Was your first ever train a Christmas gift? I got my first train when I was 10 years old. It was Christmas 1976 and it was a Marx Illinois Central Gulf deisel set. It's still in pristine condition even though it's made a million laps around that oval.
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Yes ! A 1061 Lionel Scout in 1968. Still runs great !
Yes my first set was a Bachmann HO set led by a UP GP18 that was later hand brush painted to an RF&P engine like I saw on the rails.
My follow up engine was a Bachmann BQ23-7 in SCL/Family lines. I was happy to not have to repaint that one. My first layout table is now a storage table in my parents basement there is still a bit of flex track on it.
A Marx 999 freight set. First Lionel was a 2025 with the new green/gray passenger cars.
Yes, but nothing really came of it. I got a Lionel set for Christmas, 1970, so I would have been 9 years old. It ran around on the floor for a while, then got packed up and moved to the basement. I played with it every now and then, but I never had anything but the train and the original loop of track, so I didn't keep up with it. I wandered back into trains when I was in my mid to upper 30s, and now I really wish I had done more with them when I was young.
Yes. Lionel 2037.
Was your first ever train a Christmas gift? I got my first train when I was 10 years old. It was Christmas 1976 and it was a Marx Illinois Central Gulf deisel set. It's still in pristine condition even though it's made a million laps around that oval.
My first O-Gauge set I received the same day as you. 
While I wouldn't call it pristine, the train itself is complete and still resides in (what remains of) the original box. It runs, but the locomotive driver gears are worn to the point that the center drive gear slides out of mesh with them, and I need to visit a well-equipped repair shop to pull and replace those wheels. Only instance I've ever seen where a plastic gear outlived its metal counterparts. (it's already on its second pinion gear)
---PCJ
Yes. I got a Tyco Silver Streak set in the late '70's.
Yes, Santa brought it in 1947, A scout, only thing he brought because it was so expensive- about $20. I burned up the Scout engine about 1955-56, bought a 2018 which I still have. My cars are with my youngest nephew and his two boys. They are railfans in NH.
Yeah, HO on a small door-sized layout built by my dad and a guy I thought was Santa (he was a department store Santa) when I was like three. By the time I was six it was gone.
My first that I really remember well and appreciated was my uncle's growing up, MPC Lionel set, and I got it from him when I was maybe eight. Wasn't a Christmas thing, just something to play with.
Yes, a Lionel 2026 with freight cars, Christmas, 1951. Still looks as good as new, and runs even better.
1957:
A Lionel HO freight set with an IC Fairbanks engine and RDG caboose by Rivarossi. I still have all but the engine (little brother later used it as a push toy on the carpet and ruined the trucks). I was so proud if this set that I hauled it around and showed it off all Christmas day and the following week whenever we visited family and friends. Fond memories.
Yes! Santa brought my 2025 with three passenger cars Christmas 1947. Then in 1948 Santa brought the Electronic set.
Still have the 2025.
Ron
Yes! Christmas 1954 I woke up to an American Flyer two loop 4'x8' layout. A "Comet" Alco PA passenger set and a freight set with a #282 Pacific steam engine were running around Plasticville houses and AF accessories. I remember it like it was five minutes ago. Best Christmas ever!
Yes, Santa brought me a 1666 engine with a non whistle tender and some freight cars around the Christmas on the floor in 1946. I was 3 and I still remember it. I also got a Marx windjup set too that Christmas. Great fun running them both around the same loop. Lots of collisions.. LOL Later I was told that My Grandfather had bought the Liones set and my dad had already bought the Marx set. Still have the Lionel set and it runs fine. The Marx found the trashcan a few years later after I'm sure I managed to probably destroy it. I know the two trains managed to have a few head on collisions that first Christmas when mom and dad weren't looking... LOL
WOW, That's what caused this Addiction!!! For Christmas in 1952 or 1953 came the GG1 2332 freight set....All displayed under the Christmas tree, with 022 switches and the milk car, and other accessories.....It was fantastic....Then in 1955 came the 2338 Milwaukee Road Geep and then I was HOOKED....That was then, Legacy and VisionLine are Now!!!! Its been a really Fun Journey with many friends and Layout Tours along the way....Its the most fun Hobby in the World.....Thanks for Asking..
Not for X- Mas, but as my birthday is shy of 50 days afterwards it's close enough. 1977 in my case; it was the Black River Rio Grande set (before they changed it to a can motor in later releases). Still have the train but not the track, accessories, or the box.
Having said that, I used to drag out my uncle's old 1107 Texas Special Alco set from 1959 when I spent summers or weekends at my grandparents' house out in the country before I ever got my first set. The set ended up in my care for over a decade after they passed away until my uncle asked for it back, which I gladly did, but I did end up acquiring the exact same set not too long ago off of the aution-site-whose-name-shall-not-be-mentioned along with the original box, track, & transformer in pretty good shape for myself; definitely was not obtained for collector value but just for nostalgia, even though the set was one of Lionel's lower points in the postwar period, fixed couplers on all rolling stock and the Alco was a forward-only affair with no window glazing or headlight lens. Just upgraded it to a 3-position reverse unit and swapped the power truck with one that includes magnetraction, added a reproduction headlight lens and window glazing and it's now a much better performer and looks more like it should have without the factory cost-cutting it originally got, but can easily go back to stock if I ever chose to.
Yes, in 1977 my grandparents (RIP) bought me the Tyco HO Scale Chattanooga Diesel Freight Set for my first Christmas...man what that set started...
Yes. A 2379 Rio Grande F3 set
Yes, about 1946-47, a Marx #25000 set, with #999 with the unperforated spoked
pilot, Pa. box, B&O gon, NIAC silver tank car, and Reading caboose, all on a cream
colored plywood "train board", made to fit extra track including a straight on each
end, and other straights added at the sides. (not 4X8 but close). Track was all
nailed to the board, and transformer and that free-standing short reset "lamp" was screwed to the board. A few years later my brother got a #25249 set, on Christmas, with the flat pilot #999, B&O gon again, and red and gray NYC box car and caboose. His came in the box. Mine was damaged by a water heater break, his is
still pristine in the box.
The first train set given to me was a Marx Santa Fe diesel set with powered and unpowered # 21's plus 3 or 4 3/16 scale cars and the caboose. Not 100 % sure of the year but most likely around 1953 or 54. I have a picture of me with it under the Christmas tree and I'm proud to say I still have this set and like most MARX products it still runs great...
Received my first American Flyer train in 1950 when I was 2. It was the 334DC set number 5010. A 484 northern. This coming Christmas we will give it its 65th Christmas
around the tree run thanks Roger
1955; I was 7.
2055 Hudson and set - I guess. Never have found a matching one, so maybe my father and the store made one up. PRR 6464, Sunoco tanker, NYC black gon, yellow operating barrel car, big LV hopper (black), SP-style caboose. 4X8 layout, 4 switches (1 passing siding, 2 spurs).
A few pretty well-done scratch built (by my father) buildings. Crossing signals. Control panel. 1033 transformer. 027 track.
There was also a gray N&W covered hopper. Later purchase? Don't know.
A few add-ons (like a Burro crane) later.
====
The layout looked "real"; no bright colors or locos with faces (except a proper steam engine face). Heavy, serious equipment, to my young eyes and hands. Ran it and ran it. Year round. Grooves in the rollers. Actually switched cars. Never had a train around the Christmas tree. Didn't need it. Lucky kid.
===
Except for the actual "train table", I still have all of it. Retired; on shelves.
RROScale,
Yes sir my 1st Tin Plate Gun Metal Gray, Lionel 263E Work Train was passed down to me as one of my very 1st Christmas Gifts. Many many years later I purchased the MTH P2 Reproduction in a lighter Gray color, and built a 2nd 263E remote control Work Train. I have been hooked on Tin Plate Trains sense before I could walk, that is no joke.
PCRR/Dave
YES, 1954 Lionel
Yes, a American Flyer #312 Pennsy freight set from 1948. Thanks mom and dad. That train set, started me on a wonderful journey.
Sure was...Christmas of 1949...Lionel Scout outfit no. 1115, with tender, gondola, tanker and a caboose. Here is a photo of the train and a copy of the ad, $15.95! I know, I know...because of the print on the curtain, you might think we lived in Hawaii, but no, just a suburb of Detroit...What was my mother thinking???
yes these in 1979 or 1980 lionel rock island freight, beat up 681 that dad bought for $5.00 a few post war ad on cars the generator car is one of them, brand new livesavers car my grandmother insisted i have it, and an american flyer 310 set complete with shell car, my great aunts son didn't want it anymore, so she told dad she was going to throw it out, dad saved it! i still have them all some beat up some retired. the flyer hasn't ran about 30 years, but if i get my basement layout up by next year, my tree will have flyer around it.
Yes, Christmas of 1978 I got not one but 3 Tyco HO sets. Had all of them dead before New Years day. Dad went against my grandfathers suggestion with the HO sets. Needless to say dad learned his lesson and for my birthday the following March I recieved a Lionel Southern Streak MPC era set. But for that Christmas I did have my father's 1948 Lionel 1423w starter set to play with. Solid diecast 1655 steamer, whistle tender, Sunoco tank car, PRR Gondola and the normal SP red caboose. Grandpa had made a loop on a 4x7 piece of thick plywood that we could carry up from the garage to the house when I visited. That Christmas was the first year I got to see and play with dad's train. Mike
Yes, in 1958 I (age 4) got a Marx Allstate train set (666 locomotive, tender, 7 cars, track, and transformer).
On December 3rd, it will be 1 year since my father passed.
I still have that train. It still runs. And God willing I will pass it on.
George
It was a Christmas gift. A 2037 set.
1950. I was two. The set cost $49.95 which was a lot of money for my parents. Lionel set No. 2163WS. The set is, right now, over with the Hennings to give it a tune up and clean up. It WILL run again. Thanks, Dad.
Keep posting those nostalgic pics of yesterday year.
Yup. Here it is next to one of my son's Hotwheels. It's still played with all these (~35) years later.
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