I loved my 4x8 “layout”. It sat right on the floor, which was great for a 8 year old. I had a loop of track, with plenty of room in the middle for stuff like Lego buildings and tank battles (I had a Cox military train set). Great memories…
Simon
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LOL, I went from 4’x8’ to 8’x15’x10’ U shaped layout
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Here’s mine that my dad made around 1960 when we lived on Eddy Road:
First_HO-1962 by Edmund, on Flickr
Around 1963 we moved to ‘the suburbs’ and the layout followed. I distinctly remember building these Revell structures and using coffee grounds as a scenery material. Some of my Matchbox cars are in the background!
The seed was planted!
Cheers, Ed
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I love those 1960s and 70s photographs. Please put more up. That was when Model Railroading was truly fun.
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I wish my folks had taken pictures of my early layouts; I had forgotten that my Dad put my Lionel stuff on a 4 x 4 sheet when I was 6. Film and processing was expensive for a young couple with four kids; I was lucky to have gotten the Lionel train set.
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Your third picture was my favorite. Were you one of the two youngsters? As they say, “priceless” endmrw1120250947
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Yes, my first 2 layouts were on a 4 x 8. My dad built a train table for me in the garage. The first layout had my original Marx H0 train, and track and scenery elements that I got for Christmas. This was about 1968, and a lot of the buildings and scenery materials were from West Germany.
Then, I discovered "Model Railroader " magazine, and elected to completely rebuild the layout. In the late '60’s, the magazine was floating the concept that the most realistic layout was a point to point. So, the second layout was a point to point, never mind it was on a 4 x 8 !
It actually came out o.k. It was a figure 8, up and over, that didn’t connect. an engine house on one end, a 2 track yard on the other. As money allowed, I added a few sidings along the way to drop off cars…
Paul
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In my pink polyester pants asking dad if he “needs” this thing 
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If any one or two things stand out in
your memory about those early, Lionel and American flyer layouts, what are they?
With me, one of the things I remember most was the wonderful smells about those trains. Brand new they had a certain smell about them, but running they had this incredible sensory hot grease and hot electrical experience that HO just doesn’t give you. The other thing was that my dad and uncle had built a layout for me as a surprise before Christmas and it had a dozen lighted buildings and accessories all over it, and in the dark that layout lighted up was magic, there’s no other word for it.
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I love the smell of American Flyer smoke in the morning.
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Please unplug when not at home 
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Before the 4 by 8, Christmas 1972:
After the 4 by 8 on a ping pong table:
The “permanent” layout was 4 by 9 with a shelf spur.
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I remember having the booklet " H0 Railroad That Grows". Put out by Kalmbach in the 1950’s, out of print now. It is about building an H0 model railroad on a 4 x 8. Starts with just a loop, and keeps building. It ends with adding an extension, making it something like a 5 x 8, if memory serves…
Paul
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I helped a older gentleman add 1" x 6s to the sides of a couple of 4" x 8"s once. He had 5- 4" x 8"s lined up in a row and his layout was a big dog bone. Adding the 1" x 6"s to the sheets at each end let him increase the size of the loops at each end.
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Looks like the ideal table there.
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That thing looks like a lot of fun.
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my favorite MR project railroad was the Virginian for Similar Reasons. I always wished they would’ve done an extension on the rice harbor as well since that one was built with similar modularity in mind, but being that the Virginian remained around at the MR offices up until they moved after the firecrown buyout and rice harbor didn’t, I suspect there was a preference for one over the other that got it that extra attention. Plus the first module was leftover from a previous layout as well.
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