Christmas 1946. I am on the left. Over the years my Dad would go into the local Western Auto store on Christmas Eve to see what trains were left and what they were priced at.
I don't know what the train is in this 1946 picture. We still have an American Flyer starter set from 1953 that we run. How did it start for you?
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Looks like MTH!
I got my first set 4 months before I was born. 226E, 815,816,817 with 0-72 track, all powered by a Z transformer. My operating accessory was a Marx switching tower. When I was about 4 I used to raise and lower the voltage so that the light got brighter or dimmer. Well what do you expect, I was only 4. When I was around 5 or 6 I would play with the trains up in the attic. Often I would run the cars by hand using the 817 caboose as the engine.
Great times!
Al
Your tain set looks like a Marx set. My first train came in 1948. It was a American Flyer freight set pulled by a #312 Pennsylvania locomotive.
It started for me in 1951, when Santa Claus brought me my Lionel 2026, with a gondola, two tank cars and a caboose.
I still have all of them, I still run them, and they're all in top condition. Thanks, Santa!
The family story says that when my mother found out she was pregnant, she decided it was going to be a boy and that I would love trains, so she went out and bought a set of Lionels. That was 1952, I still have that set (and considerably more since) and have gotten my wife and daughter in the hobby.
Christmas 1976. This was the exact day it all started for me.
My first set was a Lionel 520 set in 1957 at age 4 in 1959 I got 2 HO sets for Christmas one was a Tyco General set with 2 passenger cars that everyone told my dad he was crazy to give it to a 6 year old and it would be destroyed before the day was over. 53 years later it is still alive and well of course it isn't mint but still one of A few HO items I kept when I went back to O. Incidently I also still have the 520 set.
It started on the early morning of my sixth birthday January 1964. My dad was still asleep but my mum allowed me to wake him up, overexcited as I was, expecting my present.
I'll never forget that moment. My dad in pyamas reached over, next to the bed and gave me a gift wrapped box. In it was a Trix HO trainset, just a tiny locomotive, two cars and a circle of track. When I came back from school my dad, a long tall serious guy, always working and little time for leisure sat on his knees before the coffee table. The train was running. I think my dad did what any dad has to do: buying his son a train set, help him to build it up and let him play. Later that day my uncles came by. All of them interestingly inspecting my present. Suddenly these cigar smoking gentlemen weren't talking politics, the war they nearly survived, the Russians who were planning another one and other adult difficult things any more. They were discussing straight tracks, junctions and a couple of other cars my new railway needed urgently! Even my mum joined in. She was after all the one who took the wise decision on buying a real electric instead of a battery operated. I felt great that day!
Christmas 1946. I am on the left. Over the years my Dad would go into the local Western Auto store on Christmas Eve to see what trains were left and what they were priced at.
I don't know what the train is in this 1946 picture. We still have an American Flyer starter set from 1953 that we run. How did it start for you?
I really love these old pics, I'm sorry I have none from those days, but, my first train was a 3 rail O gauge set, 2 sets actually, in about 1955. Hey Allan Miller, how about OGR saving all these old Christmas pics and making a book/DVD or something with them?
It was hit and miss around 5 and around that time I was presented with a USS Switcher 027 set. Eventually the motor burned out. Another set in HO was presented at Christmas when I was 7.
You aint lived in Baltimore if you are not familiar with the fast stop in a car when the parent will slam an arm into you. There was alot of that.
Christmas of 1958 and the 249 Pennsylvaniaset. The 2nd picture with my dad is one of my all time favorites. The set came back out in the mid 80's with my son and went back into storage in 1989. January of this year it came back out to use with my grandson, The only thing missing from the set is the Range Patrol truck and Dad.
Kevin
You can blame my parents. I wasn't even to the toddler stage yet. They bought a store created set with a 2036 from Goldblatt's... for my older brother!
Rusty
Christmas 1959 when I was 2 years old. It was a used (never occurred to me) 1954 vintage American Flyer Santa Fe PA/B with 3 aluminum passenger cars. Broken around 1969 it sat in a cardboard box in my parents basement. Adrian at Chesterfield Hobbies repaired it for me a couple of years ago.
As for O Gauge, Polar Express hooked me in 2004. When my father passed away in 2006, I began my quest to (drain my bank account) have one of each of the steam locomotives operated by the N&W. Not quite there yet.... I have along the way gotten sidetracked by the C&O. Love their paint jobs!!!
....The only thing missing from the set is the Range Patrol truck and Dad.
This is my second-earliest memory (after the day my sister was born):
Spring of 1993. I was about 2.5 years old, and my sister had just been born about two months earlier. Well, my Grandpa decided to take me to a train show down in Allentown. As I was waiting for my grandpa to come pick me up, my dad pulled me to the side and told me "Don't let Pappy buy you anything." Well, he came and picked me up, and Dad told him the same thing.
When we got the train show, first thing he did was offer to buy me a raffle ticket for the Thomas and James G gauge items. I said that he wasn't supposed to buy me anything, but he said it was okay, because it was cheap.
The next thing we did was walk into this room. To the left were boxes (starter set), and to the right was a man behind a counter. While my Grandpa was talking to the man, I just started at this box with a train on it. After a while, he asked me "Do you want that Michael?" How could I say no? lol. That box contained a Union Pacific Steam Freight Starter Set, and that set led to the last 19 years in the hobby (it's crazy for me to think that I have been in this hobby about as long as I have been using the bathroom!).
Although I don't have a photo of it when it was new, here is one from a few years later, with my second set, along with a few add on cars. This was probably 96 or 97:
It started on the early morning of my sixth birthday January 1964.... I felt great that day!
That was a wondeful story, Kieffer. I enjoyed every minute of it and could see it all. You have a gift for telling a story.
Frank
Started in the fall of 75' when I was exploring in the attic and found my late Dad's old Marx train set.Can't remember the engine but it had 3 silver Santa Fe passenger cars.
My Dad went ahead and set up a loop of track in my bedroom and we sat and watched it go round-n-round for what seemed like hours 
So for the Christmas of 1975 I got a Lionel train set.Still got it in the display case beside my Dad's first Lionel set.Both are Sante Fe diesels .
The train memories are treasured stories I hope time never takes away from me.
sometime in the late 1940's.my grandpa bought me a marx train set.countless hours were spent on the floor watching the trains go round and round.
i'll never forget the smell of that locomotive/transformer.(ozone?)cant remember what happened to that train set.sure wish i had it now
fast forward to 1965.while living in kc,missouri i was driving on 75th and troost ave and went past a hobby shop that said spotlight model rr.
went inside and saw all the trains and spent several hours looking.needless to say that got me into ho/n scale where i spent well over 45 plus years.
them were good times back then.having only been in O gauge for about 5 year's now im still having a blast playing with the train's.
i only wish i had been into O gauge back then rather than ho/n.
thop........
well with me would be early 1970's..my grandfather/moms dad got me into lionals..everytime i was sick he would break out the santafe war bonet for me to play with...then at age 7 he got me a tyco spirit of 76 loco..then in 1996 id got into MTH my first O gage train is the up rail king challenger the the southern Gs4 and up gas turbine.had to sell them all off do to devorce in 98..!!
Just got back into trains in 2009 with HO and got out of them in 2012..went threw 3 BLI PRR Q2's with electrical and smoke unit proublems..if im going to spend 500.00 its going to be on big o gage trains..got my first scale O gage 3rd rail PRR S2 turbine in march of thi year and got me a PRR S1 duplex 3rd rail unskirted in april of this year..would like to buy two more and im done buying trains..PRR T1 and the PRR Q2 are the 2 last trains i want,,
I guess my grandfather's G scale stuff started me in the hobby. My dad had the postwar Lionel stuff that had been passed down to him as a kid from my grandfather. Those things got run at Christmas time, but I wasn't allowed to touch them since they were "old". When I was 3 he brought home a brand new Lionel NYC Flyer steam set, and I guess it's grown a bit from there.
(oh, and I do play with the postwar ones too now 
)
I guess I'm addicted
Marx winder for Christmas 1938 when I was 6. Even if my folks could have afforded an electric---they couldn't--- the power lines had yet to reach our farm.
New York Central streamliner[Commodore??] with 3 cars. Homemade cardboard Depot built by Mom, shoebox tunnel by me. My structure modeling skills have not improved much since. Many broken, brazed,filed and finally replaced springs. Lasted until 1950 stored in the attic while I was in Korea when my little brother took it to the sandpile.
First electric-- used Lionel Southern 2333 F3 AA units during 1960s along with new pw ZW. Still have both---both retired.
Well it started for me back in Christmas of 2007. On Christmas morning, I opened up my biggest present under the Christmas tree, just to find that it was a Lionel Pennsylvania Flyer o-gauge conventional train set. It was a freight train with a 4-4-2 atlantic with puffing smoke, and a loud, classic Lionel air whistle in it's tender. I still occasionally run it, but I now have bigger, better Lionel engines and I even plan on soon getting a new Lionel legacy mikado locomotive to go with my Lionel legacy system.
Well it started for me back in Christmas of 2007. On Christmas morning, I opened up my biggest present under the Christmas tree, just to find that it was a Lionel Pennsylvania Flyer o-gauge conventional train set. It was a freight train with a 4-4-2 atlantic with puffing smoke, and a loud, classic Lionel air whistle in it's tender. I still occasionally run it, but I now have bigger, better Lionel engines and I even plan on soon getting a new Lionel legacy mikado locomotive to go with my Lionel legacy system.
Sadly, no pictures. When Dad died anguished Mom tossed a bunch of pics and negatives, including many that I had taken, developed and printed under Dad's tutelage.
I guess it began for me when Dad took me to Wannamaker's department store waaaay downtown in Manhattan, and we rode a monorail high above the toy department. The train displays at the far wall were mind boggling.
~1950 I was allowed to choose a set from Flyer or Lionel, and I chose the Flyer 5103WT passenger set with the 290 Pacific and the three green New Haven passenger cars. Even as a little kid I preferred the two rails and better proportioned rolling stock of American Flyer.
Older and wiser now, I prefer the advantages of three-rail wiring and conventional operation. Ever wonder why there's no control system forum for conventional operation? 
Pete
For me it was December 1965. I was three, my older brother was six, and my younger brother was 8 months. My older brother got a TYCO HO train set with a Santa Fe 2-8-2 for Channukah. While he liked the train I fell in love with it. Our parents have been waiting ever since for me to out grow them.
Stuart
Christmas Morning 1954. Marx Freight Set. That did it. Oh, it still runs.
Many thanks,
Billy C
I never got to play with toy trains as a child, a very long story as to why it never happened. I'm making up for it now. Wait until this Christmas. Killian 
VETERANS HOME - NORTHERN CALIFORNIA
POW/MIA YOU ARE NOT FORGOTTEN
thanks to all of you who posted them neat old pictures of you playing with the trains.i only wish i had pictures of myself playing with my trains,but i dont unfortunately.
but one thing i do have is the memories etched in my brain of all them good times when i was young.memories of the trains and memories of the family. priceless!
terry.........
I love those old photos, guys. I wish I had some of my own.
My story started about 1951 when Santa brought a used Lionel 145SWS set of 1949. It consisted of a 2026 2-4-2 steamer, 3464 boxcar, 6465 tank car, 3461 log dumping car and 6357 caboose. (Inexplicably, Paw traded away the cars for Lionel 500-series prewar cars, but they've since been re-acquired). Also included by the seller were a large O-gauge oval with a pair of manual switches, and a 1033 90-watt transformer (which still is working on my layout, despite spending a long-ago winter frozen in ice). The 2026 still runs and smokes very well, having been restored by Caferro's Lionel Service Center, Binghamton, NY, in the aftermath of my youthful tinkering.
Next came a Marx Commodore Vanderbilt 6-inch 4-wheel freight set with 3 cars, track and the vertical prewar style of transformer. Then in 1957 a Marx ATSF diesel passenger set, a complete set for the princely sum of $19.95! It included AA E-7 diesels, 3 streamlined cars, 50-watt transformer, oval of 034 track, lockon & wire, telephone poles, signs, figures, passenger platform and newsstand. I still have much of this set.
the day i became addict to trains was christmas eve about 12:00pm 1987. my grandfather pick out my first set i was 9 years old that year. he had passed a few days before christmas eve. wish he had been there when i got it.
Start? Can't say the year exactly, early 60's Christmas for sure.
My brother and I found a Loop under the Tree with a scout steamer and a few cars on it. Probably a starter set but I don't recall ever seeing a box. It may have been pre-enjoyed but We did not notice or care.
I left the trains behind when I joined the Air Force and they were lost over the years by my younger siblings.
Re-Start: Christmas 2007.
My sister sent me a Lionel yellow stock car with the horses heads popping in and out, you all know the car. We had one when I was young as well. She thought I had trains as all my siblings did !
Well, that really started something as there is probably over $4000 in trains and assoc. equipment in the basement now and I keep stashing cash away for those rare deals.
I'm already re-building the first layout, I decided I hated the 2 crawl-unders to get in to fix anything. And I'm changing to Scaletrax while I'm at it. The Flex is really flexible!
This was how it started for me. Christmas morning, 1964 I came downstairs to a brand new Marx train set! I still remember the smells the best. The ozone smell of the transformer. The smoke fluid in the green glass bottle with the medicine dropper. The set got put away for a long time after that Christmas but I played with it in my teens before it got put away again. I still have the remains of the set but it is in bad need of restoration. I'm also curious as to the identity of the set, if anyone can tell me.
I feel you are born with the train gene.
example tow of my grandsons are 9 (different parents) one wants to see and run as many of my trains as he can, the other can take it or leave it.
That is my story and I'm sticking to it.
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