How Many here Delivered Newspapers as Teenagers to buy our trains ?

No newspapers here, but lots of lawn work, snow shoveling and dog walking! 

Some bad winters (well good for me!) led to many purchases. Especially K-Line scale locos when the prices fell following their demise. 

My railroad was truely built one driveway and dog walk at a time. 

I delivered the Salina Kansas paper on Schilling AFB. At that time it was a huge Strategic air command base with primarily B47s and tankers. My father was the squadron commander of the 327th air refueling squadron. I had a huge paper route covering the base housing. It gave me a great income as a kid and I bought whatever struck my fancy as a kid.

I delivered newspapers for many years but the money went into the family fund for necessities.  No trains until much later. 

I  "served papers" for a couple of years. Wasn't buying trains at that point. I think a lot of the spare change went for plastic model kits which I was into then. 

Always interesting to make the rounds for the collections. Some customers were outgoing and engaging; others barely opened the front door!

I don't think the paper in my small home town even had home deliveries.  At least, I don't remember any paper boys.

right here....and picked a many out the trash while doing it....……….Pat

Yup, on my Schwinn bicycle, after school each week day and on Saturdays. The Elizabeth (NJ) Daily Journal. I remember the weekly charge was 75 cents …. most every customer let me keep the change from a dollar as a tip. It was a lot back then. lol

After squaring up with my route manager each Saturday, I would ride my bike to the Woolworth's for a YooHoo, and then next door to the hobby store for HO trains, plastic model kits, baseball cards, etc

Everyday after school I delivered the Cincinnati Post on my bike in the blizzards of ‘77 and ‘78.  I made $25/ month. Seemed like a lot of money to me back then.

I delivered the Chicago Tribune and Chicago Sun Times on three streets, four blocks per street.  Cleared about $8 per week until my sophomore year in high school.  My junior year I got a job stocking shelves in a small grocery store twice a week after school and on Saturdays.  Somewhere in there, the local camera and model train (HO) store offered a brass Tenshodo (sp?) Santa Fe GP for $25.  I think I put five dollars down and a couple bucks each Monday afternoon for several months.  It ran very smooth on a 5 x 10 layout.  My father and brother packed it away when I went to Kings Point and the trains stayed in a wooden keg until about twenty years ago.  It was the first item I sold on eBay - without a picture, just a rather lengthily description.  John in Lansing, ILL

Yes here, too. Though the money didn't go to trains. Delivered the Southern Illinoisan for a few years, then worked part-time in the mailroom there, and also, during college, at the Courier/Morning Courier in Urbana - until it folded. Used to have the stereotype mat of the final Courier front page. Ink-stained wretch.

David

I shoveled lots of snow for trains.  Mpc era WM alco AA was the first engine I purchased with my own money.  I still have them.  I remember poring over train magazines for even a nickel difference in pricing.  

Grew up on Long Island and started delivering the NY Daily News when I was 12. This was a morning paper so I had to get up at 5 each day to finish the route before school. I had about 75 dailies and over 100 Sunday's when I started. The route shrank as Newsday grew in popularity on LI. I usually did it all myself except on really horrible days when my Dad would drive me around the neighborhood. I'd load up the back of his 69 Dodge station wagon and sit on the back tailgate with my feet hanging out of the car. Could you imagine if you did that with a 12 year old today??????

I used to clear about $20-$25 a week after paying my manager for the papers. Christmas tips were the best. They always went toward a new locomotive that I had my eye on.  I did it till I got a job in a supermarket in HS. Spent the money at Trainworld and Nassau Hobby as well as on Baseball cards, records (remember them?), and hockey gear. Saved up enough for my first stereo system from Radio Shack too. I have fond memories of my time doing the route. Taught me a lot about responsibility, independence, and about people too. Picked up lawn jobs, snow shoveling, you name it from many of my older customers. I too have vivid memories of the Blizzards of 77 and 78. I think it took about 10 years for the newsprint ink to leave my skin

It's a shame that these opportunities don't exist for kids today.

Great thread- thanks for starting it. Happy Thanksgiving

Bob

Yes, an afternoon newspaper, The Daily Intelligencer - Doylestown, PA.  $7/wk from a 42-customer route. Got the route at 7 yrs old from my older brother.

I saved most of it so with that & many other early jobs was able to buy a decent car at 16 and a few trains here & there.

I delivered The Detroit News from 1951 until 1957 in my home town of Huntington Woods, MI. I use to put train items on lay-a-way at my local train store which was Models on Woodward Ave. in Ferndale, Mi. I remember buying the portal gantry crane for $16.00 brand new. It was so great having my own earnings to spend as I wanted. Also, I bought a Schwinn Black Phantom with canvas saddle bags and handle bar bag. Needed both for Thursday and Sunday large papers. Delivery was 60 cents per week.

What did you have for collection records? As I recall, the Southern Illinoisan was 70 cents a week when I started - Monday through Friday afternoons, and Sundays. Had a sort of binder (maybe four inches by seven or eight) with two rings - two holes punched in two hard covers, with a page for each customer between the covers. A little perforated tab to tear off to give the customer for each week he or she had paid.

As EBT Jim mentioned, I'd usually settle once a week, Saturdays, in a hallway just inside the entrance from the loading dock at the paper.

David

Had a large paper route all thru high school, but it usually went on my drag cars.

I did a lot of racing during this period up till I hired on the railroad in 91'. 

I did still purchase trains at this time in my life,but my late Dad bought more then than I did,and what he bought now is about 50% of my collection. 

My paper route was 3 blocks from the Santa Fe main (Stockton Sub-Division -  Antioch,CA).

I was also about 1/2 mile from Southern Pacifics Mococo Line.

I saved and purchased my 1st 35mm (1985 or 1986) camera with that money, a Nikon FG at Best or Consumer Electronics.

About toy trains, I purchased a Williams FM from one of the mail order companies, it was the one with plastic sideframes and fuel tank - which is probably why it was only $69.99

No way, that was too much like work!  I was too busy and worn out playing baseball and hockey. I did fill in for a friend when he and his family went on summer vacation, delivering the now defunct Philadelphia Bulletin. 

I had trains that my grandfather bought before I was born. So they were set up every Christmas season and I was thrilled with them. It wasn’t until I began my career and the kids were grown that I went on a train buying frenzy. Until then I was ecstatic to bring home a $5 O27 tank car from a Greenberg’s show.  

We moved to Ocean Springs, MS. across the bay from Biloxi in the summer of 1958.  I was eleven years old and started substituting for our regular paper boy delivering the "Biloxi Daily Harald"  A year later I was given my own route, 29 papers the smallest route in town.   However, it was on the side of town where all the new housing was being built. Within a year I had 219 customers the largest route in town. During this time the paper was having a contest to sign new subscribers and the location of my route was a big advantage over all the other carriers from Pascagoula to Bay St Louis.  I won the contest,   "A Trip To Brazil"  and my mother would not let me go.  BOO HISS, FOUR LETTER WORDS !  So with my newfound riches I bought all the trains other kids in the neighborhood had, as well as a Cushman scooter to carry the papers on.  I was burning bearings out of bicycle wheels and had to replace the hubs every three- four months, which I learned to do from the man who repaired bicycles at Western Auto.  I was not quite old enough to have a drivers license or even a learners permit and any motor powered vehicle operated on public roads required a drivers license however I delivered papers to some cops and the local police turned their heads. They also turned their heads when my friend Dennis and I drove around in our 1948 Buick, which we had bought from a gentleman on my paper route for ten dollars. The thing was rusted out so bad that you could see the road through the floorboards. We found some roof gutter flashing and screwed it down on top of the holes. The back fenders, just as bad, were barely hanging on and would flap in and out any time we drove over twenty miles per hour. Since the tail lights were on the fenders they to would flap in and out as the fenders flapped. Looked sorta strange at night but the old flathead straight eight just kept on hummin.  j

I also mowed lawns & shoveled snow like some of you guys !   You guys have some great stories !  

Thanks for sharing your stories .   

When you work for your trains , those them the most cherished , besides gifts from the family . 

5 years of newspapers and 2 years of mowing grass...

Delivered the Marietta Times, published every day except Sunday. My route was very hilly, so only half could be thrown from the bike and the rest I had to walk. The route had an average of 102 papers each day. I did the collecting on Friday night and/or Sat. afternoon. Used to make about $9.00/week and used much of that money for Lionel trains. I think I was netting about $0.65/hour. This was 1963 - mid 1966 though.

Gathering up and selling junk metal; much later officiating/refereeing soccer at high school and college levels; lots of running to buy lots of trains.

Wally

No paper route for me, either.

As I recall, early on I got a modest allowance for doing chores and taking care of our house's lawn/etc.  Dad's concept was quite simple: Work = $$.  So, it wasn't a "do nothing for it" allowance per se. Instead, he began early teaching me that if I wanted more money, then I would have to be willing to do more work for it. Simple enough.

By the time I was nearing my teens, dad's supermarket that he and mom purchased was doing very well. He offered me a real "job". I think I was 11 - 12 years old or so when I began to be the "Grounds Keeper". (i.e. The one that took care of the grounds of the supermarket.) My "portfolio" consisted of: Sweeping the sidewalks, picking up trash off the parking lot as well as off the shrubbery areas, mowing the lawn areas and keeping the lawn edges trimmed, keep the hedges trimmed and all hedge trimming debris/etc cleaned and picked up, etc.  My workday was Saturday morning and I would work until finished. I can't remember what I was paid, but it certainly wasn't exorbitant, just a fair wage for my age. Dad treated me fairly, but he also expected a good job in return.

It worked great. While other kids were sleeping in and dumbing out watching Saturday TV, I was at the store earning money. I was the "Grounds Keeper" for a couple years or so until I was old enough to be brought inside and work. (Child labor law said 14 1/2 years of age back then? Can't remember.)  When I went inside I was making minimum wage: A whopping $1.60 an hour! Inside I learned to stock shelves (including helping in the "Produce" department and such), work the "bottle" department (sorting the inbound empty glass bottles by bottling company and casing them in those wooden bottle cases). I soon landed in the "Deli" where I was flipping burgers and such, BUT, I was now making a tremendous $1.70 an hour. ("Deli" workers were more "skilled"??)  Dad used a cheap "hook" to get them to the "Deli" department:  A hamburger for .17 cents! Yup, small patty, GRILLED onions, a couple/three pickles and mustard/ketchup for a whopping .17 cents. (Sort of like the little burger McDonald's sells.) Sold the fool out of 'em! Almost always folks would add fries, drinks, and such as that, which we made better money on. (Memory jog: Among our plenitude of deli offerings, we offered a FANTASTIC "Meatloaf Sandwich" that was SOOOO good.)

I learned the concept well: Work = $$$!  So, I always had funds to fund my hobbies: Trains, planes (control line), automobiles (slot cars)... and also hunting. I well remember when I was about 14 or so purchasing my first shotgun: A brand spanking new Winchester 1200 3" magnum pump with 30" full choke, (for waterfowl) along with a 26" Improved Cylinder w/vent barrel (for brush hunting and quail/birds). A year later I purchased my first deer rifle: A brand new Remington 30-06 700 BDL Custom Deluxe. (To be my Colorado rifle.) I still have my original shotgun, foolishly sold my BDL in the mid-70s.

Sometimes a kid at school would give me a hard time because "your dad is rich so you get anything you want!"... having no clue that I was working for my money!  Didn't matter: I had money and the complainers didn't!

So, dad's simple concept "Work = $$$" followed me throughout life, and has served me well.

Andre

At age eleven, I had my first paper route. Thirty six papers at two cents profit a piece made me a whopping seventy two cents for walking almost five miles in the early morning hours. I swapped routes in a couple of years for a route closer to home (half the distance) for the same amount. At fifteen I bought an early morning motor route that delivered 300 Sunday only papers in our rural Scranton PA neighborhood. I carried Philadelphia and New York papers as well as the  Scranton papers. l My dad drove for me for six months.  I remember that in bad weather, the Philly papers were delayed  because they came through Wilkes-Barre via the Lehigh Valley.  

Always having a steady income I was able to enhance my small HO empire when I wanted to, but I was big on saving my hard earned cash.  After obtaining the more lucrative motor route I switched to the emerging N Scale hobby in my late teens and through college.  Along with the N scale, I entered the world of O Gauge when my two sons came along  a few years later (MPC era).  

BTW, could you imagine sending your eleven year old out in the dark, morning hours everyday in this day in age!  But I digress.

Happy Thanksgiving everyone.

Earl       

Yes, I went from one route to four routes from 12 years old until I was 20. The last four to five years I was delivering 140 to 150 weekday papers and 300+ Sunday papers. It was the Baltimore Sun. From 16 years old to 18 I got out of the last class in high school so I could deliver the papers and then go to referee high school sports in the afternoon which was also great money. Delivering papers was great income and helped me develop a work ethic. Along with the refereeing I was bringing in 8 grand a year at 16 years of age in 1985. I bought mostly whatever I wanted, including trains, but the one train that I never could pull the trigger on was the Lionel Daylight set which cost crazy money at that time.

I think paper routes for kids is pretty much a thing of the past, but for late teens these days, sports officiating can be a great source of income. If you can work hard, make yourself available to the scheduler, you can rake in money.

I started mowing yards at 10.  Got my first job where I punched a timecard clock at 12, washing pots and pans at the local cafeteria, 50 cents an hour .  THEN, I graduated to throwing newspapers in the morning and evening for 3 years.   Anything was better than stinky pots and pans.  I remember a green schwinn bike with alarge basket on the front and a large saddle bag you wore on your shoulders like a poncho.  It had a large pouch on front and back which you wanted to empty as fast as possible.  At 16 i was old enough to work at the chain supermarket, 5 days a week.  During college it was two summers in an oil refinery and one as a civil engineer aide building a turnpike.  No trains, just trying to get through college. 

It all provided a lot of motivation to do well and finish college.

Our small town had a news paper that  I delivered on Thursdays...probably 35 customers...15 cents per paper...think my cut was .06 cents per paper. Christmas time was great for tips. Did that from age 12-15.. plus selling night crawlers,lawn mowing,and shoveling side walks and driveways. Then got a real job with minimum wage (1.60) 1971 ..age 15 ..at a sports shop...mounting skis,sharpening skates,fixing Bikes....Didn’t know what a train set was back then....late bloomer,found trains in 1999... lol

Mowed lawns, delivered papers, babysat, just about anything to earn a few dollars.

Sorry to disappoint, but the dollars didn't go towards trains.

I delivered 78 daily "Daily News" newspapers and 102 Sunday "Pittsburgh Press" newspapers, from age 12 - 16, which was when I got a job as a busboy; then, "Salad-boy" in the Cafeteria in Kennywood Amusement Park.

I loved it all, especially the $100+ total Christmastime tips I received from my paper-route customers/neighbors. and proudly and joyfully gifted to my mother, (widowed when I was ten,) and  I got to know just about everybody in our suburb, as a result of that route.

No wagon. I carried the newspapers on my back in a canvas one-strap sack.

Here is that "Paperboy," as we were called, and my mother when I was 12, and my closest friends and I when I was 13 in our yards in that suburb where I delivered newspapers.

FrankM

P.S. You didn't ask for all that, but I am trusting you would grant me some leeway with all that autobiography. You got me in the mood to reminisce a bit.

Personal history, particularly childhood memoires, can be a nice place to visit every once in a while. In fact, I would suggest that is a place many of us visit when we turn on our trains.

I too was a Daily News Carrier on Long Island. My brothers and I had a route that we kept for a dozen years. Bought lots of trains with that money at the hobby stores on Long Island and even at Madison Hardware in the city. After the winter of 77 78 my feet never quite felt warm again.

Miketg

It seems a lot of us learned the work equation at an early age. Besides the newspaper route mentioned above, I also packed meat shipments in the freezers at the base commissary and sacked groceries. On a good afternoon  I could make $5 or $10 and almost $100 on a payday weekend. Newly married after college at 21 I owned my own small company which provided the income to race corvettes with the SCCA, Imsa and other organizations.

My son started sacking groceries at age 12 and did pretty well. I recommend it to kids if they can find a high volume grocer that will let them sack for tips. I don't believe the chains permit it anymore.

Great thread!

I ran a paper route from the age 13- 15. It was the Baltimore News Post. Daily papers were delivered from my Schwinn bike while Sunday morning papers from the trunk of my mothers car. Sundays paper were just too big to carry on bike. At first I used a wagon to deliver Sunday papers but it took hours and much labor. My Mother eventually had mercy and drove me around my route on Sunday mornings. I think that I made anywhere between 11-15 dollars a week. In the early days money was used to fund trains, but as I got older less to trains and more to other things. Being a paperboy was a great experience and taught me a lot about finances and human relations/interactions.

I delivered The Pocono Record in the morning 7 days a week, The Easton Express in the afternoon 6 days a week and on Sunday mornings add the Easton Express and The Sunday Call Cronical from The Morning Call out of Allentown. My Sunday morning run was about 200 papers, my mom drove me around. I got up at 5 am on Sunday morning to put all the papers together, then get them loaded in the car, we were on the road by 0630. It took 2 hours to deliver everything. Plus I mowed grass in the summer months and shoveled snow in the winter. Today's kids have no idea.......

Started delivering the Courier-Post in Cherry Hill, NJ immediately after my 12th birthday. In high school, I switched to the Philadelphia Inquirer, so I could deliver in the morning and keep my afternoons free. Eventually combined 3 routes, so I had over 250 stops on Sundays. 

 I was just thinking about the papers the other day, as someone posted footage from the blizzard of 1978. I was the only kid in my district to deliver that day. Trudging through 30” of snow, dragging my canvas newspaper bag. I made a fortune in tips. Everyone was out shoveling, and guys were just handing me bills. They couldn’t believe I showed up. 

Can’t say I spent the money on trains, though I wish I had. Some of it went to buying records, and I still have them. I still play them. Good times.

I guess it was my first real job - delivering Bucks County Courier Times in Feasterville, PA. My money went to buying space toys and GI Joes....trains were way too expensive and other toys had much greater play value for a kid, although I loved my electric train set around Christmas.

I'll always remember the adventure of delivering papers on my sled during the blizzard of Jan. 1976. Just a little guy at the time, yet sheer determination to pull my sled with bundles of papers through deep snow to get the job done. After getting home my Mom made me hot chocolate - that tasted good that day.

Yes those were the days that we lived in Brooklyn, NY.  My dad was a factory worker my mom a homemaker. We were a family of modest means so money was short.  The newspaper delivery route were taken so I shoveled snow, and did bicycle deliveries for a drug store to make few bucks.  Didn't make enough money to buy trains but at Christmas time Mom and Dad usually gave me a present of one train item to add to my single train set layout that was up for the month of December. 

     I had a paper route on Long Island, which allowed me to buy small items for my train layout (smaller Plasticville items, a Lionel 260 bumper, etc.). I do remember one time having enough money from my route and riding my bike to Trainland in Lynbrook to buy a Lionel 6464-500 Timken boxcar. Still have it!

    John

I was not a model railroader at the time, but I paid for my subscriptions to Trains Magazine and Railroad Magazine, by delivering the Los Angeles Herald-Express out of bar bags on my Schwinn Corvette 3-speed.  Some of my earnings also funded trips on Santa Fe San Diegans, which cost 84 cents round-trip from nearby Fullerton to Los Angeles.

After reading previous posts, I see that I had it easier than some of you, because of Southern California's climate. No freezing weather or snow, and very little rain.