About oh, 1971, ‘72 or 3. An AHM set that I can’t remember what if anything it was called. The loco was an ALCO GE 1000 HP LOCOMOTIVE the box said. (Just threw it away not too long ago) Done up for the Pennsylvania. Can’t remember what cars came with it. About a year later I got a second set, A TYCO done in the ever popular Santa FE. F unit A-B and some cars so I don’t remember what cars originally came with the set. I still have those cars and lokes. The TYCO has long been decoration waiting to be resurrected. But the AHM is still going. I still use it and and many of the cars. The loud grinding motor noise still brings back memories of my youth.
Christmas day 1936, I was 6 months old, received a Lionel O gauge steam engine and cars. I don’t remember it, but that Christmas was my dad’s excuse to start building a Lionel O gauge layout for his son (dad was a Santa Fe loco engineer). Had trains ever since. Might add that I was about 5 or 6 before I ever got to run a model train on my own. However, family legend is I rode my first steam engine when I was just over 1 year old. Unfortunately, don’t remember that, but I rode several more and then diesels as I progressed on the way to college.
Bob
Every time I operate an electric (non-battery) power tool, the smell instantly triggers a memory, and I think to my self “electric trains”.
Mine was a tiny N scale from my grandparents. I didnt play with it that much. I remember running it on the hot tub. Then they built me an HO 4 x 6 or so, one track, one siding, and one spur. I LOVED it so much, but then it was sold. From there, I got a Lionel for Xmas. I still have/play with it. Then, I moved to my current RR.
My First locomotive is a Tyco E7 AB unit, lettered for Union Pacific, that came with train set I got for Christmas. I bought 2nd & 3rd are a EMD GP-18 lettered for Santa Fe and Union Pacific. One is AHM and other is Bachmann.
Mine was a TYCO F unit in Santa Fe War bonnet colors. It was a Christmas gift in 1963 (I was 6). It came in a set with a refer, a flat car (with concrete pipe load) a VIRGINIAN Hopper, and a 4-wheel caboose. I still have them all.
Over the next few months, my dad built a layout with sectional brass track and one spur. The train went around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and around and it was boring.
I lost interest in it and got slot cars the next year.
When I was 12, I picked up a Model Railroader magazine at the school library. I discovered that the real joy of the hobby is in the building, so I tried it again and I was hooked. I never forgot how dull it was to have that continuous loop, so all of my layouts have since been point to point, point to loop, or loop to loop - all of which require some participation on my part. Haven’t been bored with trains ever since.
For Christmas 1976, I got a Lionel Santa Fe Twin Diesel set that I still have and have added to some over the years.
Two years later for Christmas 1978, my parents got me a Tyco Silver Streak set, which got me into HO scale.
While I have since advanced on to scale modelling for my trains, I still have my Lionel trains and run them in my home office.
Kevin
My first train was a hand-me-down from an older cousin. A Lionel “Commodore Vanderbuilt” passenger set. Bright red. I mean, BRIGHT red! It was kinda/sorta ‘damaged’ (Stan had run the heck out of it when he was a kid), but it ran really well. My first ‘new’ train was when I was twelve, my parents bought me a large Marx train set with a die-cast 2-4-2 loco, beautifully lithographed stamp metal freight cars, about six million feet of track, two turnouts, and a crossover. I still have it upstairs in my garage. Neat set. It’s probably worth a mint now–some Marx is–but I ain’t letting it go. Too many neat memories.
My first HO trains were some Silver Streak wood and Athearn metal cars that I bought from a buddy of mine in high school for $5 in 1955. I still have most of them. I do not, however, have the Athearn/Globe plastic F-7 HI-F diesel in SP ‘Black Widow’ that came with them. That one bit the dust when it hit an 18" radius curve at about 500 smph.
But I still have my first brass HO steamer, a nifty little PFM ATSF 1950 series 2-8-0 that I bought for–GASP! [:P]–$45.95 in 1961 when I was a senior in college. And she still waddles around the track (albiet with a new can motor) with a lot of conficence.
Tom [:D]
“Santa” gave me some trains for Christmas, 1971. I was 8. He had set up a figure 8 next to the tree, but we had a “real” layout on an unused ping pong table frame within a month. Had an “EL” trolley line and two interconnected loops with several sidings at ground level. The layout has long since vanished, but I retain a picture of the first two locos I unwrapped.
Still have the tank engine… and it still runs!
It started out as dad’s train, but over the years it became mine.
Believe it or not a moderate sized set of Lego tracks direct from Germany. There were two motos run by separate power supplies with three? batteries and you could build your engines and stock from Legos. Cool stuff for a budding engineer (double meaning there). It was what some call “blue era” track. (Right side of this image)
A few years later I inherited my father’s 1927 O trains. I began my first HO layout at the age of ten on the usual 4x8, which grew to 8x8 and then to reachable layout covering half of the attic. After discovering cars and girls … … … got back into the hobby seriously several years ago.
Karl
For Christmas in 1962 I got a “Lone Star Treble O Electric”. That thing has so many hours on it I can’t believe it still runs. It is resting in a box now. I had a collector offer me $500.00 for it, but I couldn’t part with it.
Brent
My first train was a Life-Like set for Christmas 1972, It had a CP Rail F7A, CP Rail gondola, Swift reefer, and caboose. I still have the F7 and it still works great, also have both freight cars. I run it every Christmas around the tree.
My first engine was an N-scale black F40PH by Life-Like. My first full train was an HO-scale Life-Like Santa Fe train set with a GP38 diesel. I’ve been working on that GP38’s electrical pickup for about 12 years now, and I still can’t get it to work right!
Your trains both stopped working at about the same time? The first things I’d check if that happened are the track and wheels. Are they all clean? Dirty track and dirty wheels don’t conduct electricity well at all. Cleaning is pretty easy if you’ve got something like alcohol and paper towels, or a Bright Boy by Walthers.
My first was Christmas 1987 (I was almost 4) Athern Chessi (B&O) GP35, some Blue box and Like like cars and a cabose and a MRC Tec 2 2500. For my birthday in February I got a ATSF SDP40 in red and silver war bonnet. That was it for my engines (other family members got engines) except for a D&RGW Athern Hustler in the late 90s. Until a few years ago when I got back into trains after years of bad health. Joined a HO/HOn3 club bought an Atlas GP40 D&RGW, a used Spectrum ATSF 2-8-0 and a Balboa C&S #74 2-8-0 I’m still working on.
Oh, wow. I think it was back when i was like 3 (all of 11 years ago!) by parents got me a boat load of those Thomas the Tank Engine. I played with those things so much i actually broke some of them. Fortunetaly, at the same time, my dad had a bunch of ancient HO scale diesels his dad had bought him, and had set up a portion of benchwork in the spare room in the basement. One thing led to another, and i was hooked.
P.S. I still have all of them, and still use them for inspiration.
My actual first engine was an N scale Atlas Trainman GP9TT in Milwaukee black/yellow paint. My first HO train was actually 2, a Bachmann Plus Sante Fe B23-7 6410 in yellow/blue (with the wrong type of trucks) and a Walthers Proto 2000 GP18 in green/yellow band Seaboard Air Lines 400 paint. Still have both, although the MILW is ripped up a bit in an attempt to make it a regular freight only 9er, and the handrails/body from the Dash 7 are removed for what was supposed to be an artistic paint job from the neighbor but after 5 months of waiting and no paint I took it back home.
Discounting the large-scale locomotive I had when I was about 5… the first train I remember owning, was a plastic Marx set from the 1950s. Still have it, in fact. Scale-wise, I didn’t get my first HO scale trains until I was 8. That would have been about 1983-84…when I found a Bachmann F9 in Chessie colors, along with a few Sherwin-Williams cars. Of that set, all that remains is the station, signal bridge, switch tower, and a couple of the freight cars. The locomotive simply wore out, and was retired by 1990.
Not long after I got that set, my grandfather gave me the Tyco (I know!) Johnson Wax set he’d been given. That one consisted of a Baldwin RF16, 3 boxcars (proudly advertising various cleaning products), a caboose, power pack, and a loop of brass track. If I’d have known that the JW set was a bit rare…I’d never have attempted to weather the cars, and wouldn’t have stored it in the attic! Still have most of it, but the locomotive has been fitted (oddly enough) with Bachmann F9 running gear.
I also had some of that blue-track Lego train stuff - nothing like the modern Lego traisn, no power int he track, there was a motor unit and a battery pack to power it, usual thing was to make the battery pack one of the cars.
Not sure if I had that prior to getting the first HO train that was truly mine. That was a Tyco Santa Fe freight set, with an F unit in blue and yellow warbonnet, a flatcar with 3 culvert pipe sections, a Dairyman’s League reefer, and a SF caboose.
I also had another set that ran on track like Hot WHeels, only it had solid curves and turnouts that were basically just gates ot direct the train oen way or the other. The whole thing was futuristic in appearance, the ‘loco’ had an onboard battery that you plugged in a charging station to charge up. One of the cars came with red plastic ‘ore’ and you could fill the car from a loading bin. I also had a car that worked the same way, and the track was compatible, plus I had some Hot Wheels track too, so I used to make huge layouts with the stuff.
–Randy
Lionel in the late 40’s. My brother and I had our tonsils taken out, and when we came home, my dad had set up a trainboard between our beds with a Lionel freight set and an oval of track. Don’t still have it, but in the mid fifties switched to HO, and am now in N due to space constraints. Still love HO, though…