Share your story of how you caught the railroad bug.

You might enjoy reading the two page thread "Your First Cab Ride", on page two here on the Real Trains Forum.

Birth defect.

From my Grandfather. Grand-pop would set up a circle of STD Ga around the tree at Christmas Lionel 42 and day coaches. His set as a kid. I have a pic somewhere at home with me (2yrs old) and Grand-pop running that set. Grand-pop bought me my first train set, an O gauge MPC set. Not having a place at home to run trains, I ran my trains on Grand-pop's layout, as he lived nearby. He became a TCA member in 1975 and took me to my first York when I was 16. He gathered a decent collection during the 1980s of primarily Lionel prewar and postwar. When he passed in 2001, I inherited his collection (including the 42 and day coach set) and joined the TCA myself.

There was nothing I can point to directly for my interest in trains. I grew up in North Florida, and though we had a main line that went from Jacksonville to LA (Seaboard Coast Line in my town), train frequency was never all that high. I didn't see a steam locomotive running before I was about 3 or 4, there was no family history or interest in trains. I was 7 before I saw any mainline steam locomotive (4449 at the head of the freedom train in '76) but I was a train fan long before then.

Dad has already been into old mechanisms, but never made a big deal about trains. He thinks they're neat, but that's about it.

I have no clue why I like trains. All my other interests, I could tell you exactly what influenced them, but not trains...

in1950 I received a basic Lionel set for Christmas. that started me off. later in 1971 I decided I would like a set to run as my original set had been given away. the next I knew I was a collector and went on to own 60 sets of Lionel.

Bob C.

easy!

My father-in-law(he has been gone 3 years now). he got me started in O gauge and Lionel postwar. I even have some of the trains that he owned and ran when he was alive. we use to trade stories and helped each other fix trains and when ever we would go for a visit he would take me to houses were others had trains and/or were selling trains.

my father-in-laws name; Donald S. Walker. that is where I came up with the name

"Walker Model railroad" for my 8'x 12' train board that I take to shows.

Robert Coniglio posted:

in1950 I received a basic Lionel set for Christmas. that started me off. later in 1971 I decided I would like a set to run as my original set had been given away.

Funny how that happens, huh? I'm lucky in that I can't tell you what happened to the cars in my very first (O27) set, but I still have the locomotive. I don't think my parents would have gotten rid of that without being darned sure I was okay with it.

They always had a way to know what was really important to me.

But my first trains set came from me already liking trains, not the other way around.

It happened trillions of years ago in Scully yard - SW Pittsburgh.  I was exposed to a set of Alco FA whatevers lit up and running in deep twilight.  This is my earliest chooch flash memory.....turned me into a lifelong Dieselover !  In a short while, I would be exposed to the Big Jay 2-10-4.   Not to worry, they were honorary Diesels !

My great grandfather loved trains as a kid, having recieved a used set just after the war. He heard I was coming along, found a MPC Cannonball Express set for me. It sat in a closet for 8 years, til my parents thought I could handle it. I wish I still had the engine, gave it (with some Marx cars) to a family friend. Have the 6177 Hopper, the tender shell and frame (trucks were broken off before I got it) have been "donated" to another engine project, and the boxcar and caboose frame (superglued to a Marx caboose body) was sold. Don't remember what happened to the flatcar.

When I was like 6 or 7 my dad bought me a train set for Christmas.  This turned into a good sized permanent layout in our basement, that I both played with and modeled on until sometime in high school.  At that point my interest had diminished and my father's health had got to the point where neither of us used the layout enough to justify it taking up as much space as it did.  At that point it was broken down and stored.  Fast forward 20 years and I started a job, with a nice corner office, that happened to overlook a very active rail line (freight) and I was hooked again.  I slowly got back into the hobby, and while I'm still waiting to build that new permanent layout, I have been busy buying the things that interest me now.  Hope to have the space to build what I want within the next year or so until then I keep collecting and admiring all of your layouts, pulling ideas from all of you so that when I build my own it will be everything I want it to be!

My earliest memories are being on my maternal grandfathers shoulder watching the number 6 EL train.

When I was 4, I ran away from home and joined the subway.  I was found by a policeman on the Buhre Avenue station watching the trains go by (the number 6).

These are modern-day pics of the Buhre Avenue station area in the northeast Bronx.

My father's family lived along the New Haven 4 track Main Line in Larchmont in Westchester County.  Jets (EP-5s) in McGinnis colors flying by are imprinted in my memory.

Peter

Putnam Division posted:

When I was 4, I ran away from home and joined the subway.  I was found by a policeman on the Buhre Avenue station watching the trains go by (the number 6)

If that'd been me, I wouldn't be a train fan today because my parents' reaction to that would have been so traumatizing that I would have hated trains forever, by association, after that.

Busy mainline railroad behind the house where I grew up, and my dad built a cool 4x8 HO layout in the basement.

My parents were supportive of my train interests with toys, books, travel, etc.

We had trains in the house, we had a lionel layout and I had a first HO layout on a 4x8, until I inherited the Lionel trains when my brother hit his teen years. However, something simply touched me about trains, there is a local shortline that also sponsors a small train museum on its property, and as a young kid my dad used to take me down to look at the trains they had at the museum (including my first exposure to a steam engine up close and personal), and also to watch where they had their engine facilities and such. I also loved riding the local commuter train (also called the Green Monster) , the Delware, Lackwanna and Western,I am sure to commuters the old fashioned coaches with the wicker seats, concrete floors, open windows and the like must have been lousy, to a kid riding the train to Hoboken it was amazing, a step back in time (then finding out the electrical system was designed by Edison himself, well..). 

I retired, moved back to where I was born. Bored to death in the winter months in NE TN.

Lived in  Florida for almost 50 years.

Dad and Grandpa  both were former CLinchfield workers in this small town.

I'm in a town that's only here because of the Clinchfield so seemed like a natural fit.

It's worked well. It has been a blast and still is.

Larry

PS. That's one he$$ of a name you got . Most of the alphabet.

This question arises with some frequency on here.

Although I believe interest in railroads is something you are born with, it may take someone older to awaken and nourish your interest.  

I credit my father for getting things started.  In the 1950's, he and I would pick up chocolate milkshakes and go to the train station on Sunday afternoons to watch trains.  PRR still ran a fair amount of steam at that time but, our goal was to see a diesel.

My second influence was my great Uncle Carl who worked for PRR at the Juniata Shops in Altoona till taking a disability retirement following a car wreck in 1962.  He had a cottage that sat near the PRR Middle Division main line and we would sit on his porch watching trains while he regaled me with stories of his railroad career.

My interest in railroads led me to choose a career in industrial transportation with a heavy focus on rail transportation.  

Curt

I stood next to an old Hogger who sneezed: 'Ah-Choo-Choo!!'

That's how I caught the railroad bug.

My Grandad, born in Roanoke, clerked for the N and W for years before moving to Suffolk, Va. My parents were born there and ended up in Bluefield, W Va after the war.

1948, age <1, Bluefield, W Va, Santa brought a train for Christmas. Dad fixed a layout in the basement.

He sold insurance to coal mines, N and W went thru Bluefield and to most of the mines. Our family returned to Suffolk when I was 8. The Bluefield coal trains were usually going to Norfolk and came thru Suffolk.

My family attended Virginia Tech... about 15+ of us. Blacksburg was very close to the N and W. Route 460 went from Bluefield thru Blacksburg to Norfolk. The majority of the way it parallels the N and W. Much of my life has involved places along that right of way. Heck, we deer hunt now on land adjacent to the N and W; when we go out on the boat, we often are in sight of the coal piers.

The theme of the layout we are building... N and W - coal mine thru Christiansburg, Roanoke, Suffolk, to Norfolk. What else?

I was born into a railroad family. My father worked for the PRR prior to WWII, and his father was a Conductor on the PRR, with some 50 years of service. I've "exposed" to the railroad since before I could walk.

juniata guy posted:

Although I believe interest in railroads is something you are born with, it may take someone older to awaken and nourish your interest.  

It's certainly the old, "nature v/s nurture" argument, but how do you explain me, someone who had almost zero exposure to trains or anyone into trains, developing an interest in them so early on?

Nobody in my family dislikes trains, they all think they're pretty cool (oddly, my brother had a massive steam loco builder plate collection and he's not even a railfan, he likes them because he's into metal casting stuff) but there was never any big deal about trains at all in my family. It all came from me.

Even my grandmother, when I was a little kid, commented on that.

My interest in firearms, military history, sci-fi and the space program, I could tell you exactly where each came from. But not trains.

i was 2 when i saw this train shaped cloud in the sky and from then on i was obsessed with trains

i'm sure my love of trains was God given

I was born into the models.

  The beginning of the vintage Superman show, Gomez Addams, and the Wild, Wild, West, and Pettycoat Junction had a pop influence on my style choices there I'm sure. Plus narrow gauge steam at 3 amusement parks, and the Henry Ford/Greenfield Village trains, left me with a fair amount of exposure leading to my choice for power though never "big" steam, and no longer on a mainline.  

 As for rail-fanning, vacations watching the SOO loading the Chief Wawatam rail ferry was a favorite reason to want  to go to the laundromat. I've only seen the northern Mi, and Erie run an F series.

  Winter walks to the tracks; 11pm till midnight with Gramps, and his little flask of black berry brandy for the colder nights. Counting auto-carriers leaving the ciry, spotting for oddball paint, long distance road names, neglected cars, etc..  Hotboxes made me grin as I squeezed my head while covering my ears. Maybe I squeezed too hard  

  I played around railroads by default because they were always nearby wherever we lived. I saw many various building styles of rail bearing structure. Cornerstones, and dedications built before my Grandfathers birth caught my eye early. I really loved looking at one small, remote, concrete slab near the tracks in a field every day on the way to school. Few kids knew it was poured there for rail freight and mail bags many years ago, but I watched mill machines come and go there on occasion when very young. 

  About 300 yards west, I saw my first big steam under pressure, but not till the 80's-90's. An excursion was stopped for loading behind "ThunderBowl". Looking to see who was at the pool hall, I almost crashed a new truck stopping in the road, stunned.... Daylight?!?! = illegal U-turn after some traffic passed She wasn't leaving my sight yet, just a gut reaction..

  SP 449 heading eastbound, blew the loudest warning I'd ever heard and left.

.....me speechless, and very late for work.

Big_Boy_4005 posted:

Birth defect.

Me too.  

When they were handing out brains...

Rusty

Despite the fact that my Grandfather both ... worked in the mine at night, and drove    the trains during the day, and I spent a lot of time there when I was a boy .... my casual interest in railroading did not begin until many years later when I was an adult and my work sometimes took me into Conrails's Oak Island yard in Newark, NJ.

Despite the fact that our family had a wonderful Lionel 2046 set around the tree and such when I was a boy .... my interest in O trains didn't begin until my own children were born.

HO trains I've dabbled in all my life .... as I've always enjoyed building various types of models.

Jim

Several things, about the same time:

1.  Toy Store Sears, North Shepherd, Houston Texas.  Huge O layout, with lots of Lionel and Marx items.

2.  Marx train set, Christmas 1963.

3.  SP Sunset Route, Alleyton Road to Schulenburg, TX via US 90.  (Goting to/from parents' relatives.)

4. SP Sunset Route, Chaney Junction, Houston TX.  (Watched trains at Father's Job.)

Never caught the bug...it was congenital.

Mine is a bit of a long and twisting story.

When my uncle returned home from WW2 in 1945 he gave me my first train set (probably 1946, not real sure), a Lionel steam engine and associated cars which was put around the xmas tree every year like most of us did back then. Don't really remember the Engine or set  number though, but did have a auto milk car 3462. Every year there after my dad would add additional cars and accessories which eventually prevented us from putting it around the xmas tree w so much stuff. We had a spare bedroom at the time, so that became the train room from xmas till end of January. This was early 50's is my guess. This was when I really got into the train bug and I was allowed to make up my own layout configuration. We had some 022 switches which made it much more interesting and acquired more engines and accessories ( coal loader 397, train station w microphone, remote control tracks. About the mid 50's my dad allowed me to expand the layout which allowed even more fun. I remember quite vividly (even now) turning off all of the lamps and lights in the room at night and enjoying all of the green and red lights flickering around the layout from the switches and accessories along w the steam engines.

 Then about 1958 all this came tumbling down as my dad decided it was time for my brother to have his own bedroom , yes we shared a bedroom up to this point. This was a real downer. I pleaded w my dad to allow me to have a layout in the crawl space under the house which went to deaf ears of course. I was allowed to have a small table in my bedroom with HO trains which lasted until I was about 16 years old which never really gained much interest. About that time came new interests in girls and cars and everything changed from there. Got rid of the HO and gave all of the Lionel trains to my younger cousins (my Uncles boys). This became a big mistake that I would not understand until years later- my cousins eventually sold everything.

Of course the story did continue but not for several decades.

It was 1996 and when daughters boyfriend Chris (who eventually became my son in law) asked me if I had any knowledge of old Lionel steam engines as his did not operate. The engine was from his dad who had passed on. I told him to bring it over as I might remember some things from my childhood as to what the problem might be. Well, 30 minutes later I had it running like brand new. The next day my daughter and Chris were on a new computer I had recently purchased and were on line looking at some website that had Lionel trains and parts. I asked what they were up to and they responded that they were bidding on some additional items for the Engine I fixed. The website ended up being Ebay. Well maybe you know what happened next. After they were finished I went onto the Ebay site and started looking at Lionel trains.

This was perhaps one of the best things that ever happened to me and changed my life ever forward. I will always blame (thank) my Son-in-law for re-exposure to my childhood memories.

Once on Ebay I saw an Lionel train item I had as a kid a 111 trestle set. Well, I ended up winning it and received it the next week. After getting it I realized I needed some track to put on the trestles. Then came an Engine and cars and transformers of all kinds. By the next xmas I had amassed enough stuff from ebay that I ended up selling about 10 train sets on ebay, each set composed of misc. engines, cars, transformers, and track for use around xmas trees. Yes I ended up buying on Ebay all kinds of Lionel trains and accessories mostly from LOT's of misc train stuff. Eventually I specialized in 022 switches, all of the milk cars, 3462, 3472 etc, 397 coal loaders and a few others. Eventually this became not only a hobby but a small business in a way. Them 2008 came along and we all know what happened that year, financial breakdown. It became obvious that it was no longer worth my time working on the these items as the values dropped substantially and never did return to there previous values.

Luckily about this same time I had been tinkering w making some basic truss bridges for my own layout. I had been Design engineer most of my career so coming up w a nice truss was pretty easy for me. Well after making the bridges I liked them so much that I made up more and tried them on Ebay. Sure enough they sold in no time w a nice profit. I continued to expand the family of bridge types and started a website and here I am today- All thanks to my Son- in- law for exposing me once again to this great hobby.

Thanks for reading my story.

jim r

p51 posted:

Putnam Division posted:

When I was 4, I ran away from home and joined the subway.  I was found by a policeman on the Buhre Avenue station watching the trains go by (the number 6)

If that'd been me, I wouldn't be a train fan today because my parents' reaction to that would have been so traumatizing that I would have hated trains forever, by association, after that.

I suspect that they were happy that I was found............I just wanted to see the trains!

Peter

When I was about four years old, my dad, on my child's easel blackboard, drew a picture, that I remember as good, of a Southern Mikado that he fired on his job.  (a few years ago I visited Spencer and identified one he fired as #4526, and obtained its photo).  Some years later, after the war, we lived on "Depot Lane" in a small Kentucky town, where I hung out at the Southern station regularly until 8-9, when we moved to a larger town.  My cousin lived across the road from "Depot Lane"  and had a pre-war Lionel set.  I played with it, begged for "an electric train" for Christmas and got a Marx #25000 litho set with the #999 engine about a year before that move.   My grandfather had bought a farm while building cabooses for the L&N, and had railroad books around his house, including the old circa 1940 Kalmbach photo book on Colorado railroads.   I visited often since I could ride the school bus by the farm.  And here I am, raised from childhood to be a train nut.

Between birth and 5 years of age, my family had a house overlooking the Connellsville B&O yard. Whether it was my Freudian ID, EGO, or SUPER EGO, I do not know, but the train bug addiction has me hooked until the day I die.

enjoy your trains...

I grew up within spitting distance of the DM&IR approach to the Duluth ore docks. We lived in an old farm above Wheeler Field - the farm is now buried under the parking lot for the new Lincoln Park school. Anyway, the 700's and other heavy steam engines were still working - (I lived there from 1950-1960) and shook our house when pulling an empty drag up the hill or filled our yard with brake shoe smoke on the way down. The downhill trains left the caboose right in front of our house. They would wait there until the train was un-loaded and coast down the hill so the engineer would not have to make a run-around move for the caboose. 

I had my dog run over by an up-hill 200 (compound mallet) and the engineer stopped on the hill and came up to the house to tell us he hit our dog.

Sundays we would drive up to Proctor and across the bridge that overlooked the DM&IR service area and roundhouse - you could drive very slowly and watch them turn the Yellowstone's on the turntable if you were lucky. Trains got into my blood by the time I was three years old!

Here is a photo of what the house looked like about the time we moved in - I was 2.

I must have been around 8 years old and received a Lionel 2055 Hudson freight set for Christmas and a semaphore.    It was a carpet layout and I can remember my head on the carpet dazzled by the Hudson head light coming around the bend and semaphore action.  I was hooked.

I contracted a Rail Pox infection at age 4. Aggravated by early exposure to Disneyland's trains and street cars before age 7. Infection went dormant for a while, then came back with a vengeance in 1988. Infection has not subsided and I've been exposing others ever since. Rail Pox (also known as model railroader's syndrome) infects the afflicted individual genetically and can pass to offspring. Females, initially thought to be immune, often manifest the disease outright and will also pass it on to offspring.

AGHRMatt posted:

Females, initially thought to be immune, often manifest the disease outright and will also pass it on to offspring.

They're carriers but don't show symptoms in most cases.

I never even had a chance! My parents were married on caboose here in Austin.

Mom helped my dad build an HO layout while pregnant with me. She was also the photographer when we went train chasing.

Dad was given a Lionel 736 Berkshire set in 1950 and grew up seeing trains at Potomac yard in Alexandria, VA, the Rockville Bridge and Enola yard in PA, and Hanover, KS.

Had relatives on both sides that worked for the UP, SP, and Santa Fe. 

markolson posted:

That would make for an interesting layout.

Did ya?

My Grandfather was the Superintendent of the Car Department and retired from N&W East End Shops 12/31/59. He loved N&W steam and refused to work for a "diesel" railroad. In his last days he was hallucinating calling out to crews in Y's, A's, and J's in his backyard.

My Dad hired on the N&W in 1952 and spent 1954-57 working on the 2300 Steam Turbine Electric Project.  He turned down numerous promotion offers that would have meant leaving Roanoke, Va. My mother would have no part of leaving Roanoke. He ended up spending the bulk of his career at Shaffer's Crossing in the Air Room. After the Southern merger, he ended up in SOC (Systems Operation Center). He worked with a team directing train traffic.

My Grandfather passed away in 1970 and Dad in 2006. After Dad died, I got the hair brained scheme to collect one example of each N&W steam locomotive along with an assortment of rolling stock. There are still gaps, but in general I have "most" of my original plan in place.

     When we were growing up we would go to bed Christmas eve and nothing would be decorated. When we got up Christmas morning the hole house would be decorated and dad's Lionel would be running under the Christmas tree. That's where l got my love of trains from.  Choo Choo Kenny