Earliest memories & photos of model trains

There may be other pictures around, but this is the only one I have from when I was real little. I still have that transformer, bridge, blinkers, etc. Not the hair though! This was maybe 1986ish? Lionel 2055 and set. My grandpa and dad got it for me from a train shop in Erie PA. The engine and cars are on top of the mantle.

Christmas 1948   Warren, Pennsylvania  I have no idea what the make of the train was?  Maybe a Marx?  Any ideas?

@TURTLE 2 posted:

Christmas 1948   Warren, Pennsylvania  I have no idea what the make of the train was?  Maybe a Marx?  Any ideas?

Trains are Marx. Wedge tender, likely a 999 loco, and a 3/16 scale boxcar.

I would guess this image is from 1966.  My dad, my brother, one of my sisters, and the short pudgy guy is me.  Dad had the best layouts.  I don't think he ever planned one out.  Just started laying track and came up with a design.

Radio Boy Thank you for the answer.

My apology.  My vision is an issue. Radio Roy

@MartyE posted:

I would guess this image is from 1966.  My dad, my brother, one of my sisters, and the short pudgy guy is me.  Dad had the best layouts.  I don't think he ever planned one out.  Just started laying track and came up with a design.

Man that's a big layout. Must have been tough to reach across on derailments !

1953 - me and Mom

These are great, y'all! @j. constible: What an amazing shot...so clear for a photo of that vintage!  @RoyBoy: Two siblings I assume?

Dec 1964

Probably early 70’s

I loved looking at all these old photos. The good old days.

I had a Marx set I played with on the floor as a boy . This was in rural Oregon and I have thought about it and I cannot remember the 1st layout I ever saw or how I got interested in model railroading. I did like models as a boy. It must have been when we moved to California.

Green light on the ZW and Dad dropping a few L&M cigarettes into the Lionel red gondola being pulled by the the Lionel 2065 Hudson around the Christmas tree at the age of three.

A couple of years ago, I was given a tub of old photos, and I found this in it. This is not me, it is my oldest brother, who is 13 years older than I am. I not only never saw this train, I never even knew it existed. I had no clue my family ran a train around the tree.

@G-Man24 posted:

Man that's a big layout. Must have been tough to reach across on derailments !

That layout in a slightly smaller configuration used to go in the living room.  I think maybe only 2 years.  If you look at the front left corner you can see it's cut at an angle.  This let the front door open.  LOL!

This is a photo from 1950 and my first train...a Lionel Scout 1115 three-car freight train set, which at that time retailed for $15.95.

I received my first Lionel train in 1961 at the ripe old age of 4.  The first picture is of the layout my dad built for it showing the engine, tender and caboose along with some accessories.  Years later I built a layout for my kids with a mountain and river, this is the second picture.

Rolland

I can remember sitting in a high chair and blowing the American Flyer whistling billboard. Probably either 1948 or 1949.   

Christmas videos.......At about 50 seconds, you can see me opening up a Marx Monon diesel set in 1956. At about 2:07, you can see me opening my Lionel New Haven F3 freight set in 1958.

Peter

These are not very old. They were taken of a couple of my early layouts in the 1980's.

@Putnam Division  Peter I love seeing the old footage from the 50s. Do you have the original film? Modern scanning services might get you a better resolution video.

@TURTLE 2 That image is priceless. Which one are you?

@Putnam Division posted:

Christmas videos.......At about 50 seconds, you can see me opening up a Marx Monon diesel set in 1956. At about 2:07, you can see me opening my Lionel New Haven F3 freight set in 1958.

Peter

Great old movie. Do you still have that Lionel set in your collection ?

.

In 1951 it started with a simple loop of track - 8 curved and 6 straight (I can't find the first picture but I know it's around here somewhere).

Found it!

Christmas 1951

By 1967 it had grown to this:

by 1980 it had grown to this

...and by 1985 it had grown to this:

@G-Man24 posted:

Great old movie. Do you still have that Lionel set in your collection ?

.

Yes, I do! It runs like the day I got it. Here is a picture we took on the Modular Layout in 2016 when we staged "Classic Train Weekend"......

No one in my family knew the fate of the Marx set......I repurchased it when I saw a similar set at York, circa 2005......here it is at the same photo shoot......

Peter

@Will posted:

@Putnam Division  Peter I love seeing the old footage from the 50s. Do you have the original film? Modern scanning services might get you a better resolution video.

@TURTLE 2 That image is priceless. Which one are you?

No.....my parents converted the 8mm film to VHS in the late 80s.

Peter

@Putnam Division posted:

Yes, I do! It runs like the day I got it. Here is a picture we took on the Modular Layout in 2016 when we staged "Classic Train Weekend"......

Wow. That set was a very big ticket item back in those days!

My earliest memory, faint but still there, was pushing a Marx UP engine around in the floor, just like the one below, my first train. I vaguely remember the caboose, too, but not any cars. I was too young for the complexities of track, I suppose. I just remember pushing the engines around on the wood floor of our living room, and probably cranking up the "powered" engine to make it go. That was in the early 50s. My dad may (and probably did) buy it used from someone. A very modest beginning, but enough to plant the seed. I like a number of roads, but to this day I still have a soft spot for UP yellow because of these engines.

Although not my earliest memories, these are the oldest photos I could readily find at this time.  Circa 1980...I was about 14 years old.  My Dad and I put up a layout every year for the Holiday season.  When I was really young, it would go under the Christmas tree.

We soon outgrew that and eventually ended up with this 8'x10' display (four 4'x5' platforms bolted together).  We tried to change the track plan and "scenery" each year.  It usually went up after Thanksgiving and stayed up until mid-January or so.  By this age, my Dad was pretty much allowing me to do most of the "design", track laying and wiring work.  Great learning experience!

In the lower, left corner of the top photo (under the platform), you can catch a glimpse of the box from my very first "electric" train set...a Lionel Santa Fe "Twin Diesel" set that I received as a Christmas present from my parents at about age 5.  I still have the set...and that set box.

Unfortunately, I have no photographs of my earliest train layout memories but the images and even the smells are indelibly etched in my mind.  I can only try to describe them.  It was Christmas 1950 and I was only three.  Two years earlier my Dad had purchased a Lionel 027 Freight set from a store in northeast Philly or lower Bucks county.  Incredibly, along with that set he also purchased a Lionel Display layout and a KW transformer.  I don't recall those first two years but 1950 I remember because that year the Phillies won the pennant and my Mom and Dad were practically delirious with joy and I recall their reaction quite vividly.

Anyway, the layout was placed in our living room with the tree situated right on the middle of the layout.  The train ran beneath the tree.  Each night just before we went to bed my Dad would run the train  for the family  with all the lights turned off save the tree lights.  What a magical scene.  The soft glow of the boulevard lamps provided a gentle contrast with the multi-colored tree lights.   Like all kids I was completely captivated  by the Automatic Gateman swinging his illuminated  red lantern  as the train passed by.  I can remember watching that little engine at eye level  with its headlamp glowing and its tender whistling as it whipped around those tight curves.  When my Dad blew that whistle I became aware of an unsual odor I was completely unfamiliar with that emanated from the tender.  It was unusual but it was pleasant.  I didn't know what it was at the time but later came to realize it was ozone from the motor of the whistling tender.  That whiff of ozone coupled with the pungent pine fragrance of our Christmas tree is forever locked into my senses.  To this day I still love the smell of ozone.  Sadly, my Dad passed away in 1953 from wounds he received during World War II in the European Theater of Operations.  The one crystal clear memory I have of him is his running of the trains at Christmas time.  His freight set, Lionel Set #1423W, still is with me and runs just as smoothly as it did all those many years ago.  Every Christmas I take the set off of its shelf and run it around our tree with all the lights off save the tree and layout lights.  Its a trip back in time and sometimes I almost feel as if my Dad is there watching.  I only wish I had photographs to go along with my mental images.

Wonderful account of your first model railroad experiences, Okhiker. Also, the Phillies had a fine team in 1950 with Richie Ashburn and Robin Roberts.

Peter, you're sure having a great time with your trains at Christmas in your home movie. The scene in the movie with your family  watching you become ecstatic with your new Lionel trains, reminds me of how much my parents and Aunt Ruth enjoyed giving me Lionel train Christmas gifts. I may still have similar home movies buried in boxes that I have not seen in decades. Arnold

Christmas morning 1957.  That's my sister.   Still have the trains.   See the 4x8 topic for today's view of the set.

PRICELESS!  THANKS, all for sharing! :-)

@CSXJOE: What amazing film reel!  God I wish I had something like that from when I was a kid...

@OKHIKER posted:

....  Incredibly, along with that set he also purchased a Lionel Display layout and a KW transformer. 

OKHIKER. What became of the Lionel Display layout ?

@G-Man24 posted:

OKHIKER. What became of the Lionel Display layout ?

Unfortunately another sad ending.  After my Dad died in 1953 my brother and I pestered my Mother to death trying to convince her to set up the layout at Christmas time.   She knew nothing about trains and electricity and neither did we especially at ages 4 and 7.   She tried several times to get things going but the KW transformer and its various  connections completely befuddled her and  us and we never got it running again.  In 1959 we moved back to West Virginia where my Mom and Dad hailed from.  When we were packing things up my mother decided to put the display layout  out in the trash because it was too large and unwieldy and since she could never get it up and running she didn't think it was worth the effort to take it with us.  The same went for the KW transformer because she didn't think the thing worked anyway.  She asked about the train set and my brother and I insisted that she take it with us, which she did.  So that beautiful 4x8 display board and that trusty KW transformer ended up somewhere in a trash heap just like so many other post-war train related items did during that time.

The layout really was great looking with its green dyed sawdust and crisply painted roadways.  Everything, to include the boulevard lamps, automatic semaphore, automatic gateman and operating milk car as I recall were all completely pre-wired.  I remember crawling underneath it one time when we had it lifted off of the floor trying to get things to work and was frankly amazed at what seemed to me at the time to be an incredible number of wiring connections.   I think about that layout all of the time and actually get depressed when I think how we left it.  For me, today, the sentimental value alone would make it priceless.   Anyway, we saved the little 1655 engine, tender and its associated freight cars and it has a place of honor in my train room.  I might add, that I still possess the train outfit's set box and all of its component boxes and they are in decent shape for 72 year old cardboard boxes.   I guess Lionel built everything to last back in those days.

After my wife and I  purchased our home back in September of 1974 the very first thing I did was go out and buy another KW transformer along with a 4x8 sheet of plywood, 1x4s and 2x4s and constructed a layout for Christmas time under out tree and to this day that tradition continues.  Looking back, it makes me feel good that there is real continuity in our family's toy train history so its not a sad ending after all.

In January of 59 I had just turned two a month ago. My dad must had made the layout since you see the 210 and 1599 set that was only available in 58. I still have them. This layout folded up on the wall like a murphy bed. That's my older sister in the background in our cellar.

Someone online put color in the original photo on facebook. This is the only photo of my trains. I hold it very special because my dad painted the wood, made the layout and I'm sure is right at the end of the table taking the picture.

@OKHIKER   Didn't mean to conjure up a sad memory for you but "'tis better to have loved and lost than never to have loved at all". I think we all have a story like that where something of sentimental value was lost or discarded over the years. I'm thinking of one right now that makes me cringe every time I think about it. At least you have memories of the layout and the enjoyment it brought you when your Dad was still alive. You still have your original trains which is amazing in itself. I'll bet it gives you a good feeling to look at those trains up in their place of honor. Great story thanks for sharing.

.

My earliest memories (besides wooden railway toys) were going to Nicholas Smith and seeing the big O gauge layout (before they redid it) and the G-gauge Wanamakers layout that they used to have. I remember being simply amazed of the shear quantity of trains that they had.

Little did I know how fortunate I was to grow up within a 20 minute drive of one of the world best hobby shops!

@Robert S. Butler posted:

Can't beat that old shag rug , looks like grass and has awesome sound deadening properties.  Just don't drop any small screws in it !

.

Being a lot younger than most here (born 2002), my earliest memories are, of course, Thomas and Friends, which I still collect today, as well as ho, which I still collect as well, however, for me, my first O gauge was not a family heirloom, nor was it a modern one. In 2010, my parents had just gotten divorced, and my grandfather was attending a church sale, when he came across a box of old trains. He bought them, never looking past the top where the little old blue diesel was, knowing that, for the price he paid, the engine was worth it. After teasing me (pretending someone else had bought it, and having the preacher, who he was friends with, play along) we began going through them. The engine was a 230 C&O alco, the pride of my fleet to this day. There were multiple operating space cars, sadly, all were beat up (the minute man car is now repaired and is a favorite of my grandpa's, unfortunately, the satellite car and mercury capsule car are still awaiting serious repairs,) however, when we got to the bottom of the box, I noticed a false bottom, and underneath this cardboard cover, was a marx steamer. Who would have thought that a $40 box of trains would turn into such a massive fleet, and a great hobby!