As a kid in the 50' 7 60's, I ran a postwar freight pulled by a #2025 and a prewar 1666E pulling a set of 620 series passenger cars. I saw no reason not to run them both either then or now. It's all trains. My wife prefers both Lionel Standard Gauge and LGB. I guess size matters after all 
.
I remember telling my local train dealer about 23 years ago when I first saw the MTH Tinplate offerings in the catalog.."I don't get it". After seeing the actual locomotives I decided to pre-order a 400E Blue Comet just for display.....well that just for display thing didn't last very long.
Scott Smith
As a young kid, I played with old, beat up, 710 passenger cars that my grandfather gave me. Then, when I was older, I gravitated towards o gauge subway trains when I built my layout, but when MTH started coming out with their tinplate offerings in the early to mid 2000s, I was hooked.
@scott.smith posted:..After seeing the actual locomotives I decided to pre-order a 400E Blue Comet just for display.....well that just for display thing didn't last very long.
Scott Smith
Scott, I'm grinning broadly as that is precisely what happened to me, including purchasing the 400E Blue Comet. I also had a roller base made specifically for the 400E locomotive because I wouldn't have a layout to run it on....That was my first tinplate train.
Now I have many more tinplate trains and a tinplate layout!
My first memories of tinplate standard gauge trains is from the mid 1970's. I was 5 or 6 and remember my Dad put down a few sheets of homosote in the basement and set up my grandfather's standard gauge Peacock 10E set. He only did this once that I can remember. My brother and I had HO trains after that before my brother moved on to O-gauge during the mid to late 80's and I pursued astronomy and telescope making. My brother persuaded me to get into O-gauge trains in the late 90's and I began picking up MTH items. One day I made a trip to some stores in the Akron, Ohio area. Upon entering E&S Trains I saw a complete Green State Set on the counter and was stunned. I had never seen a "new" standard gauge train and was impressed! It was only a few years later that I picked up the MTH 9E Christmas freight set and never looked back.
As an adult.
As a kid I received a boxed Lionel O gauge set in 1958 which got me into trains but it wasn't until I retired from Naval Special Warfare (UDT/SEALs) that I got into tinplate trains.
Bob Nelson
Answer: Adult
My first trip to York (fall '98): typical toy train overload: modern, postwar, prewar in O and Std gauge and hey they even had HO and N gauge stuff in the purple hall. Coming from a HO and N reawakening my York sponsor introduced and encouraged me to look at O gauge. O's size, smoke and now modern sounds pulled me to take the O gauge plunge. At that first York, the tinplate, both prewar and modern briefly caught my eye with their fancier, brighter and glossy colors but aside from that, I was mainly focused on the sensory overload of modern-O due to its sheer abundance and what I thought (mistakenly 
) was tinplate's more "simplistic" operating qualities.
Well... each successive York I'd give more attention to tinplate (primarily modern era Williams, MTH, Lionel PreWar Classics/Celebration and Pride Lines). I noticed more elaborate tinplate from the prewar and modern eras. Combine that extra attention with the York handout of MTH's Tinplate Editions catalogs, the MTH new product and operating displays and each York meet's video purchases from Tom McComas/TMBV. Now I'm hooked.
IMHO there's an artistic beauty to Tinplate that is present in both original prewar and their modern era models. The varied materials and construction of some of the higher end prewar products is impressive for its time and carries through today. Simply put and much like the exteriors and interiors of most classic (mid '60's and earlier) cars; tinplate has enduring STYLE.
Interest began as an adult, when I purchased the MTH #400E and green State Set and extra Illinois car. Have a small shelf loop near the ceiling in my home office. Plan to extend it into the living room. Mark
For me, it was the "Toy Trains and Christmas" DVD by TM videos. I thought it would be a good show to veg out to during the holidays, but I was amazed by the colors of the trains, and the toy-like look to them. I couldn't stop watching, and this led to me buying more videos. This was around 2003 or so, and after I bought the Tom Snyder documentary on the 100 years of Lionel, I knew that I had to get a few. I prefer the Standard Gauge size, but my house does not allow for them to run very often. I have 5 locos and trainsets, all of which are passenger cars. I also have a few O gauge tinplate trains.
As an 11 year old boy, my dad and I were primarily into HO., A woman with a garage full of postwar called and wanted to dispose of it, son killed in Nam, we knew nothing about the stuff. Two full sized station wagons later (all super O track), and we're into O. But at a train meet a month later, Dad is selling off some of the O trains, wonders around and comes back to the table with a 402E passenger set. So now in one month we've picked up 2 scales. The standard ran up top, above the O and HO layouts in a 20 by 20 converted and closed in garage, going every which way (standard around the walls.). Just loved getting up on a stool and running the trains with one of the early transformers and using the knife switches from the 440 bridge to active sidings to start trains. The sounds and rumble of those trains has stayed with me ever since. Spent many hours in that room tinkering and running trains in 3 scales. That was 1968 and we shortly became TCA members.
Jim
I started in O gauge with the old Lionel postwar train my dad gave me. It was the last of the trains he had as a kid. As an adult, I added Marx and other Lionel postwar to it and eventually built a small layout. One day at a train show, I discovered Marx 3/16" scale lithographed tin trains. I was hooked on tin. Now I run mostly Marx, including some 6" and 7" four wheel stuff, but also have a bit of Hafner and some prewar American Flyer and Lionel.
Child
From Lionel to HO to O Scale to P48.
Toy trains still hold my interest although not actively collecting.
