Craignor;
I wish I could figure out how to post pictures here. I was looking at your
pics on your site and saw your location. I have several Christmas shots
of layouts in Fire Stations around Maryland (I’m a retired Firefighter) it
would be nice to share with some of you all here. My pics go back to the
1930’s.
Ches,
Yes, I would love to see these shots, and to help you post them here. Are any of them in a digital format…Jpeg or Gif?
My first electric train was the LIONEL “Western Gift Pak”, which came with a plastic 2-4-2 Columbia, tender, blue Bronx Zoo Giraffe car, green Sheriff & Outlaw car, #1877 flat with horses and a brown caboose.
Santa also brought a loop of O-31 track, and a Type RX 110 watt transformer.
That Christmas, after playing with it under the tree(where it was running when we came downstairs), we moved the train out to the playroom where it was integrated with Dad’s pre-war stuff on the floor. He had a #238E Torpedo with three red passenger cars, a #262 with a set of four-wheel freight cars(that never make it around a curve without flipping!), a nice lithographed American Flyer station, and a three-piece bridge.
This is when I discovered coupler compatibility too!
Next Christmas I got an Operating Milk Car. That’s when I discovered I needed “NEUTRAL” on my engines! Only later did I discover that I could have wired the OCS to the Accessory posts on the transformer, so I always had to remove the engine from the track to make the milk car work!
That was when I was 5 and 6(I’m 40 this week) and I still have the complete set, and the milk car is just behind my LionMaster Hudson on the layout as we speak!
Jon [8D]
Hello
I first recived a Lionel Pennsylvania 2-4-0 with a chugging tender, a yellow Union Pacific flatcar, a red Southern Pacific Gondola Car, a Blue Great Norhtern Hopper Car, and a Green Penn central Caboose for graduating elementary school from my aunt.
My earliest memories of Lionel Trains is playing with her scout set at christmas. It had a 2-4-2 Columdia and Streamlined Tender, a black Lionel Lines flatcar, a Blue Bronx ZOO girafe car, and a red unlighted Lionel Lines Caboose.
This past christmas I recived a Lionel Riding the Rails Hobo Set. The 2-4-0 crashed headlong into the Hudson and jolted the motor so it wouldn’t run.
Bert and Mary Poppins
First train : Marx wind up handed down from older cousin. 040 engine,NYC tender, Bessimer boxcar and NYC caboose. First electric train Lionel set with 2035 engine just as pictured in the 1950 catalog. I was seven.
My first train was a Marx. Steam engine, tender, tank car, hopper car and caboose made up the complete set. My grandfather put the layout on top to the freezer in my grandmother’s kitchen and my favorite photo was taken.
I still have the orginal engine and the handcar that is in the photo. They both run just fine. We believe I just turned five when the photo was taken.
It was love at first sight. [:D]
My first Lionel arrived when I was ten years old. I still have it and it runs perfectly. The satelite still works like the day it arrived.
My first train was a Lionel #681 Pennsy Steam Turbine 6-8-6 and tender. It was bought in the early 50’s. We have a picture of it around our Christmas tree in our train/family room. That engine, with all it’s cars, are sitting on one of the shelves in the room.
Tom
My very first train was an American Flyer S Scale, hand-me-down from my
uncle. The next best was an Athearn train set w/a hustler engine, two cars
and a caboose. This was in 1954.(could be off in years) Then, in 1975, I converted all my HO
scale stuff to O Scale, and that’s where I’ve been since.
My first train (and so far only train ) was a Lionel Steamer when I was a kid of 6 years old back in the 1950’s. It had two switches and a side track with an uncpupler. My mom did the layout for me on 4 x 8 plywood. It had roads and a tunnel made from paper mache.
Here’s mine - a MarX 333 and the original cars…still runs as good as it did in 1948 (I wore out the pick up plate on the loco and replaced it, along with a few of the “scissor” type couplers.) I run it every Christmas and suddenly, I’m 6 years old again…
My first train, or my Dad’s? [:)] My brother and I recieved a Lionel Freight set headed by a 2026 in 1950 too! A 2026 steamer, 6462 gondola, Lehigh Valley Hopper, two dome Sunoco Tank car, and a 6257 Caboose. An oval of track and a 1033 transformer! My brother was 3 YO and I was 4 mths. I can only remember it in later years and from family photo’s. The train was given away in 1957. In 1992 I was able to recreated this set ,thru train show purchases, in order to hand the memory on to my family.
Hello,
These stories and photos are so great, I printed them out, cut them out of the paper, and pasted them into a composistion book so I can read them all the time.
Bert and Mary Poppins
My First train was a lionel Broadway Limited that I got for Christmas in 1974 and I still have it to this day. It runs very good The other train in the house at that time was my fathers prewar 1688 set it did not run then( it does now) Me & my older Brother used to try to get it to run.Sometimes it would other times it didn’t .It has been restored and now resides at my Brothers house. NYC Fan that is a nice picture of your Berk & General set you could print up Christmas postcards from that…Keith
I had Two. My father bought me a Milwaukee special when I was born. He purchased the add on cars up till 76 when he passed away. My mother and him were seperated at the time and somehow my train ended up my grandmothers house along with some other items. I did not know of the train untill I was in high school and my brothers told me that I had a train at grandma’s house. Eventully I worked the nerve to ask her about the trains and
she took me to a spare bedroom and pulled out a grocer bag that 5 or 6 boxes of cars, she then pointed up to the top of the closet and thier was the train set.
We took it all down stairs and set the up a little oval, Played for 2 to 3 hours. We then packed it all back up and I told her she need to keep safe untill someday when I get my own home. Leaving it their I know made her happy.
The First set that I ever played with was a Heavy Metal that Mother and step farther purchased for me on my 12 birthday.
I love and play with both, The Milmaukee Road set was completed in the first year of my marriage, My wife had no idea what she was getting into at the first train show.[B)]
I don’t kjnow that I had a “first” train, as our trains were just “the trains”, and they were in our house as far back as I can remember. I found some home movies recently that I had converted to video that show me at Christmas time playing with trains, and I could not have been more than four or five, but I don’t recognize or remember the trains. It was a small layout - about 2’ x 3’ and the entire train is ona trestle and it is zooming on an oval about a mile a minute. SUrprised it didn’t run right off teh track.
All of the trains we had I still have.
When you think about it, it is really amazing that every last piece of Lionel equipment that is upwards of 50 years old still works like the day it got stored away. The tracks were dirty and when you first powered them up there were lots of center rail sparks, but the stuff just worked great. I can’t think of much else that could be 50 years old, not used for 35 years that could come out of a box and after only a little clean up and oiling works just as well as it did 35 years ago.
I wonder if the new stuff of today could match that level of durability and be just as good out of teh box in 2040 as it was in 2005.
Unfortunately, I don’t think I have 35 years left to test the theory.
Mine was an MPC starter set called the “black river freight” I believe. This set came with a 2-4-0, a Rio Grande tender (with sound of steam “chugger”), a hopper, gondola, flatcar, and caboose.
For about 5 years I would receive something to add to the set; a crossing gate, a banjo signal, track and switches, a station, streetlights, bumpers, or an occational building kit.
I never really parted with my trains (like so many did), though there were a few years where they didn’t get used as much as others. I’ve also lost a few pieces of some of those building kits. The crossing gate and banjo signal are still on my layout (both have needed work since I received them), and once in a blue moon I still run my original train.
I was really surprised to see how many posts on this thread listed an MPC set as their first train.
J White
Wow! Deja vu. I got a Marx windup in 1949 (age 4). It barely lasted a year and I don’t remember any of the individual pieces. In 1950 I got a 2035 freight set . I sold it all 10 years later so I could buy some HO stuff. 5 years ago I recreated my old 2035 set and haven’t stopped since!
Pete
Me first train was a Sante Fe Alco F7-A the same kind my father picked out for his first train
In the summer of 1951 my 1st job was working on a milkroute for 50 cents a day, and by the time the Christmas sales were on I had enough to buy a Scout. $12.95 if I recall. In spite of all the bad press they get, it is a good runner.
My 2nd train was last Christmas. My kids and grandkids got tired of listening to me bellyache about how I never got a train for Christmas, and had to buy my own. It is Lionel’s Southern RR diesel freight set, In the past year it has been supplemented with a UP Hudson loco and several more cars.
Bob
The absence of sparks, blue smoke and heat is usually a really good sign.
My first train set was an Aurora Postage Stamp N gauge passenger set. I was a 60’s kid and slot car freak. Sometime in the late 60’s Aurora did some cross promoting and I just had to have a N gauge train set. Santa obliged and several layouts insued. Now 30 plus years later and layouts in N to G I find myself enthralled with tinplate and wind-ups. Go figure.