I was taking care of things in the yard when I started thinking about how I got into model trains and rc vehicles. Way back when i was in kindegarten or first grade, I was given a small train set that consisted of an engine and maybe 2 or 3 cars. A couple of years later I got a rc 3 wheeler. I went back and forth between the two i played with and wore both of them out. Never sure what happened to the train set after that. I build a few other rc cars and lost interest for a while. Maybe 5 or 6 years ago i really got back into model trains and started doing something with it off and on.
So, How did others here in the forum start?
If you have a local hobby shop that came up for sale and could buy it, would you buy it? (just curios).
When I was about 10 years old I had a early morning paper route in Everett Washington and I remember stopping every day to look in a hobby shop window at a Varney 0-4-0. Thats my 1st memory of model railroading. I had a little dog Fritzie who went with me each morning rain or shine and there was almost no shine in northern Washington.
I got my start with a Christmas gift in 1945, my Dad somehow found a Lionel O-27 2-6-2 train set and put it under the tree. WWII had made finding a train set almost impossible but my Dad found one. Later on in life I found out what that gift really cost. We were living in northern Utah and that winter was a real bad one. My Dad needed a tire for the car and tires were rationed. My Dad had a ration coupon the tire, the tire and the train were both $8. Money was very tight and my Dad chose to walk two miles to work in the snow and gave me the train. That Christmas gift hooked me on trains forever!
Later on in 1951 I was shopping with my Mother and saw a Model Railroad Handbook and I talked her into buying it. There was a four page article on John Allen’s Gorre & Daphetid Railroad and that did it for me. I’ve been a HO scale Model Railroader ever since. John was my Model Railroad Mentor, my first two layouts were copies of the G&DRR.
Before I was born my father bought some American Flyer trains for my older sisters. I think they only set it up around the Christmas tree each year. When I got to be about 7, my dad built a permanent layout for them. It was ‘L’ shaped and was about 13’ x 8’. There wasn’t much in the way of scenery, just a couple of papier-mache mountains and some trees and bushes made from pine cones and sweetgum balls. It was only a foot off the ground so I could walk around on it if a car needed rerailing.
When I was a kid, my dad dabbled briefly in the hobby. He started to build a layout on a 4x8 sheet of plywood, but never made it out of the benchwork stage. He bought a few Athearn BB locomotives from a local hobby shop. One set was a powered and dummy U33B decorated for SCL (both had the same road number, mind you!). The other was an Amtrak FP45, with a few Amtrak passenger cars to go with it. We also had a Tyco steam engine train set - the Clementine 0-8-0 with the mechanism in the tender. As kids, my brother and I had fun playing with them and running them on brass track that we put together on the floor.
I still have those old locomotives. I converted one U33B to a U36B and super detailed it a few years ago. I stripped the FP45 and plan to detail it and paint it in the ATSF Super Fleet scheme one of these days. Not sure what I’ll do with the old Clementine loco.
Seriously: S-scale 1946/47, Trainset…HO-scale 1950/51, Varney trainset. I was born in Chgo…no matter where You turned, there was a streetcar, Train or truck…very easy, to fall in line, with sooo many to choose from.
At some point, before my earliest very specific memories which start about age 2 or 3, I was given a wind-up train set, likely Marx. It was a black metal streamlined steam loco (shaped somewhat like the Hiawatha 4-4-2 steam loco) and a few cars, with tab and slot couplers. I believe it was used when I got it because I remember chips in the paint right from the start. I clearly remember having it and playing with it - I do not remember getting it. Then I got a second wind up train that ran on the same track and had the same couplers so it was likely also Marx. It had a plastic steam locomotive and if memory serves, a battery powered headlight you could turn on and off. It is quite possible it was bought used as well. The two rail track was probably 0-27 in size. I don’t remember getting that one either.
I had various kiddie train books too so I assume I exhibited interest in the trains that ran through town even before getting the toys and books.
I was probably five when I got my first Lionel train set, an oval of track with the 520 electric locomotive. I do remember getting that at Christmas, and opening the brownish cross-hatched Lionel Electric Trains box it came in. I even remember the smell! It came with a pulp paper 1957 Lionel Accessories catalog in the box which I just about wore out. It said on the cover “Gee Pop, you got 'em.” I wanted everything in that catalog! I did not succeed.
I just found a photo of it online; here is the link
I wish I still had all those trains. And all my Lionel catalogs. But decades later when I was an adult my mom found two complete Lionel trainsets at rummage sales that she got me sort of as joke gifts. She paid $15 for one set (track, transform
I was born into the hobby…so to speak. There were trains under the Christmas tree when I came into the world kicking and screaming. Between the Christmas railroad, my dad’s enthusiasm for trains, watching Reading trains in Reading, and riding to Philadelphia on the train with my family…did nothing but boost the intersest. But the magic happened when I was 9 and my dad arranged a ride on a Reading freight train with a locomotive engineer relative of his. That was it…I was sold. My first real locomotive was a Reading RS3. I got the train bug…and it’s been with me since. That was 44 years ago. I did rounds with clubs, some RR volunteer work and some time as a RR professional.
The proverbial snowball just kept getting bigger.
I’ll probably get buried with my trains…when the time comes. LOL.
I got my first trainset for Christmas in 1952 at the age of three. An American Flyer steam loco and several cars. Another set arrived for christmas in 1954, a GP7 and a couple more freight cars. Eventually I accumulated two more locos, a Hudson with sound, a small switcher and more cars before switching to HO. All my AF track had rubber roadbed. My brother got the AF trains. My brother then got my HO stuff when I went into the Army in 1969. My parents gave ALL the AF trains away while I was in the service. I started over in HO when I came home.
I’ve been retired for 16 years now. I don’t have to work nor do I want to so buying a hobby shop is out of the question.
When I was very young, maybe 2 or 3, my older brothers were given a Marx train set complete with crossing signals, remote controlled switches and even a station with a whistle. My brothers forbade me from going anywhere near the trains when they were being run. I still remember the frustration!
By the time I was old enough to be able to operate the train my brothers had managed to burn out the motor so the train set had already been packed up and put into storage. Thank goodness nobody threw anything out in those days.
Many years later when I was in my 40s my mother was cleaning house and she asked if I wanted the old train set. Of course I said yes. I managed to find a couple of very inexpensive replacement locos at a swap meet in Bracebridge, and the original locomotive shell fit on one of the drives even though the drive was a later model.
I then threw up some plywood sheets in an ‘L’ shape and quickly had the old Marx set up and running. Initially I was thrilled, but that soon wore off as I realized that the Marx set was just too toylike to satisfy my interests. When my wife asked me why I took it down after a couple of weeks I told her how I felt.
That was in the fall. That Christmas she gave me an HO Bachmann Hogwart’s Express and I haven’t looked back. I still have the Harry Potter train set and I have even installed DCC with lighting and sound into it. It will run as an excursion, that is if I can get the lead truck on the locomotive to stay on the tracks. So far, despite checking all the parameters, the lead truck seems determined to try to escape every time it goes over a turnout.[:(!]
I have to mention that my wife has continued to support my interest in the hobby. I have explained to her how much things cost and she is fine with my spending. Mind you, she sort of has to be accepting because we put in a hot tub for her a couple of years ago and my model railroad spending has yet to come even close to what the hot tub cost. Just as a starter, we
Thomas the Tank Engine Books, the original ones; the sight and sound of the NZR Ja Class steam locomotives hauling the South Island Limited Express through the village at speed, and a fascination with models of any kind from an early age. (Fascination with 2 legged models developed a bit later in life, and were a distraction from trains!![:-^])
It was my Dad who kindled my interest in trains and model railroading. He was an avid railfan all of his life. He used to take my older brother and me to the train station on Saturdays, while Mom and my older sister stayed at home to clean the house.
It was not before Christmas 1963 when I go my first train set - a Marklin starter set consisting of an oval of tin plate track, a fantasy 0-6-0, a couple of tin plate passenger cars and a Faller kit for a small station building, which was assembled by me on Christmas day. I still have that building!
Each year saw an addition to the rather small start, more track, switches, signals, locos, cars. In 1970, I had accumulated sufficient material to build a small layout in our basement. That layout did not live long - the basement was flooded some years later and whatever remains could be salvaged, were sold. Life got in the way, but the interest never died down. 30 years later, I got back into the active side of the hobby and build another Marklin layout - just for reasons of nostalgia. That layout was sold when we moved house and I have build a number of rather small layouts since.
At the moment, all MRRing is resting, as I am recovering from a stroke I suffered 6 weeks ago, but the day will come when I´ll be able to pick up the hobby again!
Sears and Roebuck did it for me. Back in 1968 when I was 6 years old, my outlook on toy trains was something that runs in circles until I got bored with it. When I got the Sears Christmas catalog I then realized that I can create a miniature world with toy trains. The catalog had pitures of their train sets not as an oval but some track with background scenery and buildings. I would spend hours looking at the pictures. I think JC Pennys also did the same thing.
Also we went to Sears in Dekalb County Georgia and they had a display of the train sets. It was basically a grass mat with some trees and buildings but it was beautiful sight for me.
I would daydream about building my miniature train empire during school, to the point where I was in my own world. I was always getting in trouble with my teacher and classmates for not paying attention. This problem never went away for me.