How did you get started in the hobby?


RedRyder77

RedRyder77

Member
Hey give me some credit, I'm trying to post interesting stuff in an attempt to get to know everyone! Sooooooo with that, I'll ask the question that has probably been asked to all of you about a million times already: How did you get started in model railroading? Go nuts, what was your 1st train set? How did you get it? How old were you...do you still have it?

Looking fwd to hearing your stories!
 
Once again the forum ate my post....

As far as I know I have always been in the hobby. I've loved trains and dinosaurs for as long as I can remember back.

My first "new from the store" locomotive was in 4th grade. It is an AHM 4-4-0 Reno. I also got a shiny gold MRC power supply to go with it. Before then we were so poor all I had was Marx toy train stuff that we had been given or picked up 2nd hand at garage sales/junk stores. I don't know how I didn't get electrocuted with the prior power pack.
 
You reckon you were poor IH? My first train set/s were on pieces of cardstock (cereal packets), folded in half lengthwise, like a long tent, with a train drawn in pencil on either side, by my mother, so I could push them around.
 
My story is a little different...no one in my family had trains or anything but I had Tyco and AFX tracks every Christmas as long as I can remember, it's all I ever asked for. My dad was old school, born in Yugoslavia, awesome dad but kind of a hard ass with some stuff. He wanted nothing to do with action figures, plastic dinosaurs or super heroes because they "didn't do anything". As a machinist and later self employed contractor, he was a tinkerer..my slot cars, RC Cars and things like that were things we could play together with.

I seriously have no idea how I knew the name Lionel but I did. There were a few seasonal dept stores in NJ called Branch Brook Co. and man did they have AWESOME layouts year round. We went there for patio furniture or something ridiculously boring to a 12 yr old and I saw the huge Lionel sign and the layout that had every gauge in it. I called my dad over and he was pretty impressed with all of it. The trains themselves, the idea of me actually building something and I think much like the slot cars, this was a way for him to play too. So in the middle of summer I came home with a Lionel catalog and was told "ask for a set for Christmas"...which seemed like FOREVER in the middle of summer. We went back a few more times and I saw more cool stuff but he wouldn't budge, had to wait for the holidays.

I guess going on 13 or it was one of those things where I was supposed to be "too cool" for that sorta thing but I didn't care. We were already talking about making one of the rooms upstairs strictly for layouts and my slot cars, all was right, this was going to happen and I was going to be a Lionel train owner which as far as I was concerned was like saying I had a Rolls Royce.

Sparing a lot of detail my dad got sick a few months later and spent Christmas in the hospital. I stayed with my aunt and uncle that holiday with my little sister while my mom was bedside. I woke up to a starter set..the Santa Fe Express. Bitter sweet. I talked to my dad on the phone and he asked me if I liked it, etc. By January 6th he took a turn for the worse and passed away. So..that sucked.

On a brighter note, since then (and I am now 37 years old), I have kept my small but steadily growing collection close by and running every single holiday season. By the end of October the boxes are out and I start oiling everything. 1st week of November they're running and every year, hell or high water the night before Thanksgiving has been a little "holiday kickoff" party at my house where my O Gauge layout is up and running for it's annual voyage. Every year I add a few pieces and now I'm adding things year round when funds permit, not just during the holiday season.

So that's my story. Now with all the new features we have he would have been a hardcore collector and rail fan. Every year I run my trains and build my collection with my dad in mind. Soon enough space wont be an issue and they'll run year round, like they were supposed to!
 
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Christmas, 1955.

KennysFirstTrainSet-1955_zps94b76351.png
 
Tyco "Chattanooga" train set, Christmas 1978. 5 years old. Took a break from it at 13. All I remember back then was Tyco, Bachmann, Athearn, ahm, and atlas track. Flex track had just become a big deal when my interest waned. My how things have changed. Back at it when I returned to it at 35 when my kids got interested in trains; and 6 years later, still going strong...

Brad
 
I had to wait until I was ten to get a train set. It was one of the very first Tyco sets that had the Gawdawful pancake motor drive, and of course promptly self-destructed the third pass around the 4x8 Plywood Pacific. I learned a few new words that day...
 
I was 23 when I got my first train set. It was the Bachman N-Scale American 4-4-0 set. My girlfriend and I were spending our first Christmas together and wanted something to put around the very small tree we had. That was the reason we purchased the N-Scale set. HO would have just been way too big for that tree. We were living a very meager life together in a run down old shotgun house. But we were happy to see that little train running around the tree. I am now 43 and still have that set somewhere.

Over the years I have had numerous hobbies. I move from one to the other when I get bored. I have a hard time staying focused on any one thing. I have been that way my entire life. But I have always held onto my train stuff and go back to it at times. Winter is when I really concentrate on them. I get too busy in the Summer to mess with them much. But it's great to be able to model in the winter time to pass the time.

Which is why you will see me busier with things here in the winter months. Right now I have a deck to build around the pool. After that I am sure my wife will find other things to keep me busy around the house.
 
I got my start around 5-6 yrs old playing with my fathers Lionel set from the late '40s I got my own set around 6-8 years old, dont remember exactly when anymore. Dad's set stayed at my grandparent's house till I was given it as a gift when I was 12 and able to take proper care of it. Most of my cheapo MPC era Lionels are gone, but dad's set is stil in my family and goes under the Christmas tree. I never gave up the hobby, even thru high school and college, it was my escape from daily stress. Since finding out that I have Aspergers Syndrome, I understand that the hobby became what I needed when I need to isolate myself and recover from stressfull situations. My interests changed in my late teens to collecting, operating and fixing older HO scale brass trains and outdoor G scale with LGB European trains and some live steam. MiketheAspie
 
Hey RedRyder77

That is a very touching story, thank you for sharing it with us. You should send that into readers digest, I am sure many people would like to read your story. Its great to hear how you honor your father by keeping his memory with you when you play with your trains.


My story is much more mundane. I always wanted a train set, but living in a 2 small bed room apartment with my single Mom and 2 older sisters there was no room or money for that matter. My Mom worked 2 sometimes 3 jobs and managed to buy a house in 1974 and for our first Christmas in the new house she bought me a Tyco Spirit of 76 set. I always wanted a Lionel set but I was very happy with what I got. That started a tradition of HO train sets under my Christmas trees for most of the next 39 years.

I lost all of my trains after my divorce, but when I got remarried I bought an Athearn Coca-Cola 2004 Christmas set to run under my tree every Christmas.

My daughter bought for me a Lionel Polar Express set in 2012 and that set began my passion for Lionel. After all those years I final had a Lionel train! After that Christmas I built a permanent layout in January and I run O gauge trains year round. I even have an HO test track on my O gauge layout. When I discovered eBay one of the first things I bought were Tyco spirit of 76 locomotives and the cars that came with my set, I have never forget those cars!

Now I run mostly Lionel trains, but I have plans to build a permanent HO layout in addition to my O gauge layout. I am fascinated by DCC so much so that I bought the NCE DCC Twin and a Pro Cab Deluxe. All I need now is the time to build my HO bench work.

For me the Christmas season kicks off with my trains running on Thanksgiving day. I put up my artificial tree with only lights on it and trains running under it. We decorate the tree the day after Christmas.

I have told this story several times and I never mind to tell it again especially when someone is actually interested to hear it.

I'm glad to know more about you RedRyder77 and like I have said before, its always great to have a fellow Lionel fan onboard with us!
 
Louis, I guess I could say my story is the 'mirror opposite' of yours - started with Lionel and end with HO.

I got a small Lionel set for Christmas at age 5, my dad pre-laid all the track on a 4x8 piece of plywood in the basement on Christmas Eve. To this very day I think that was probably the most exciting Christmas I ever experienced. I ran trains every day for the first year, then gradually tapered off to 1-2 times a week up to age 10, when I figured I was probably outgrowing trains.

Around age 11 I started collecting Roco Minitanks military scale models (anybody remember those?). I had to go to a hobby shop to buy them, they weren't available anyplace else that I knew of. I saw that the store also sold HO trains, but I was too focused on the Minitanks to pay much attention to them. One Saturday I was there to spend my weekly allowance on yet another Minitanks model. On this particular morning the store was quite busy so I had to wait in line to pay for my purchase, and I happened to stand beside a magazine rack that had Model Railroader and Railroad Model Craftsman in it. I picked up the RMC and thumbed thru it; I was amazed at the exquisite detail of the trains and the layouts they were running on, but more importantly I discovered that adult men actually bought and used these trains themselves! I decided right then and there to put back the Minitanks model and buy the RMC instead. I don't remember how many times I read, and re-read, that magazine from cover-to-cover. I asked for a Tyco HO train starter set for the following Christmas, and that launched me into my lifelong passion for scale model trains.
 
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I got started by my Parents and Grandparents on my fathers side which gave me possibly a BAKELITE Bakelite - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia rain set as a child, around 1966 I as introduced to the ERIE LACKAWANNA RR at that point it was the EX NEW YORK PENNSYLVANIA & OHIO RR, NEE ATLANTIC & GREAT WESTERN RR running south out of BUFFALO, NY then north, east and west throughout The WESTERN NEW YORK AREA including my mothers hometown JAMESTOWN, NY.

Atlantic and Great Western Railroad - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Nypano Railroad - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia
Buffalo and South Western Railroad - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia

It was my brother who introduced me to model railroading with his S-SCALE- AMERICAN FLYER as my dad called it then. I was given a -O-27- O-SCALE, he and I combined the gauges we ran the rail line as The D. T. & W. RY. As for the S-SCALE being the major size due to track, cars and locomotives. I think the rest is history ..

BCK RR
 
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Bruette said:
I'm glad to know more about you RedRyder77 and like I have said before, its always great to have a fellow Lionel fan onboard with us!
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Thanks Louis, that really means a lot. Honestly I was wondering if that post would have been a bit much but I'm glad you appreciated it. That's a really cool tradition of putting your tree up and decorating it the day after.

Your story was great as well and I'm happy to hear you got that Polar Express set!
 
I got started about 3 years ago, maybe four, as a result of my interest in general model making and after visiting a local Model Train Museum with a very large HO Scale Layout.

The detail, and potential of model railroading, struck me as being limitless with the reality of the layout being incredible. Those things showed me that a "model railway" was much more than just a train running around a track, and I had to try it for myself. That is one decision I do NOT regret and wish I had have known the possibilities years earlier :)
 
Being a young boy born in England I grew up in the days of steam, my first foray into model trains was at the age of 12 when I got a Hornby train set for Christmas, my Uncles and Aunts bought model train stuff for me the same year.

We moved to Australia two years later when I was 14 (1957) and I dont know what happened to the train set, like any other young boy up to the age of 22 I found a new hobby called Girls, soon after I got married I got the train bug again and built a layout using Triang equipment, this lasted for about two years (1968-1970) until my first Daughter arrived.

I got the bug again in the 1980s when I built an Australian layout and again in the 1990s when I built my first American layout, we shifted interstate and did a lot of travelling for a few years then on retirement in 2004 I took up the hobby again, I have built several layouts over the past 10 years including American and British N scale and I now have one American HO scale layout and working on a second American End to End switching layout.

Since the 1960s I can never remember being without Railroad books and in later years accumulated a large collection of Railroad videos and DVDs, once Railroading is in your blood its there forever.
 
tootnkumin said:
You reckon you were poor IH? My first train set/s were on pieces of cardstock (cereal packets), folded in half lengthwise, like a long tent, with a train drawn in pencil on either side, by my mother, so I could push them around.
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I remember my grandmother gave me a punch out cardboard train book once. It had buildings and telegraph poles, signs and fences. That must have been pre-first grade. I also had a cheapo plastic train (fake Brio) that I got before the divorce, but my response was focusing on electric trains. That was how we distinguished them as a child "can I play with the electric trains?"

I was also fortunate that before the divorce my father had purchased a book called Practical Guide to Model Railroading. I basically memorized that book and read it so often I wore off the cover and first few pages. I think my copy ended up starting with page 7. It was my life line to model railroading until In 5th grade(?) or so I got a copy of the Atlas track planing book called HO Scale Track Plans for Atlas Custom Line Track. I also memorized it and wore its cover though on the binding. Finally, I discovered (in 7th grade) that the local library carried a model railroading magazine called "Model Railroader".
 
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Did I mention that I model both in N-SCALE and HO-SCALE and my father which happened to be a U.S.N. WWII Veteran and a O-SCALE Modelrailroader he started in the 1920's with a Lionel Train set... However, I inherited his set as of May 4, 1012 due to him passing away at age 92! I promised him when my mother passed away on my birthday which she and I were working on together, that I would keep his O-SCALE and keep it in the family... and not sell it.

BCK RR
 
Both parents came from families of 16 and I'm the third of 12 boys in my family so, even the thought of personal toys was just in the imagination. I remember seeing model trains at the well-to-do families homes but I got my fix watching the switcher and crane at the local paper mill and feed mill up the river. Then after get out of the army and divorce a co-worker introduced me to Lionel for 3 years. 1973 to 1976.
But then my interest in racing cars and motorcycles took over until about 1995 when I pick it up with 'N' scale. I had several small layouts through the years until a couple years ago my eyes and arthritis took me to 'HO' and loss of income in 2003 prevented much development. Now I'm retired so looking to get going again in 'HO' and maybe a whimsical 'On30' layout.
I currently have a 4-6-0 and 0-6-0 saddle tank switcher in 'HO' with DCC and sound, two 40' wood side reefers, 50' combine and 6-40' flats. But only enough track to display them and an NCE Power Cab.

I'm slow but on the way.
 
Richard V said:
Both parents came from families of 16 and I'm the third of 12 boys in my family so, even the thought of personal toys was just in the imagination. I remember seeing model trains at the well-to-do families homes but I got my fix watching the switcher and crane at the local paper mill and feed mill up the river. Then after get out of the army and divorce a co-worker introduced me to Lionel for 3 years. 1973 to 1976.
But then my interest in racing cars and motorcycles took over until about 1995 when I pick it up with 'N' scale. I had several small layouts through the years until a couple years ago my eyes and arthritis took me to 'HO' and loss of income in 2003 prevented much development. Now I'm retired so looking to get going again in 'HO' and maybe a whimsical 'On30' layout.
I currently have a 4-6-0 and 0-6-0 saddle tank switcher in 'HO' with DCC and sound, two 40' wood side reefers, 50' combine and 6-40' flats. But only enough track to display them and an NCE Power Cab.

I'm slow but on the way.
Click to expand...

Great stuff..I'm also into motorcycles and race cars. More so bikes though. I do track days, involved with racing etc. So between bikes, trains and an occasional HO slot car or model kit...I've learned how to do some fantastic stuff with a can of beans.
 
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