Childhood train friends?

A few of my childhood friends had trains, some Marx but mostly HO.  Unfortunately, many of them are long since passed (too young, too young!); of the others, I have lost touch and have no idea.

Kind of a downer response, but I am curious to see how many have similar experiences. 

I don't remember ANY childhood friends with trains.  One or two years around the holidays, my dad (and I ?) put up our eclectic mix of Lionel, American Flyer, and Marx (my mom's childhood train).  All my friends would come over and we would run trains in awe, but that was about the end of it.

All my buddies had trains, all in HO. Like seven guys. We all had 4x8 layouts we dabbled in. But one, Bobby J. Is still into trains, HO. He is a scratch builder and does a fantastic job. I on the other hand moved to Lionel because of the heft and sounds and of course the history. We live fairly close to each other and are still friends. Keep in mind this all started when we met in 3rd grade. Now I’m 62, and he is 63. Good topic.

John, interesting topic. When I was growing up all my friends had trains. It was a divided camp. You were either Lionel or American Flyer. I guess what ever your parents or Santa gave you! I had Lionel. I seem to be the only one from the neighborhood that kept up the hobby. I have had some of my old friends visit and after seeing my modest layout wish they were back in the hobby. I have encouraged them to get back into the Worlds Greatest Hobby.

Tom

Reminds me of this line from the Polar Express "At one time most of my friends could hear the bell. But as the years passed, it fell silent for all of them." " Though I have grown old the bell still rings for me. As it does for all who truly believe." How true it is. . .

I didn’t have friends with trains. However, when my mother Relocated my trains to others, I became friends with the kids that got them! I got to enjoy them all over again!

I didn't have any rich friends.    The closest was a kid who had money to buy a whole album when the rest of us were buying 45s.

Nobody had trains, nobody had room.  Trains came out at Christmas, stayed out for three weeks and were packed away.  We did make the rounds to see family Xmas displays but no one had anything up after the holidays.

In the early 1970s my parents were renting the second floor of a carriage house that was part of a larger estate in a wealthy area.  I recall several of my friends and/or their dad's had trains.  One friend's father had a lot of postwar Lionel, I remember the Seaboard switcher's color scheme in particular, but not much else.  Another friend, who lived in a c. 10,000 SF Georgian-style mansion, had a huge O gauge train table in the basement.  It must have been at least 8 x 20 or larger, as their basement was huge and there was a lot of room for the layout.  They also had a doepke (?) outdoor track set up on their lawn, with the hand crank cars.  I always thought that was neat!  Lost touch with all of them, after my parents moved.

After my parents moved, I recall the next door neighbor's mother having Flyer S gauge (which is what we had growing up) and us setting up the trains in their basement to run for a few days. 

After high school in the mid 1980s, when in the US Navy, I met a friend who was from upstate NY and he and his father were into Lionel Postwar.  Lost touch with him after finishing that particular school and going to sea.

NWL

@ConrailFan posted:

Reminds me of this line from the Polar Express "At one time most of my friends could hear the bell. But as the years passed, it fell silent for all of them." " Though I have grown old the bell still rings for me. As it does for all who truly believe." How true it is. . .

ConrailFan, you hit the nail on the head.. "The bell still rings for me". Gets kinda faint on the bad days, but I am lucky to find friends like ya'll

Necrail, yup, ours went back in storage when the tree came down.

Brad, like you I did not have friends with trains. Even the one we had was but an oval that Grandpa bought at the Monkey Wards, and my dad and uncle ran it till we came around.

For Me and my brothers, I had grand children first. My cousin and I shared memories of her American Flyer, and with grandchildren, I am sharing what I have so that they can build memories. Christopher Robin said to Pooh Bear, "We didn't know we were making memories, we just knew we were having fun."  And now, as I get more proficient with fixing, I share with my brothers so they can run them under the tree with their youngsters... planting a seed, re-connecting with Cousins, and 'Having Fun".

JOHN, another great topic. Thanks for sharing, Nice to bump into you again after all these years, kindred spirits

Essentially none. I was born in 1948; got my layout in 1955. We were "solid working class" or "middle class" (whatever that meant; meaningless now), as were many others in the neighborhood, so trains could have been bought, but trains were not a "thing" with most people I knew. I had a nice permanent Lionel 027 layout with 2 spurs and a passing siding (only 1 loco, though....). I never put a train around a tree.

But - one guy up the street did have a bit of interest; he had a Kusan "2-rail tinplate" Alco set, then later a Marx 666 set from Sears. Ran it on my Lionel layout a few times. I liked it. But, his interest waned and never came back.

A couple of other guys had AF sets, both PA sets of some sort. One was blue and silver. Neither guy had much interest in trains.

Another guy across the street was literally using his "old" Lionel 2035 as a doorstop (ever picked up one of those?). We were around 13; 1961 or so. I asked if he wanted it, and he said no. So, after we asked his mother, it was mine, and it went into a drawer for years. I actually fixed it up (not to be confused with "restored") when I was in my 40's, complete with a NOS tender from Madison Hardware, still in New York.

That was it. There must have been more, as you saw trains and layouts in stores, especially at Xmas, of course. We had at least one Lionel (AF too?) Service Station (an appliance dealer). But so far as my life was concerned, I was pretty much alone with my hobby. Trains were not broadly a big interest among the kids/adolescents I knew.

I had HO trains on two different layouts, from the time I was 8 years old till I got out of HS and my parents moved. My dad had Lionel Tinplate that we ran at Christmas. I had an uncle and cousin that were into trains , he had Flyer.

My best buddy was not as into trains as I was but be liked them enough to hang out and watch me run them. We both loved Aurora HO race cars though and had several floor tracks over the years. We would race each other and always fight over who got the outside lane. We'd try and have right and left turns so it would even out. If you could win from the inside lane you were king for the day! When the AFX cars came out we were in heaven. We used to tweak them to see how fast they would go.

Yea- the bell still rings for me. My buddy? don't know- we've lost touch over the years.

Bob

Myself, and 3 of my friends had trains. One had American Flyer, one had "O" Lionel, and one had "O27" Lionel. I also had O27 Lionel. The one with O27 still has his trains, but has not set any up in years. He lives about 5 hours from here, and we talk about our trains quite often. We have been friends for 66 years.

Jeff

No.  I grew up in the 80's.  I guess some kids were into trains but I never met one (including me).  The hot toys were Star Wars and Nintendo.

Nope, not one friend had trains and, after about 8th grade, you learned very quickly not to mention the subject - ever.

Interesting topic.  From 1947 to 1959 I lived in northeast Philly in a slightly below middle income neighborhood.  I wasn't very far from the Pennsy Racetrack heading into 30th Street station.  This was the height of the baby boom era and you would have expected there to be loads of kids with electric trains but there were none-none.  We were the only family with electric trains.   We were not that well off but my dad still managed to have a set of trains around the tree every year until he passed in 1953.  We moved to Martinsburg , West Virginia in May of 1959 and the exact scenario repeated itself.  Nobody had trains except for my Grandfather.  I was quite fortunate to grow up around train lovers and I still have my Dad's and Grandad's trains to this day and they still run very well.

I ran trains with only one childhood friend, from 1st through 6th grade. He lived at the end of the block, and we both had Lionel layouts. We used to take our engines and run them on the other guy's layout as foreign power. I had diesels, and he had a steam engine, although I don't remember which one. Then we moved, and I lost track of him. That was about 1961 or so.

A couple years ago, he came to mind, so I searched his name. The only thing that came up was his obituary. He had died several years prior.

My father had American Flyer "O" gauge as a kid. He and my uncle bought me my first Lionel set (2035 freight) in 1950 when I was three.  This set was added to every year until I left for college in 1964. Just about every kid my age had Lionel trains during those years. I'm still in regular contact with my ole' train buddy John.  We met in 1959, and are both now working on our "final" layouts.

Hal

Growing up it was my brother and I with a layout in the basement. No one else I knew had trains.

Now I find maybe one person at different companies who has a layout. I’m in IT so everybody just works long hours.

In my new neighborhood there are quite a few guys interested in my layout. One has a 4x8 for his grandson. So there is hope yet.

I was a fan of American Flyer S gauge and got a neat set for Christmas once I turned five.  When we moved to a large rent-controlled apartment in '52 two other families in the building had American Flyer!  It was a 100% Flyer building.  We'd bring our stuff to each other's apartments and play trains.  It was great!

When I hit fifth grade a new kid moved into the 'hood and we instantly hit it off.  The first Christmas he was there his dad gave him and his kid brother Lionel sets.  We liked to debate, okay argue, the merits of each brand.  It's been almost seventy years and we still do, although I admit that the small setup in my garage is Lionel.  Always did prefer their action accessories, but Flyer had two rail track and the trains had much better proportions.

Pete

Growing up everyone in my neighborhood / school friends had trains - most had Lionel some American Flyer

By the mid to late 60’s started to see more slot cars and HO trains

As someone born in 2002, nope, I'm the only one who has trains.

Only one other kid in my area was a train nut growing up. But he prefers the largest scale trains... He worked at Six Flags and now works at Silver Dollar City running the trains. He takes regular trips out west to the various scenic railways. I think he is slowly getting into G though.

Growing up in the late-50's, my two older twin cousins had a large permanent Lionel layout in their basement.  My bother and I each had our own smaller basement layouts that went up the day after Thanksgiving and stayed up until sometime in January.  A friend of my brothers also had a large Lionel layout in his basement.  He was always getting new locomotives, rolling stock, and accessories.  We were jealous.

I met my closest train friend at work.  We had known each other for years and one day I was in his office and noticed a piece of Super O track sitting on his desk.  When I shared some pictures of around-the-tree layouts I had set up he started talking about his trains and we've been BFFs since then.

John

I’ll be 36 in May. None of my childhood friends had model trains.

I grew up in Centerville, Ohio (72-77) and then Northbrook, Illinois (78-84).  In Centerville, I had two friends that had HO sets along with me.  These were permanent layouts.  We had Atlas, Athearn  and Tyco..  In Northbrook, I had one friend that had a permanent layout. Atlas and Athearn were the manufacturers.  

Cool thread.

john

Born in 1951, I had a ZW running Lionel trains around the Christmas tree for as long as I can remember,  but none of my friends had trains.

However, relatives on my father's side, and on my mother's side,  of my family had Lionel trains.  I had 2 cousins, Jimmy and Billy, who were 5 and 10 years older than me that had beautiful basement layouts.

My father built me a very nice basement layout with trestles on a 4 by 8 foot plywood board on saw horses when I was 10 years old, but my cousin's layouts were at least twice as big and much more interesting.

Cousin Jimmy's layout was built by my Uncle Mario (a bachelor). That layout even had ramps upon which the trains would leave the plywood boards, run around the furnace and go to other places in the basement, and then return back to the plywood boards triumphantly. When I suggested to my father that we built ramps so the trains could leave the plywood board, he wouldn't have it, telling me "that's crazy." (He thought his brother Mario was crazy).

Guess what I did when I had my own house and kids as an adult?

Uncle Mario lives on in me! LOL, Arnold

I grew up in the mid 70s running my much older brothers awesome Post War FMs and F3s and lots of other great PW engines and accessories. He went off to college and then to the Military and I got to play with his trains. I was the only one in our upper middle class neighborhood with trains at that time. He took them with him when he got older and married. By then I was chasing girls. After I got married and settled in I managed to purchase most of the same stuff he has and I played with. Still playing with them as well as the modern stuff..

None of my close friends had trains. There was one kid I played hockey with who talked about his father's train collection. He took us down the basement where there was a huge layout that used up all the available floor space. The walls were filled from floor to ceiling with trains on display shelves. All O gauge Lionel I believe.  This would have been early 70s. I didn't even know people collected trains like that I just thought they ran them on the floor or up on saw horses like we did. I had told this kid about the Standard Gage trains we had.

I found out later from the kid that his father was furious that he had allowed us down the basement. I guess he was afraid we touched something. He let it be known in no uncertain terms that we were not welcome back there, but he would buy the Standard Gage trains from me. Needless to say I still have them but I always wonder what became of all that train equipment.

My cousins had an HO layout that they set up on a ping pong table in the basement...it would switch over to HO Slot cars at other times. Another set of cousins also had HO trains set up next to the basement bar...don't remember much about it except ALL of it was purchased from the local Two Guys Department store. There was the giraffe car where they ducked their heads to clear the bar and a "cop and robber"  type car where they would pop up and down from the roof hatches as the train ran around.

I had two buddies in St. Louis that had trains in the 1950s, me Marx, one Lionel and other American Flyer.  Our layout were on the living room floor for about 2 weeks during the Christmas holidays.  My family moved to the county and I lost touch as we moved three more times through high school.  My brother and I lost interest in trains about age 8 and 10 and moved on to model building, U control planes and boats with radio control that had tubes!

I got interest in trains 1970 s when married, with two children, and built a portable layout, in Jamaica, that moved 7 times and to 6 states.  This is the same layout I have now and have written about in long topic on OGR.

Several years ago I located one of my buddies from the 1950s and contacted him, he replied and followed up but he dropped the communication.  We never got to writing about trains but I found out he was an engineer with McDonald Douglas in St. Louis where his father had been a machinist when were were kids.  My father had been an engineer for 43 years with Alcoa  and I was an engineer for Alcoa for 20 years.  We both sort of followed our fathers.

Charlie

As of 2023 I am 67 and growing up in the 60s I had a 16 X 5 layout with a small L on the one end and I was the only person in my neighborhood that had trains of any kind that I knew of, Once or twice a year I will connect with someone that I knew growing up, and they will always mention I remember your trains. I now have a permanent layout in my attic which is 12X8 with a 5 foot L. One of my cousins had a small layout in his basement for quite a few years growing up, and he's been to my house and loves what I have but he never did anything himself.

I had several friends who had trains in my younger days.  Only one, besides myself, had a permanent layout.  He had HO and I had Lionel O gauge.  We would spend our summer days train watching at various locations around town.  We made it a point to be on hand when the local came to switch the grain elevators in town.  When the weather wasn't fit to be outside we went to one of our houses and ran trains.  I remember sitting at his kitchen table perusing the Walthers catalog and dreaming of our ultimate layout.  He and I are the only ones of the group still involved in the hobby.  After high school we each followed our own paths and didn't really stay in touch.  About ten years ago I ran into him at a train show and we reconnected. He has gotten me involved in operating sessions with a group of local HO guys.  We get together about once a month to run trains and catch up.

Tom

This thread has been a real eye-opener.

I was born in 1953 and played with Lionel trains as a kid (and still do). I always assumed trains were still something most kids my age had (along with an Erector set and a Gilbert chemistry set). But as I think back on it, I can't remember even one of my friends who was into trains. A few had gotten starter sets, but they never played with them. One kid had his dad's AF set but he only took it out of the box only once.

I grew up in Morristown, N.J., about 30 minutes from the Hillside factory, and I can't remember even one train shop in town. There was a general-purpose toy store that stocked a few Lionel trains and some Plasticville, and the early big-box stores carried Lionel trains but only at Christmas. I can't remember any store that sold AF.

From this thread, I get the sense the experience of other posters in my age group was similar. I wonder if Lionel itself saw this handwriting on the wall.

IMO, this is an excellent topic, and I have a funny, but true, story to share.

I had two 1st cousins, one about 10 years older, and one a few years older, than me, who had more and nicer Lionel trains on bigger layouts, than I had. However, I had no childhood friends with trains, except I almost had one.

Almost had one? How could that be?

Carl Sherman and I were about 9 or 10  years old. We were becoming friends. One day, he came to my house with a Lionel diesel. I had 2 Lionel steamers, a 2065 and 2055 Hudson.

Carl wanted to trade his diesel for my 2055 Hudson. I thought that was a good idea and told him so.

Now, here's the funny part. My mother overheard this trade talk, nixed the deal,  kicked Carl out of the house, and chastised me for attempting to trade one of my trains!

She told me: "don't ever try to sell or trade any of your Lionel trains again; your trains are nicer than Carl's trains; and your trains will go up in value over the years."

So, I collected and operated Lionel trains (and a few other kinds of O Gauge trains), off and on, for the next 59 years and never sold or traded any of them until about a year ago when a local train buddy, not a Forumite, convinced me to trade a few of my trains for a few of his.

By the way, once I became a teenager, I never sold or traded any of my trains until recently, not because my mother told me so, but because I loved them all.

Obviously, my late beloved mother, a sweet. sensitive Victorian lady, loved them too. Arnold

9 -11 years of age I remember:

My friend Richie couldn't say the word "switch", it always came out "svitch".

My friend Phil and I having tug of war contests with our engines; mine a 2328 Milwaukee Road GP7, his a Lackawanna FM. He always won, I couldn't figure it out.

Also with Phil, combining tracks to bulld huge temporary floor layouts

Growing up in the 1960s, I had very few friends who had trains. Our family trains only came out at Christmas.

Most of my friends were all into HO scale Aurora Model Motoring slot cars.

Being a kid in the early 1970's, I had 1 friend that had a K-Line starter set and a few extra items.  I thought his trains were weird because they weren't Lionel. I remember running our trains together, though.

I convinced another friend to ask for a Santa Fe diesel set for Christmas so we could build a layout together in my basement.  I had 2 starter sets: an MPC plastic steam set I had for several years that my grandmother bought me, and my brand-new DT&I switcher set I got for Christmas.  We somehow squeezed together enough money to buy a 4 x 8 sheet of plywood, a can of green spray paint for grass and black spray paint for roads.  His mom took us to a hobby shop and bought us a bag of dirt and black rock.  When we attached the track to the plywood and sprayed the paint, we realized we could never build a layout because we did not have the money to buy anything else.  So, my friend grew bored with his trains, decided to light his train cars on fire and smash them because he thought the simulated train wreck would be cool.  He then proceeded to run his Santa Fe diesel off our plywood table and let it crash on the floor.  At some point i asked him if I could keep the remains of his set and he said yes because, otherwise, he was going to trash them.

Today, I still have his Santa Fe diesel and the transformer that came with it along with that plastic steam engine starter set and my DT&I set.  I always knew that someday, when I could afford to build a layout, I would.    I'm now building my 4th layout and have dozens of engines and hundreds of cars and more buildings and accessories than I ever dreamed of owning.  Man, the switches and crossing signals alone would have seemed like striking gold in my childhood eyes of the early 1970's. 

Mike

Which childhood????  Its never too late to have a happy childhood.  Childhood friend as a youth would be my dad.  Great post!!!!

I grew up poor.  Other than a cheap HO set for Christmas that my brother and brother in law tore up that day, I never had any trains and I don't know anyone else that did.   As I got older, I've only met a few people that have a layout.   My daughters friend works for the railroad.   "Foamers" are those that stand along the tracks and take pics and foam at the mouth over trains.   The Burlington Northern route divided my small town.   I spent many a time waiting for the trains to pass.  9:00 was the Amtrak.  Trains were a part of my youth growing up in a small town.  That's where my interest lies.