Let's see your first layout


Z

zoegraf

Craftsman at heart
This is the first layout I put together as a kid in the early 1970's.

Notice some of the kits from back then. Some are still on the market today.
 
Only if you have a wayback machine! My very first layout (two mainlines on a 5x10 plywood sheet) was made in 1966 and there no photos of it that survived.
 
I'm the same as a lot of people from the early years. Jeffrey was 1966 & my 1st layout was 1961. I never took pictures of my layout back then. My 1st layout was on a 4ft by 22ft set on pcs. of thick paneling out of an old house in Miami, Fl. I built all of my rolling stock out of cardboard & metal kits. Lot of my engines were kits. Not very many structures back then to choose from. I made a lot of mine out of thin cardboard. There was a book called "Buildings for HO Scale Trains" you can build. The buildings had to be cut out & glued together. Those were the days.
 
This is a shot of my 027 layout with mostly Louis Marx equipment in 1959. The layout had grown to two 4' by 8's with another extension. Some of the structures are Plastiville kits and others I scratchbuilt using cardboard and balsa wood.

I dismantled and sold off all the gear a few years later and switched to HO scale. Took this photo with my father's roll film camera and a flashbulb.
 
Back in the early 70's, I put up this layout at Christmas. It's right out of the Atlas book, brass sectional track, a few buildings, Fleischman work train, AHM B&O frieght, on a 4x8 sheet of plywood with grass mat. Never got 2 trains moving at the same time and no layout until 2004, when DCC hit the market. DJ.

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My first layout is the one I have on the go right now....I started it a little over 2 years ago, and as you can see, it's still a work in progress.

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This is my very first layout, I think I was around 10 so that would put it about 33 years ago. My sister recently got all of the families super 8 movies put on DVD and this was on one of them. I believe this was x-mas morning when I got an HO set, the entire base was used by the time I left for the Navy in 1985.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=z0wHcoqlnC0
 
Davejb said:
This is my very first layout, I think I was around 10 so that would put it about 33 years ago.
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WOW, what a blast from the past. So cute too ;)

Mine was 5'6" x 3'3" OO. The baseboard was mounted on wheels so it could be rolled under my bed when not in use. No photos that I know of tho'.

In the UK we don't seem to have as much realestate to build huge layouts when living with parents. All rooms in the house are filled with people.

Now I got older I have a train room which has a hug-the-wall benchwork being completed at this time.
 
I had a layout as a kid on a 4x8 underneath my dads layout..i started another one when I was about 13 and never put track on it..so the layout I'm building now is the first one that will be of any significance
 
My first layout was a 3 1/2 x 7 job based on John Olson's Jerome & Southwestern, built between 1998 and 2002. Turned out father and I bit off more than we could chew and it was an operational nightmare. Still, I managed to produce some interesting scenery with gloriously misshapen hills, neatly trimmed patches of field grass as high as 8 scale feet, interesting geological formations reminiscent of sheet styrofoam and ballast thick enough to derail a Mallet! Still, it was fun while it lasted, and most importantly, much was learned from it. (Namely, don't put your sharpest curve inside a tunnel that leads to a high bridge!)
 
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My first layout, well that was a ways back. :eek: Somewhere between 1976 and 1979 built it from an Atlas book. Lots of track, not much to do except watch trains. Decided I needed the area for a table saw then it was torn apart, most of it relegated to the back 40.
There used to be two photos but I only found one.

GGN.jpg


Cheers
Willis
 
Cool, Willis, a classic old Atlas spaghetti bowl. :) My first layout was a Lionel O-27 built in 1952 by my dad and uncle. I sure wish I had some picures of it. It was a figure-8 with two sidings and a spur to the dairy with the loading milk cans. My memory of it is that it was a magnificent example of scale railroading. I think it was actually 4x8 piece of plywood with some grass cloth and a few lichen tress. I remember it had a Plasticville station, firehouse, city hall, and a dime store. It also had an airport beacon and a water tgower with a lighted central column with water that bubbled. It was still the best layout I ever had. :)
 
my first layout (my only layout that was operational) was probably12 years ago. it measured 8'x8' the single main line followed the edges and there was one hoop the ran across the middle where the two sheets of plywood met together. i personally dont have pics i dont think any wher ever taken granted it wouldnt be hard to set it back up i have a photographic memory of it
 
CBCNSfan said:
My first layout, well that was a ways back. :eek: Somewhere between 1976 and 1979 built it from an Atlas book. Lots of track, not much to do except watch trains. Decided I needed the area for a table saw then it was torn apart, most of it relegated to the back 40.
There used to be two photos but I only found one.

GGN.jpg


Cheers
Willis
Click to expand...

I recognize that track plan!!!:D I believe it was the Granite, Gorge, and Northern. That was my 1st HO Layout when I was a kid...(sometime last century :eek:)
 
My first was a HO scale layout with a large loop and a few sidings. It didnt even get scenary before i packed it up. Im working on an N scale layout right now, just waiting on a package to arrive before pics are up :D
 
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