What initially got you started in the hobby of model railroading?
Please vote then share your comments below.
Train set got me started, but I got it because of an existing interest in trains.
Couldn’t fit a real locomotive in my parent’s house! I became involved with model railroading because of exposure to the real thing (longer ago than I’ll confess), and wanting to duplicate some of what I saw.
work safe
For me it all started when I was about 8 or 9 and my grandfather told me about when he worked for the B&O. That got my interests going. First set was the Bachmann Santa Fe freight set with the chrome F unit I believe. All down hill from there with weekly visits to the hobby shop lol. Now after being away from it for about 7 years I’m starting from scratch and everything seems so new to me now lol.
My dad modelled the Great Western Railway in OO scale, so I probably inherited my enthusiasm from him, though I’ve only been into US outline HO models since about 2000/2001, mainly after seeing the quality of the available kits - most of which are prepainted and lettered, which is very rare in UK kits.
I don"t remember which came first. the chicken or the egg? One of my childhood friends has a sceniced RR in his basement. The first set had an orange box cab engine The next was an A C Gilbert Royal Blue passenger set. The only time it was used was at Christmas.
Me too. I’ve spent years building UK whitemetal or brass kits, and you don’t even get the wheels, couplings, paint or transfers (decals) in the kit. The stock reason for this is to ‘offer’ the builder choice. Thank goodness for Walthers, etc.
Dismounting my High Horse, my dad got me a Train set for Christmas when I was 5. He even had me helping to build the baseboard, telling me it was a new table. Happy days!
Jon Grant
My Grandfather worked for the Santa Fe in Los Angeles, was a switcher driver. He retired before I got old enough to go for ride-alongs but he always told stories when I was little (cant remember any) and his house was next to SP’s mainline from Long Beach to LA. When I was older we went to a family friends house and they had a huge Lionel setup in one of the bedrooms and I was hooked after that.
Be durned if’n I know. My mom told me that all I talked about, after finding my tongue at around 18 mos[:)], was trains.
I received a train set (O Scale) when I was 3 and have been at it ever since. I introduced my son and daughter to modeling, and am looking forward to the grandkids.
“Santa” brought us a Lionel set for Christmas when I was about 9. Unfortunately, Dad liked it so much he bought more cars and spent most of the time on it. Then he took me to the home of Carl Mattlin, retired depot agent for the NP at the Bald Eagle Depot. He had an entirely hand-made set in brass that took up the whole attic. Then Dad took us to the St. Paul Union Depot to take my uncle, an NP agent to his train. We saw a huge layout of the Twin City Model Railroad Club.
My Dad bought an American Flyer train set (4-6-4 Hudson and passenger cars) the day I was born --umpteen jillion years ago! Obviously O gage. After College and getting married, had to have at least a Christmas train. Bought N scale and the rest is history. Upon retirement, expanded the smaller layout twice and am planning to do it again shortly. Currently have 92 sq ft running DCC — 22 locos and over 100 pcs of rolling stock. Web site with pix – www.paonline.com/gngleise
I voted “Other”. I live in the most heavily railroaded part of the UK. The coal mining valleys of South Wales. It was inevitable that I should become interested in the subject as there were at least 8 rail tracks across the width of my home valley, a distance of a little over a mile. Bourke A. Le Carpentier, Aberdare, UK.
I saw my first real train when I was 3 maybe 4 years old.A steam engine pulling a freight train on a bridge over a road.
I am two of the above…My dad was a model railroader, but he also gave me a train set.
NAGGING WIFE. Xmas 91, what do u want? After a week ,just to shut her up, I said
"Electric Train set. Now have 500 pieces rolling stock, 46 locos, 4 trolleys plus 3
special sets unopened-all Ho. 2 sets in “G” and 1 Lionel Ford Motor Co. set. Oh,
and one Bachmann ho-30. Plus some special cars in various scales to denote
special interests. That will teach her to nag…
My entry is quite unusual, I think. When I was 11 the company I worked for went bankrupt. The owner didn’t want to see “the kid” go without anything so he gave me a cardboard box full of used HO scale equipment and some snap track with brass rail. I fooled around with that for a while and found it quite interesting. I went to work for a newspaper next, still 11 years old. After a few months my employer went bankrupt. Because he didn’t want to see me go unpaid he too gave me a box full of HO scale equipment and flex track with brass rail. That sealed the deal. I was from that point forward a died-in-the-wool model railroader. I do not have any of that original equipment today, 47 years later, but I am still going strong in the hobby, now in N scale, which I have been doing since 1968. I still dabble in HO from time to time, believing that any model railroader can learn from any other model railroader regardless of scale. All that’s required is an open mind, and open ears.
Wife started a village for Christmas, & I told her I needed a train to go around it. Well, it grew & grew. I’m hooked.
I was a railfan by age 3 and became a model railroader when I grew tall enough to see the top of a table. I wanted to recreate what I saw in the prototype. This was during Lionel and Flyer’s peak years and I always wore out their catalogs. In the last 50 years I’ve modeled in O, S, HO and N scales, and currently find S scale (not tinplate) the most rewarding.
I think the biggest surprise in present day model railroading is the strong interest in steam locomotives by modelers who never saw steam in regular service.
I was raised in a home next to a Milwaukee Road line. The steam era was just ending and I was fascinated by them.