It was a Marx. Can’t remember much about it as it’s been 50 years ago and I told my Mom she could give it to the Salvation Army (didn’t use it much after discovering girls) when I joined the Marines. Sure wish I had it now, though. Ain’t it great!!
Archie
I got my grandad’s (by way of my dad) ancient Athearn F7 in Blue and Yellow Santa Fe Freight scheme. My dad had repainted it (from the original Canadian National colours) to fit his layout. I also got some very old freight cars, I remember there being a Great Northern 40 foot boxcar with opening doors.
The locomotive still runs, and I’m going to repaint it in my Selenian Lines colours eventually. As for the rest of the rolling stock, most of it has found it’s way into my scrap parts box and will probably be recycled into something else soon.
The only other thing from my first oval of track to make it to my current layout is a pair of deck bridges that have been re-weathered.
~METRO
My first train was a Marx FT diesel (I think) in Baltimore & Ohio colors. Small oval of 3-rail track, a transformer, and about 4 cars, including the caboose. Wish I still had it! Lost in one of the family’s many moves.
Unlike the vast majority, I never recieved any Lionel or American Flyer as a child. My parents would have never spent several hundred dollars on one item for one of their children. Never.
I did have various train toys as a youth, most of it came from the flea market.
The first set I got was a G scale, giant toy 2-6-2 and 3 freight car set for $30 at “Toys R Us”. T’was a 6th grade graduation present.
Although my first train was a browser 0-4-0 saddle tank. My 1 most oddest getting
a modeltrain experinces where when I got my 4th engine. I first got this engine
in 1997 but I returned it because I didn’t know how to operate it (I was seven years
old) but 3 yrs later I found the same exat engine (I had accidently got red paint on
the tender) & got it again, at a different toy’s r us (it was life like).
1959 HO F unit red and white Texas Special. All I can remember of the freight were to me what were oddballs. The three head tank car and the flat car with light up nuclear power (waste?). Probably Marx purchased at either the base PX, Sears or at Western Auto, 29 Palms, CA. The sets snapt track was soon attached to a green painted 4x8 with painted roads and a rerailer at each road crossing for a total of four. It made six continental trips before the last of my brothers outgrew it. Remnants passed on to a brothers children 15 years ago and are still rolling. I think the count is ten kids hands it passed through. My folks saw one toy (excluding footballs and baseball mitts) that outlasted our childhood.
For me the first train was my Dad’s O scale 2 rail even though it was his I called it mine! But,I was only 3 years old. [:D]
I had a variety of small trains when I was young, but they were’nt really train sets that can really grow. I had a O scale Marx train set that was a figure eight and had the cardboard figures and signs. But officially what really started me was an HO scale Tyco set, with the small industrial switcher in a Santa Fe silver and red? That’s weird come to think of it! with a Shell tank car, Swift reefer, UP gondola, Santa Fe- Pennsylvannia style caboose. I use the boxes for factories. I only have the switcher. This was a present from my Grandmother.
I got one of the plastic Lionel 0-4-0 loco train sets in 1961, at age 5.
Later, when I was about 10 my grandmother gave me my uncle’s old lionel set from the early '50s.
Still later, at about 14 I got into scale and wanted to build a layout in HO. A friend knew a guy who was a model train dealer. I traded all my Uncle’s Lionel for a Tyco GP-20 CB&Q set. It was several years later that I learned how much the guy had ripped me off. The slimeball knew what he was doing, too. The Tyco set gave me a lot of fun and was the seed that got me really started, but retail it cost all of around twenty dollars at the time. Even then the Lionel was worth a lot more (unbeknownst to me). The guy could have least been honest and told me about it, but I probably still would have made the deal - to my young and inexperienced eye, the detail on that Geep was fine!
My first train was a set from a certain manufacturer that I got for Christmas from a netional toy store when I was a kid. When I opened the box I noticed some of the handrails had fallen off. I returned it, then when to a hobby shop to buy some real model trains (Athearn).
a American Flyer set in the early 50’s Steam two cars and caboose with a circle of track that my Dad nailed to a 4 by 4 sheet of plywood that I later painted green with grey roads. I never got to add any other flyer to that but it was my pride and joy! Cox 47
For RoyalOaker (Dave):
I really appreciate your response! Those memories are so vivid that I cannot understand why there is a “blank” when it comes to the two cars. I suppose given that other cars were added, somehow they all run together in my mind.
Now here is what I have found out. My set had Magnetraction - I don’t think that was available in 1943. My set may have been one that was “promotional,” in that only a limited number were produced. If so, that would account for why it does not appear in the Lionel catalog (1945-1969) that I have.
So, the set your father had and the one from my childhood may be similar in most ways, but when it comes to those cars … just can’t say. Cannot remember a transformer car of any type - BUT - there was a gondola. Whether I added it or it was an original, again - lost in my aging head! The gondola did have cargo - not milk containers, but some other bulk type “thing.”
You are so fortunate to have the set. I cannot tell you how many times I wished that those Lionel trains from my youth were still with me. Wow. But life moves on - when I left for the service - I left for good. That was that. Thirty two years later, I retired - and that was 16 years ago.
I have ordered a Lionel Polar Express set that will run on a shelf arrangement in my HO trainroom in my basement. This is the first Lionel I will have since my youth - although I did buy a set for one of my sons when he was in 4th grade (he still has it!). Anyway, the Polar Express will give my five grandkids something to enjoy when they come to visit Grandpa and his trains.
See ya.
Rubber band drive Lionel HO 0566 Texas special alco FA. I later redid the drive using Athearn U-boat trucks and an Athearn drive to get rid of the rubber bands.
40 years later, I still like em!!
My first train was a NYC Marx from Sears, when I was eight or 9, it was 0-4-0 switcher, had a tender and folded printed metal sides on the cars, the wheels were 4, but the trucks were dummy metal sides. The couplers, plastic, fixed knuckles, ran on the same Marx track as Lionel, got my folks to get me more track, two manual switches. Took care of it, maybe 3 years later, got my prized Lionel diesel, Lehigh Valley, red, like a big 44 ton GE with maybe 3 cars, and caboose, it was good to have a quality set, I appreciated it. Also from Sears Catalog. That was maybe 57, before I was 12, got into electronics in 59-60. Very much liked that train, got some more cars for 50 cents each off the Post Grape Nuts side panels, a dummy FA1, a stand in for the F7A/B sets that ran on SP, the couplers worked with the Lionel as long as every other car was Lionel, my flatcar melted on my south facing window sill, only got a metal one in N scale recently. Took care of that set, ran it on the patio slab in the summer, finally let the trains go at 16. But received an Atlas Santa Fe N scale 4-6-2 set in '69, luckily, parts still worked in 2000 when I tried running it again, the FA2 works, the cars and power pack worked for up to 4 new locos at onces. Now I’ve got MRC and lots of t rains.
My first train to see/like was a PE red car in Long Beach, Calif., the second was like a RS-2 in '53. The 027 was nice, hard to get on track when I got it, but N just has seemed right size since, I still dream of that long run the distance of that patio end to end with N scale. That was living room to den. 
My very first was an N scale set that had a Union Pacific F7(I think) loco in it. That was in the very early 70’s.
After seeing the layout that brought me to the hobby. I went to a hobby shop and picked up an athearn blue box GP38 which i still run even to this day.
Lionel toy train set, O-scale, Christmas of 1956. I was three years old. [^]
TYCO HO Chattanooga set with an 0-8-0 and six freight cars.
Got that from my granparents. Near the same time I also got an O27 set,
think they were both for Christmas, though I stuck with the HO.
I was about four or five.
I received exposure to the hobby when I was about 5 years old. I really got my first experience with the hobby when I bought a Life-like train set at a garage sale. Now, over 8 years later, I am in the process of planning a layout based on the CSX railroad near my hometown.[8D]
My first train set was Model Power, and the freight cars were made by Lima of Italy. The cars looked very similar to Athearn in terms of detail, but they had snap-in Talgo type trucks . The set came with a Santa Fe bay window caboose, a Pacific Fruit Express 50’ mechanical reefer, a Southern 50’ gondola, a Pennsylvania 50’ flat car with containers, an oval track set, and a crossing gate. As for the locomotive, the set came with a Santa Fe FP45, but I wanted a model of a GM switcher and I asked the hobby dealer to substitute the Cox SW1500 in Union Pacific colours sitting in his display case. I got the switcher at no extra charge, and I had no idea that I was getting a better locomotive than what came with the set. I still have the reefer, and I recreated my first train set by acquiring some replacement cars of the same vintage. I had an Athearn SW7 to pull the train, but I got tired of it stalling on switch frogs and now I use a Life-Like SW9 .