Did You Become A Tinplate Train Enthusiast As A Child Or As An Adult?

Definitely as an adult.  Those early MTH catalogs started the wonder and then visits to the Sacramento railroad museum and the TCA toy train museum got the hook severely implanted in my mouth.  Suddenly that’s what I was watching for at York

Adult.  I did not have trains as a kid or know anyone who did (grew up in the 80's).  I got involved in 3-rail in 2018 and didn't even know Standard Gauge existed.  When I saw the TM videos on RFD network, I was hooked.  I'm only into Modern Era STD Gauge.  I bought everything I could from MTH in the past three years before they closed but I was late to the party.  Shucks.

I was an adult well into my 40's when I got interested in tinplate.  Mainly I enjoy the look and feel of standard gauge.  However, I will say that I am still firmly a scale modeler first and foremost.  Standard gauge is a diversion for me and I intentionally am keeping my collection small and manageable.  One day once my 2 rail layout is in good shape, I'll likely set up the standard gauge in the middle of the room as opposed to an around the tree during the holidays affair.

Adult, My father in law had his Standard gauge #33 which I inherited at his passing and had rebuilt. It is on the original loop he had and runs.

child,,,,i had a 2025/erie alcos and santa fe passenger set,,,,my neighbor's dad had what i believe to be a 385/1835 standard set that they set up a xmas,,,,,i loved it,,,another neighbor set up a 262 with red/silver 610/612 cars,,,loved that also,,,dont get me wrong i was train crazy,,,i grew up next to the b&le main in curtisville pa,,,,,but saved up my grass cutting money and bought a #8 set and 3 coaches ,,which my parents had a fit,,called it junk,,,,,i loved it

Adult here too ... Never had a train set growing up , and in fact my best mate of over 30 years was an avid Model Railroader , what we call a "Gunzel" here and the butt of much good natured ribbing over the years ... Then one day I was plugging thru ebay and saw an old clockwork Hornby train set , which I had been interested in for years , mainly simply for its "vintage" factor , as I like old mechanical things ... and thus began a very slippery slope which has now evolved into hundreds of clockwork locomotives and rolling stock !

I also do have the odd one or three electric ( pre-war european mainly) but early clockwork just does it for me

Best mate now has a good laugh at me as my collecting has outstripped him by miles

I became interested in tinplate as a young adult (16 years old).  I enjoyed postwar American Flyer as a child and when I began collecting in the early 1980s, I found Flyer O gauge trains at the garage/estate sales that I was attending.  I was hooked and discovered standard gauge much later and only have a few standard gauge items in the collection.

NWL

As a 'mature' adult. I never had a model train as a child. My father gave me his pre-war Lionel tinplate in recent years and I just kept adding to it. I also love tinplate structures and buildings. I've bought some modern stuff and I love the impact that sound makes but I have almost no interest in post-war.

Started with my first train set at the age of 4 - never looked back.

As a “young” adult thirty nine years ago at the age of 23. Took my soon to be wife to her first York. I had my postwar and early MPC items which had little interest to her. She always liked antiques. As we walked the halls and she saw Standard gauge trains her eyes lit up and said you need to buy some of these. Guess what we did! We went home with 8 different 500 series freight cars in very good condition at a very reasonable price. Even today she will say you should really get this. I can’t complain……she’s a keeper!

@Rich Wiemann posted:...

..As we walked the halls and she saw Standard gauge trains her eyes lit up and said you need to buy some of these...

"A long time ago in a galaxy far, far away"...

Probably roughly a decade after the original Star Wars premiered, I had a Super - O layout in one room of the basement, and a LGB layout in the other room of the basement.  Since several of us had younger children at the time, most everyone would go downstairs at family birthdays and holidays to watch the trains run.  Inevitably, the adult women were immediately taken by the colors and size of the LGB trains.  They loved them!  I'm sure that standard gauge has the same affect.

Interestingly, neither my father or my wife have had the "train bug".  But, fortunately, they have both supported my hobby wholeheartedly.

Definitely as a child. That's me and Grandpop, Christmas 1967.

I was born into a family where American Flyer Wide Gauge, Narrow  (O) Gauge and S Gauge were already present.  I have dabbled in all of them over the years with my first purchase being at the age of 12 in  1966.  In the last 10 years I have added representatives of Ives, Lionel, Dorfan and Marx.

So I think I can legitimately say....all my life.

Northwoods Flyer

Greg

I played with my Dad’s 1700E streamliner growing up, but it wasn’t until adulthood that the tinplate bug bit... and hard!  Although I was (and remain) a dedicated Maerklin HO enthusiast, there’s something about the simpler construction, appearance and dependability of those older items.  I think Ron Potter put it best when he said something along the lines of “if I have a scale Hudson, that’s all it will ever be... it can’t be anything else.  But if I’ve got a 260 or even a 400... well, that can be anything I want.  It’s all about the imagination and where it takes me.”  

Was given my first Marx set when I was a little over a year old; saw my first real (albeit small) steam engine at about 2 1/2; been hooked on trains ever since.

That said, I didn't see any true tinplate until I was in my early teens.  I spent some time in the country with my mom's cousin, and she had her father's SG train, a simple #10 freight set, stored in the attic.  I got to see it one day.   I don't remember all the details--I think the engine was peacock--but I was impressed by the size and weight (compared with my Marx and Lionel O).  A seed had been planted that sprouted much later in life.  I have never developed much of a taste for tinplate O, but SG has its hooks in me pretty deep.

Started off with one of the last Marx clockwork sets, c. 1960 or so. Moved on to a second-hand S-gauge Mountaineer set from 1956, then dabbled in N until my early twenties. Finally locked in on prewar tin when I hit my mid-thirties. Now, some thirty years later, it's still fun.

PD

As an adult, turning 75 in a few months and purchased my first tin about 2 or 3 months ago.  I really like my smaller 027 tin (2657, 2660 etc) but managed to find many other interesting items too.  Some of them I will not keep - but they did liven up the train room quite a bit, bright colors, something different after 70 years of collecting postwar.  I purchased several Lionel tin buildings too.  They still have a lot of stock they are liquidating - contact me if you want to get in touch with the store.  Can anybody tell me what other cars go with my 027 tin, I'd love a Hopper and a Flat car if they made them (Blue or Green?).  Be safe out there!  So many questions...how can I tell if the tender for the blue comet, if it is the blue comet, is not a remake - it seems to be too darn nice compared with the other cars.

Child.

My brother (nine years older) had a Marx Canadian Pacific freight set that was the only train my folks could find during the war.

I just bought an identical set from a forum member last week. Still run Marx six inch trains under the Christmas tree,

I became interested as an adult.

I took my son to the TCA Convention in Pittsburgh in 2017. I was blown away by the huge SGMA layout. Never seen the Standard gauge engines and rolling stock running on such a big layout. I was impressed with the beauty of these trains, the deep shiny colorful paint, and the brass and nickel details. They are little whimsical works of art. The reproductions offered Protosounds 2 and 3 which added smoke, sound, cruise control all controlled conventionally or with my DCS system via the remote or via wifi through my Iphone just like my O gauge trains, and because of their large size the electronics are all in the engine, not the tender, doing away with the wireless tether or anaconda.

I fell in love with Standard Gauge at the convention and I knew I wanted to get involved, and thought about it daily after the Convention. After several weeks, I joined the SGMA and bought my first set, The Blue Comet:

I became a tinplate enthusiast as an adult, but the seed was planted much earlier.

Although I was given my first postwar set in 1962, my favorite toy as a child was my dad's 1920s era Meccano erector set.  This sparked an interest in older toys, especially mechanical items.  When I got back into Lionel trains in the mid 1980s, I learned about standard gauge and developed an interest, but the stuff was crazy expensive back then relative to condition.  When tinplate reproductions started to become widely available, I jumped on them - I love being able to run shiny trains and imagine what life was like for a lucky kid in the 1920s.  Although collectors will moan about reproductions hurting the value of the originals, I think that is outweighed by the increased interest in tinplate.  And the nice older tinplate is still plenty valuable.

@Rich Wiemann posted:

As a “young” adult thirty nine years ago at the age of 23. Took my soon to be wife to her first York...

...Even today she will say you should really get this. I can’t complain……she’s a keeper!

You were a very brave man!  Glad it worked out.

Took my first wife to my first York in 1989.  In those days they had peel-and-stick badges.  Not being familiar with how the badges worked, we had them in our hands when we ran through a downpour into the first building.  Despite the fact that we were soaking wet, the guy at the door yelled at us for not properly displaying the badges.  After his rude treatment, she was soured on the train hobby and referred to the participants as "train a--holes" (can't say that I blamed her).  The moral of the story is to be nice to others and cut them some slack. 

My sweetie now loves going to York - she often notices things that I missed and makes suggestions.  And when I buy something, she usually offers to carry it back to the car so that I can keep looking.  I'm lucky.

Growing up my dad always talked about the train he had as a kid that had a red light bulb under the cab to make it look like "fire".  I always remembered that and at York one year bought what I thought was pretty good description.  He said it was close if not it.

Later when MTH produced the Lionel Celebration series I really liked the look and bought both the conventional with cars and a caboose and then the PS3 with passenger cars.  The lights off the tree and the feel is simply satisfying.

As a child. My grandpa gave me his childhood 92 floodlight tower in about 1996 (when I was six) and I was amazed by it. Then when I was about 9 or 10, he let me borrow his childhood 265e for my Christmas layout. I still remember getting it out of the box and setting it up. I don't think it came off the layout once that whole season! I gave that back to him, but a couple years later he gave it to me. Then it was open season for prewar!

Recently, I told him that I was selling some trains to downsize and finance some new train purchases. He immediately got upset, thinking I was going to sell his set. Then I showed him this display in my office, with his set in the middle. He seemed pleased that I had it on display (among the repairs that it needed).

On a side note, this is also the view that my 5th graders had when I was teaching from home this year. Several of them really liked it.

As a kid I had HO gauge trains, gifts from my father and mother,  sold  all of them at the age of 18 to buy antiques motorcycles so no more trains at home through the age of 30 where I visited a train collector and it has been the beginning of a long adventure thirty tears ago and the motorcycles are gone.

First buys where common pieces from JEP and Hornby and LR and after antique toy shows a large selection of many things O gauge related.  Then discover Lionel Standard Gauge which was available in the beginning of Ebay around 1998 so many buys in USA and later met some fellow collectors in USA and made several trips included York; so the collection never ends......and there is trains everywhere at home, still searching for the next one.

And it is just a small part of the disaster..... Daniel

Definitely as an adult.  Until then I never appreciated the history behind them which is what got me interested in the first place.

-Greg

@Mallard4468 posted:

@Mallard4468 posted:

When tinplate reproductions started to become widely available, I jumped on them - I love being able to run shiny trains and imagine what life was like for a lucky kid in the 1920s...

I share these sentiments completely.  I also understand the significance to someone of operating something that a "lucky kid in the 1920's" probably actually ran a century ago.  I'm reminded of running some of my postwar items with my grandchildren and telling them that Santa Claus brought these to me for Christmas when I was their age.  Their eyes light up!

I got my first set as a five year old in 1942 - just in time before the war for my father to get a 2-4-2, gon w/barrels, Baby Ruth and a caboose.    Track a transformer and pair of 1024 switches.  He picked up more second hand from local classified ads.

In 1949, I started building HO kits and was lost to tinplate.  Traded all of my O and O-27 to my uncle in exchange for his 10E+332,339 and 341.  He wanted something for his kids that he could buy additional cars for.

After we started having kids, the 10E set ran around our Christmas tree for the next 50 years.

About ten years ago, someone brought a Lionel collection into our HO MRR club and I worked out a deal to help him sell it - stuff like a 2333 and 2334 and other stuff of that vintage.  Joined TCA in 2014 and now most of my time is going into restoring prewar -Lionel, AF, Marx and Ives, but making an exception for a various MArx 33 parts that will become at least two really good engines.

Malcolm Laughlin

I think it's cool to play with a toy that was made before I was born.

While I was vaguely aware of prewar tinplate even when, as a kid, I had a Tyco HO layout on a 4 X 8, it wasn’t until adulthood that I developed a fascination with O gauge articulated streamliners from the 30s.  Like many of us, my interests in the hobby have evolved and bounced around after being exposed to its various niches over time. My 4.5 X 10 layout reflects this as I have multiple levels incorporating a subway, post war, trolley lines and the MTH repro monorail.  Now that I’m in possession of Marx, American Flyer and Lionel articulated sets, a “final” level is under construction to accommodate them.  

My first exposure to it was with a Hafner clockwork set as a child.  But the interest really didn't manifest itself till well into adult hood, both with the ability to afford nice examples that were not all beat to death as I prefer clean/shiny original paint and not restored ones.  I have also gravitated to the UK/European side of tinplate as well.  I have models from Jep, Bassett-Lowke and Bowman thus far with more planned along with modern tinplate from Darstaed and ACE Trains.  I love the "scale plate" look of the Bassett Lowke and earlier runs of ACE Trains(before they went mostly diecast).   Tinplate accessories and toys will also adorn future layouts, like a castle from Marx ect.    AD

Adult. I had HO trains as a kid in the late 50s/ early 60s. Bought my first Postwar Lionel in the 80s and collected postwar, eventually moving into scale size modern Lionel. Mostly out of the hobby for about 10 years until I got my Dad's prewar and built a layout for them. Now a modest operator of prewar O. I love standard gauge but don't have the money or space for it.

Not seriously until an adult when my father gave me his Lionel #150 loco and cars after having it repaired. However, while running my General set as a kid, I remember getting that 150 loco out and trying to run it. The headlight worked and it sputtered but just wouldn't go. It fascinated me as a kid and still does today so I suppose the tinplate bit long ago and it took several decades to set the hook.

If you are talking about tinplate like the pre war stuff, I was not exposed to it until I was an adult.  I just love the bang, rattle and clang of pre war trains.  I have both O gauge and standard gauge and love them all.

Rolland

Hmmmm.....

I believe I became a Train Enthusiast as a child (earliest memories) because of a tinplate experience.

I've told this story too many times on the Forum, so...in a nutshell...

Earliest memory of Christmas was the ceremony of bringing Dad's train...a 366W Set (1835 w/whistle tender, three 2-tone blue passenger cars) down from the attic in its Electrolux vacuum cleaner (the streamlined one) box, setting it up around the balsam tree, etc., etc., blah, blah.  From there it was hours of just watching it go round and round the tree, buzzing the gateman out of his house each circuit.  The nearby fire in the fireplace, the Bing Crosby records, the whole shebang...I was hooked for life.  And, BTW, he received his 366W from his parents, my grandparents, at the toddling age (?) of 26!!!

Now then, we still have Dad's train.  Unfortunately it's currently only celebrated as a shelf-queen.  Amazing shape for its age...unlike myself.  But having acquired a companion model railroad enthusiast in my second marriage, tinplate appreciation re-emerged.  My wife was smitten by some of Mike Wolf's great creations, including his re-do in proper logos of the standard gauge Blue Comet set...and add-on car..., and his O-gauge 'Girl's Train", which my wife  has consistently referred to as the Spring/Easter Train...and add-on cars...because of its beautiful pastel colors.  Oh, yes...she also felt Dad's 1835 deserved a 13-car train of 500-series freight cars....including the crane car and complementary work caboose.  She supervised the selections and purchases.  Sadly, we've run out of space for a permanent ROW for the standard gauge items.

So, yes.  We could be counted among the tinplate enthusiasts. However, certainly not in the same league as some of the notables of that genre among us...

But, thanks, Dad (R.I.P.), for that tinplate epiphany into a hobby...and wonderful, blessed marriage...that has made this a happy lifetime!!

KD

@FRENCHTRAINS posted:

As a kid I had HO gauge trains, gifts from my father and mother,  sold  all of them at the age of 18 to buy antiques motorcycles so no more trains at home through the age of 30 where I visited a train collector and it has been the beginning of a long adventure thirty tears ago and the motorcycles are gone.

First buys where common pieces from JEP and Hornby and LR and after antique toy shows a large selection of many things O gauge related.  Then discover Lionel Standard Gauge which was available in the beginning of Ebay around 1998 so many buys in USA and later met some fellow collectors in USA and made several trips included York; so the collection never ends......and there is trains everywhere at home, still searching for the next one.

And it is just a small part of the disaster..... Daniel

Beautiful pictures Daniel!! Love seeing your trains and the wonderful settings they are displayed in!

My first trains were my dad's Marx sets, a 666 and a 999 along with an AF water tower and some Lionel 085 Orange telegraph poles, So I guess those were my first prewar.  Then I got some Athearn ho in 1972 when I was 4 and then the Lionel DT&I switcher "Yardking" set in 1973.  In the late 70's I started hunting for trains at hobby shops and some TCA collector/sellers.   The first prewar loco I think I got was an AF 559 K5 which I still have, I guess I still have most of those early trains as well.  Then went I went in the Navy and ended up in Bremerton, I started working part time for another TCA collector/restorer named Ray Dumke.  He restored toms of stuff for Al Cox in Seattle and through Ray I got to meet Al at his home and was able to visit a few times.  That probably cemented a serious love for the vibrant colors of prewar tin.

As an adult. I've only been into trains for about 19 years.

Steve

Definitely as an adult.  Those mth catalogs were too much for me to resist forever,  and then I dove in head first. Although, my first tinplate engine was a 259e I got from a de-ascension sale at the TCA Museum.  It was a bit of a basket case but some time on the bench at Draude's Derailment brought it back to life.  Now I have a fleet.

Above is my ets mallet because I couldn't help myself and have an attraction to niche mechanical beauties.

From 8-9 years old when l received one of hundreds of thousands of  #25000 Marx  sets with #999 engine, mine mounted on a plywood "train board".  That expanded very slowly into teens when l discovered a Varney  HO kit, and then autos.  Accumulated HO for years until a Flyer collector in early 1980's mentioned that people collected old trains.  (What? Why?) I backslid into finding Marx l did not have as a kid, and then into scale plate.