Do You Have Your First Set Of Trains ?

Yep sure do.

Yes, my 1955, Lionel Set #1527. It will be running next week on the Christmas layout setup. I wish I had the original boxes for it, as that would be kind of neat.

Jeff

No. It was an S gauge, American Flyer steam engine set. Heck, I don't even have my 2nd set, a Lionel 027 Northern Pacific GP9 set with Super O track. 

Yes , I do...set 2227w  from the 1954 catalog.    

Image from Postwarlionel.com

No.

Still have my Marx tin plate and the Texas Special Alco. Usually run them some on my Christmas layout.

Yes ,a scout set led by a 1061 engine and 3 cars. Runs great !

Yes ,A 1950 scout set ,engine # 1101 & it still runs as good as always !!!!!!!!

Yep.

Sure do.  1951 Lionel 2026 and the four freight cars it came with.  And I still run it at Christmastime.

The boxes aren't in the best of condition any more, but I do still have them.

No, I do not (Marx & Lionel), but like many on this forum, I have more than made up for my flawed youthful thinking.

Nope.  Sold it when I was in 7th grade so that I could buy some Athearn HO blue box kits.

No, I had to save money to buy them when I was about 12.  It was an inexpensive Tyco HO set.  I packed them up when I moved away after college, and a few years later found the plastic was heat damaged, so I threw them out.

Unfortunately not. My parents put it in the basement when I joined the military. The basement had severe moisture problems and when I returned from Okinawa, I found the engine completely rusted and there was no saving it. I tinkered with HO and N scale for a few years, but always wanted another O scale train. Now I have 2, but am having difficulty getting a layout built, life keeps getting in the way. I have the design, but can't seem to find the energy what with vertigo, a cold and now a persistent ear infection. Oh well, I'll get to it sooner or later, I have faith.

Yes. A Lionel(MPC) Wabash Cannonball set that I received for Christmas in 1982. My Dad still has his Lionel Scout set that he got for Christmas in 1949. The funny thing is that both trains have the same 2-4-2 steam locomotive. Dad's loco runs better than mine even though it's 30 years older. Just goes to show the quality of postwar Lionel trains.

Have my original Lionel Standard gauge, still runs, and the replacement engine in O gauge for my Scout first set plus one flat car. My nephew has the rest of the Scout set.

Still have it.  2037 engine and  4 cars .  Still runs and looks great after sooo long...

Yes and no. I do have the first set I owned.   It's just not the one that was mine. I got rid of it when I got older and just had to repurchase it a few years ago.   For the memories and nostalgia.  It just so happens it's the same set above in Jeffpo's set above...   A Lionel O27 Southern!

Yep! Nice 027 freight set pulled by a 2035. Still a great runner.

No, I gave my 027 Pacific set to my nephews when I enlisted in the Navy. I kept my HO layout tho.

No and yes. I got a Lionel freight set with the 224 engine in 1947 (I was 5). As I got older, I was drawn to passenger cars, but could not afford the $10. each that Lionel wanted for the aluminum ones. My best friend had a 1951 American Flyer passenger set (K5 and New Haven cars), which I loved. I have no idea what happened to mine.

Fast forward to the 1980s. I bought a AF set like my friend had, an engine like my old 224, and the metal 2457 caboose that went with it. I still prefer passenger cars over freight. My AF train has it's own small layout. I now have 5 Lionel 2457 cabooses, which I'm always looking for as long as they are in excellent condition. Although they should be common, it took me over 6 years to find the 5 I have (3 at York, 2 on eBay).

This is great, I love threads like this.  Yes, I have mine.  It's a Lionel Scout set and it's a curiosity because it matches no cataloged or uncataloged sets.  There is one cataloged set, the 1609 from 1959, that it could be if my parents had bought a couple of extra cars to go with it, or maybe the dealer threw them in to try to move the set because it was old stock.  It consists of a plastic 246 loco with headlight and a serrated bottom motor, a 1130T tender, a red Airex 6014 boxcar, a black 6175 rocket car, a blue 6162 NYC gondola, a coral 6476 LV hopper (which I just read was produced only in 1958 and is hard to find), and a 6017 caboose.  I received the set in 1960 (or 1961 at the latest; I was 4 or 5 so I don't exactly remember anymore.)  I had all of the cars from the beginning.  The two cars that don't fit in are the 6175 and the 6014.

Right here in my attached image is the main reason I wouldn't consider switching back to HO scale, which there was a recent thread about.  I don't do it often, but the set runs fine on my new layout.  Is that fun or what? 

Well I did have to buy a replacement Marx 999 freight set. That was my first electric train. BUT I do have my first Lionel's, 1949-2025 passenger set and my 1951-NYC F3 freight set.

I do.  Lionel outfit no. 1527, delivered by Santa Claus for Christmas 1955.

Curt

Absolutely!!

As a matter of fact, I do.  Sorta.

The pic shows it on my layout a couple years ago for its 50th Birthday run.

Marx set #15765:  #490 0-4-0 w/ slope-back tender and white caboose in NYC; red gondola in Pennsy, and blue log-dump car in Erie.  Oval of 027 track with a trip to dump the logs on one straight.  Metal-cased transformer.

I received it the day after Christmas, 1965.  I was 1 year, 7 months old.  My Grandfather had bought an all-plastic HO set of uncertain parentage that came with a playmat and some paper buildings and signs.  I woke up to that on Christmas morning--at least, that's what the pictures show, I don't remember.  But the dang thing didn't run--I'm told Grandpa was *mad*.

Anyway, the next day, he went right back to Sears and exchanged it for the only set they had left, this Marx set.

Oh my, but did I play with that train!  Years later, after I got my first Lionel, the Marx set saw some rough duty, bashing through obstacles and enduring cornfield meets with friends' wind up Marx sets.  You can't tell from the pic above, but the pilot and cab roof both have small pieces missing. 

No matter, it still runs like a scalded cat--it *really* likes to stretch its legs on the 045 loop on the layout.  I run it every year at Christmas, and it is the last train I'd ever give up if forced by circumstances to divest property.  (The Lionel set from 1972 would be right before it in line).

It's not scale.  It's not expensive.  It's not MIB (I did buy a replacement box recently).  But it embodies Electric Trains to me, the best and most cherished toy a guy could get.

Thanks, Grandpa!

I do.  It is a 671 with 2 prewar 2430 Pullman’s and a 2431 observation.  The cars have the insert with the window frames, number boards and name board.  All have the prewar 1940TT trucks with latch couplers except for observation end (1940TT - no coupler) and one Pullman end which has a postwar NTC-1.  Always think of my dad when I look at them.

Jeff T posted:

Absolutely!!

 

Wow!!  My Mum served Quaker Oats!  We always called it rolled oats, though.  I never saw an advertisement like that, but then that was MPC era, and I was in high school when that came about.  I couldn't afford a Lionel set, so I bought a Tyco HO set in about 1968 or '69.  Dad said train sets were too expensive for Christmas gifts, go save your money.  I don't know how long I saved, but it seemed like it was forever.  Anyway, I paid $20 for the set without a transformer.  I don't know how much the transformer went for.

Very nice !! A pre-war 671. You must have been a good boy and your dad had good taste in trains.

Fantastic thread! 

Great reading; great pictures.

Dan Padova posted:

How many of us still have our first set of trains ?  I don't, unfortunately.  My brother and I were the last ones on the block to have trains.  When we finally were given them, they were a huge set of Lionel, Pre-War "O" gauge.  4 x 12 foot platform, two ovals of track, a scale switcher and Madison cars, a tinplate 2-4-2 steamer with Vanderbilt tender and three red tinplate passenger cars.  Several tinplate freight cars, Z transformer, metal Lionelville station, signals, lampposts. You get the picture. All of this for the princely sum of $50.00 !   

When I was maybe 17 or so, I was convinced to trade all of it for a Super 8 movie camera, projector, screen, editing tools, tape recorder, and some other nondescript electronics.  Little did I know that ten years later I would get the train bug.  Oh well, stupid is as stupid does, I have heard someone say.

Yes I do, 1946 Lionel 221 Grey NYC passenger set with the blue cars with silver roof and optional whistle. Still runs with limited service.

I do. Santa brought mine in 1954. It was set up running around the tree when I woke Christmas morning. It was the 682 Pennsylvania Turbine.

Rick

Joe Hohmann posted:

No and yes. I got a Lionel freight set with the 224 engine in 1947 (I was 5). As I got older, I was drawn to passenger cars, but could not afford the $10. each that Lionel wanted for the aluminum ones. My best friend had a 1951 American Flyer passenger set (K5 and New Haven cars), which I loved. I have no idea what happened to mine.

Fast forward to the 1980s. I bought a AF set like my friend had, an engine like my old 224, and the metal 2457 caboose that went with it. I still prefer passenger cars over freight. My AF train has it's own small layout. I now have 5 Lionel 2457 cabooses, which I'm always looking for as long as they are in excellent condition. Although they should be common, it took me over 6 years to find the 5 I have (3 at York, 2 on eBay).

My mother wanted to buy those aluminum cars for my brother and I.  They were out of reach, financially and remained a dream until I bought an MPC Congressional set in 1979.  

juniata guy posted:

I do.  Lionel outfit no. 1527, delivered by Santa Claus for Christmas 1955.

Curt

That is the same set I got in 1955, as I mentioned in my above post. Just wondering, what color is your work caboose from this set? My caboose is solid red, but some of these sets seem to have had different colors of cabooses.

Jeff

no I had a marx fright set I think aroun 1960 but I have my grandfather standard guage trans and i'm the 3rd generation to have it my son will be the 4th

kevin

Yes, with original shipping box!! 1952 via Montgomery Ward.........

Yes. Hand me down 1666 set from my cousins that I got in 1960 or 1961. My Dad and Uncle were up until 2 am Christmas morning setting up track in the dining room.  Christmas morning when my sisters and I were in the living room opening gifts, my Dad went and started the train running in the dark dining room. I noticed when the headlight of the engine and newly added 3650 searchlight car went by.  I still run it at Christmas and sometimes other times through the year.

Yes, luckily. My Dad bought the kids (3 sisters and I, just born) in ~1937 the gray 1688E streamlined engine with LL tender and 3 orange tinplate passenger cars. Then in about 1947-48 he bought me my own train- a 1666 2-6-2 w/ steel band wheels (slippery) and the 2466WX tender + Sunoco tank, Pennsy gondola, red N5 Pennsy caboose. Added milk car with my saved $$. Still have both proudly on my wall shelves.

Wally