 Gennie in Amtrak colors along with a set of Walthers Amfleet cars. This passenger consist runs beautifully, is very reliable, and looks awesome. It was everything that old Bachmann set wasn’t, and it was my Christmas gift to my dad. [8D]
Pretty cool Longislandtom just think how many of us would not have been in this hobby if it weren’t for Dad.
Or Mom… I was about 10 (around 1974) when Mom got me a train set for Christmas ( Dad was on deployment at the time). I don’t remember much about the set other than it had a FP45 in the silver and red Santa Fe warbonnett. I don’t recall what happened to all the cars but I managed to keep the loco to this day. I don’t even recall if it works or not, I guess I should get some HO track and test it. Finding that loco packed away recently inspired me to get into trains but due to space contraints it will have to be N scale for now… but some day…
Ahh yes. The infamous Tyco Chattanooga Choo Choo oval track with the rediculously steep bridge and trestle set. I got it for Christmas sometime in the early 80’s. Total piece of crap, but it has a lot of sentimental value to me, so I still have the loco & all the rolling stock.
The first one I remember was a Santa Fe passenger train that you sent away for from the back of a cereal box in about 1960. I soon graduated to my dad’s Ives timplate set the next year and a Lionel set for Christmas in 1962. Got the Lionel and everything up on a 5’’ X 9’ table and the trains began to fly. Sometimes off the track! [;)]
I remember my first train. It was a Marx O gauge with a half dozen or so cars that my brother and I shared. I don’t recall exactly when we got it, but it was probably in the mid 70’s and was a hand-me down from some family friends. In the back are the original Rock Island, not quite an F3, and not quite an F7, A and B units. The F7A unit in front is the first HO engine I bought for myself when I got into the hobby about a year and a half ago.
Anybody else have pictures of their first trains? Lets see them.
HD
Mine was a Hornby 0-4-0 steam loco - the little saddle tank that’s also sold as “Smokey Joe”. Mine was red rather than black though. I still have some of it though it went through a major rebuild a while ago to replace the damaged original bodyshell and frame - both replaced using original parts sourced from a Hornby spares dealer. Sadly it doesn’t run too well and I have no idea how to fix it - think it has something to do with the quartering.
I got my first train in 1965…it was a lionel o gauge F-7 Rock Island loco, it had a Ft. knox gold car, a lionel flat car with a missle launcher that shot spring loaded missiles…I remember my ma used to say: …“don’t point that at your sister!..you’ll put her eye out!”…everything back then used to put our eyes out and i still ain’t blind!..(something about the cuban missile crises and the space race made manufacturers include stuff like that in a lot of the toys in those days)…it also had a frisco box car and a lionel gondola…oh yeah…it had a STL&M caboose…those lionels were built tough back in those days…chuck
I’ve still got my first train set around, mostly because it spent years and years sitting in a box in attics and basements. It’s an old Bachmann set with a Santa Fe(?) GP40 and some cars. My dad bought it when I was 5 (22 now), but it never really saw a lot of use. When I joined a club near me, one of the first trains I brought down was this set, just to see if it ran (which it did). I’ve gotten a little more use out of the track, which I use to set up a quick test loop when I want to try out something I bought from eBay or a repair.
yes i remember . it was an O set , probably marx (the box was yellow , does that help?) with a figure 8 of track (3 rail) a steam loco 3 cars and a caboose . man that engine must have run thousands of miles around that track [:)] later my brother got an HO set and we both had a ton of fun with that , even had an HO slot car set with the RR crossing track .
at some point my dad asked if i’d mind if we gave the O set to a younger boy down the street and i agreed . it was a nice thing to do as i’m sure none of us on the street had a ton of extra money for toys but i often wish i still had that old set
Mine was a Tyco Sante Fe set that I saved babysitting money to buy back in 1973. Those tyco sets, though not highly thought of seemed to bring in a lot of modelers. I still have the set but it no longer is used. But it sure has sentimental value.
John
My first exposure to model trains up close and personal was at my cousin’s house while we were on vacation in the late 1950’s. It was an “S” scale American flyer steam locomotive pulling a passenger train. In my memory the layout looked huge but to be honest I’m not so sure it was all that big.
I didn’t get started myself in HO trains until I was about 18 or 19 and started going to a friends house where he had his garage filled with a layout.
I was hot and heavy into slot cars, they went a lot faster and were much cheaper.
I’d still be racing slot cars (1/24th scale) today if all the commercial raceways locally hadn’t gone belly up.
Yes I do. My very first train as a kid was an American Flyer Northwest diesel with gondola, reefer, and caboose that I received for Christmas. When starting my “2nd childhood” a few years ago at Christmas, I bought a Rivarossi 0-8-0 but traded it for an Athearn 2-8-2 Mike because it stopped working. By May 2004, I started my layout and it’s been down hill ever since…[:)]
Tom
Mine was a Triang Minic Rail/Road set from about 1967. I still have the loco, a small dock side switcher, but nothing else.
I’m old, so we’re talkin about the 1950’s.
It was a Lionel 3-rail Santa Fe O27 -gage, F cab diesel decorated
in orange and silver.
A basic oval on a table top. It had street lights, a few houses
and a flagman that came out everytime the train passed.
Ditto, except it was the late 70’s when I got mine. Had to firewall the cheap Tyco power pack just to get that nasty tender-drive sucker up the hill, then back it almost all the way off or risk massive derailment on the way down. Good training, actually.
The loco, long nonfunctional, now lays in a gully, extremely heavily weathered. It’s a train wreck that fell off the trestle decades ago and nobody could be bothered to pull it out.
The lone car I still have is the Baby Ruth “choo choo” box car. huge wheel inside the car - probably 1" wide (basically the entire car width save the sides) and maybe 4" diameter (track level to top of car). It rolls along the tracks, and I think it’s filled with BB’s that make something approximating a chug-chug noise. Sound has come a long way.
I can’t really remember, but I have several old Bachmann Santa Fe F7 shells laying in old boxes around the garage or storage shed… And being curious as I was, that is why all of them are broken. Or maybe they were those plasitc toy trains…hmmm. It is hard for me to remember when I was about 3-5 years old…
The TYCO Silver Streak. I wasn’t aware at the time that they were junk, I was just so thrilled to have it. It looked nice,at least. Eventually all it took was to get one loco at a train show from another manufacturer, a Life-Like GP38-2, to get me away from TYCO and onto other things, not always the best but it showed me there was a whole world of other trains out there, eventually leading to several Athearn engines. I now ended up in nscale and started my journey with, quite ironically,a Life-Like GP38-2.
ah yes…back in the very early 50’s my grandpa bought me a marx train set.a circle of track and a steamer and several cars.played with that train for many many years.can’t remember whatever became of it.them were the days.have been interested in trains all my life and im on my fifth layout.i’ll never grow up! terry…