At what age did you receive your first electric train?

Received an AF 4901T set at the age of nearly 3 on Christmas of 1949. Still have it. Did a stint in HO as a teenager but in parallel to the Flyer. My first Lionel O gauge is a Century Club 726. Never left the hobby.

 

Bob

 

Our AF layout from 1957. Dig that Jefferson Easy-Bilt mountain paper.

The Christmas after I turned 7 in 1957.  My parents got me a Lionel Santa Fe F-3, with a box car, pipe car, flat with boat, gondola and caboose from Polk Brothers in Chicago.  They got a special deal on it because they bought some furniture. 

1956 5yrs old - Marx Mechanical

1959 8 yrs old Marx/Allstate O27 electric

1969 drafted, gave the set to my nephew

1986 AF S gauge & HO

2005 G scale & N scale 

2013 back to O27 & Marx Mechanical

Christmas 1954.  I was born April 1955.

I was about 5, I believe, when the old man brought home a used 2026 (which I still have, and runs fine) freight set.  I've never really lost interest in trains since, though meandered into HO for a few years, and also built an N layout.  It's all good.

7 yrs; 1955; 2055 Hudson; barrel car, 6464 PRR, LV 4-bay...etc.

 

...and a genuine, "hi-rail" layout, control panel, passing siding, 2 spurs, buildings

scratch-built by my father (1/4" plywood, real glass). 4 X 8 table, In the corner of the dining room. My mother minded not at all (she kinda liked me, but who wouldn't?).

No basement, anyway.

 

I still have all of it, except the actual layout table; some of the track/UCS is in the yards

of my current GG layout.

 

These people are responsible for all the thousands of dollars that I have spent since

1986 on this stuff. I lay the blame at their feet! All I had to do to run it was walk over,

flip the master switch, and off I'd go.

 

Just think: if it weren't for them I'd have spent all that money on...uh...uh...

sports memorabilia! Yeah, that's the ticket! Balls.

 

 

 

 

 

6 months old.  lionel santa fe 2343 aa and still have them.  they run like a swiss watch. 

 

acoastline

Was seven years old.

4, 21, 50

I got my first electric train when I was four years old, Christmas 1957.  A Lionel freight set ( top of the line 027 outfit from the 1956 catalogue )  Headed by the Santa Fe type

4-6-4 hudson steamer, operating log car, operating milk car, operating NYC Pacemaker boxcar, a 3 dome Sunoco tank car,  a Lionel Lines porthole caboose, and a 90 watt 1033 transformer .... all of which I still have .... and all of which still operate.

 

As with alot of folks the trains went up every Christmas season and came down in mid January.  The layout expanded every year until it grew to an 8 by 8 layout with 4 trains running simultaneously.  What fun!!!!   

 

Stopped  setting up an 1

O guage layout after junior year of high school and went to setting up an HO layout for the next 4 years.  After college no layout at all.

Never lost interest in trains .... just had no time for building a layout ....while focusing on my career as a musician.  Always kept the strong intention to reenter the O guage hobby but prices sort of scared me off at the time.

 

Re - entered at age 50 .... exactly on my 50th birthday.  Got up in the morning and drove out to get some breakfast .... stopped at a flea marked ... and found a Lionel trainset..... diesel engine GP 35 and ten freight cars, ZW transformer, 100 pieces of Lionel tubular tin plate track, 8 automatic non derailing switches, two automatic crossing gate signals, a Lionel truss suspension bridge with light on top, plus other odds and ends all for $150.  That $150 put me back into the hobby and I have been here ever since and love it all.  Fast forward to 50 years old plus a few months when I heard my first steam loco with sound ... an MTH 6-8-6 turbine.  I was definitely hooked then!

 

Patrick W

 

 

I was born into the hobbie and aways had the intrest. My father and grandfather

 had aways made it a point to make shore that it was hand on and learn all you can about the hobbie. this pic is me at one year old and still have the 402 set.

I've enjoyed reading some of the anecdotes here.  Very interesting, thanks for posting.

 

I was about 3 years old -- mid to late 1970s.  My father took out his old stuff at Christmas -- two 671 steam turbines, one with freight, one passenger, and his 2383 Santa Fe.  Then we added an Amtrak Lake Shore Limited.  Off to the races since then.  I've never lost interest in the hobby, although have been periods, particularly during my teens and when I was a young adult, when being away for school and living in small spaces made having a layout impracticable.  Once I had my own decent place post-law school, I started in again, first a Christmas layout, then permanent.  Now that I have two boys who are very much into trains, it is more of a focus than it has been since I was a kid.  The funny thing is through all the moves -- I've moved at least half a dozen times since I moved out of the house in which I grew up -- the trains go in my car for safekeeping.  The other crap goes on the truck.  As it should be, no?

 

Hey Mike,  I think I remember that very issue with a shiny 2343 Santa Fe against a stark black background. This was just before a fella came into my hobby shop wanting to be a Lionel Service Tech.  I knew very little about Lionel at the time. That was a beautiful cover!

6.58 (Christmas 1974)

18 (when we stopped setting up Christmas layouts)

36 (when I realized that Christmas was missing something)

37 (when I realized that trains could be enjoyed year round)

 

Andy

I received my first train in 1948 at the ripe old age of one.  I stayed interested in them until about age fourteen when in 1961 a combination of baseball, basketball, football and girls, not necessarily in that order, finally overwhelmed me and I pretty much forgot all about them until I married in 1972.  Then, it was like someone flipped a switch and my interest returned with a vengeance.  I immediately checked and  happily my mother and grandmother kept the trains I had played with so enthusiastically as a young boy.  When my wife and I finally purchased a home in September of 1974 one of the first orders of business was the construction of a 4x8 layout on sawhorses in our dining room which had absolutely no furniture.  For Christmas that year I painted the plywood green and my wife trimmed all of the framing of the layout including the sawhorse legs in red.  We didn't have much money so we built our structures and buildings with my wife's collection of red and white American bricks which we still have to this day. It was a great looking little Christmas layout.  Great memories.  My grand daughters are now playing and building with those bricks.  There is nothing like tradition.   

 

From then on my interest never waned.  During the early years of marriage funding was scarce so we made due with the three little Lionel and Marx post war sets I had.  I can remember in the early and mid 1970s taking the train home in the evening after work and poring over a local paper called the trade and times which had numerous listings of trains and entire toy train layouts for sale.  Looking back the prices were incredibly low because the big push for toy trains had not kicked in yet but I was still unable to afford them.  Reading about the availability of all those Lionel steam engines, diesels and accessories made me ache terribly but I must have been a glutton for punishment because I never tired reading about them.   Finally, we reached a point where financially we could afford to purchase an engine or a set about every other year.  That has been going on for the last 37 years and I have loved every minute of it.     

6 years old

 

Allstate/Sears Marx set, 1963

 

666 engine

SP coal tender, 8 Wheel

Erie flat, 8 wheel

ATAF catttle, 8 wheel

City Service tank, 8 wheel

SP caboose, tuscan, 8 wheel

50 W transformer

trestle set

yellow Allstate box

Start date: 1945

 

O27 Marx: 0 > 7 (brothers' trains, and my very own at 5)

O27 Lionel: 8 > 12 (just mine!)

Girls: 13 > 18

(Married)

HO: 19 > 48

R/C giant scale airplanes: 49 > 62

O-gauge: 63 - - >

 

Alex

11 months,it was a freight set pull by a 2035. It still runs great!

Brad

Christmas 1938. 224E set. I was 8.

 

8 - Train set from Macy’s (1957).

 

15 - Got bored. Everything wrapped in newspaper and stored away.

 

32 - N Scale layout.

 

32 ½ - N Scale gone (What I was thinking?).

 

35 - O Gauge when the kids got old enough to appreciate it (1984). Old trains came out of storage.

 

38 - Layout dismantled – bought a new house. Trains wrapped up in newspapers again.

 

39 – New layout started (1988). At the same time, my uncle , a doctor with a massive layout of his own, gave me all his trains, track and accessories. Everything got incorporated into the new layout.

 

45 – (1994) Due to a problem with one of the furnaces, a large chunk of the layout had to get torn out so repairmen could get access.

 

1994 – 2011 The 6’ section of the layout that got torn out stayed on the floor. The trains stayed on the layout gathering dust. For some reason, I just wasn’t interested anymore, mainly because the kids weren’t either.

63  -  (2012)   I have grandchildren!  While on a visit, my son took my granddaughter, age 4, down to the basement to show her the layout. She was upset it wasn't in operation. Weeks later she spotted a Wegmans tanker car while at the supermarket and convinced her Dad to “buy it for Grandpa.” She remembered!  Needless to say, the chunk of layout sitting on the floor for 17 years was rebuilt, the track cleaned, the trains were serviced and we’re back in business.

I was 5 and received the DT&I MPC freight set. That was a beauty!

 

Cesar

I was 3 and we were living in the Territory of Alaska.  I'm not sure where my Dad found the Lionel Scout set - maybe at the Base Exchange.   I have been active ever since.  I brought my trains with me where ever we were assigned - the Philippines, Taiwan, Germany, plus all over the USA.  I'm pretty well settled now and building the layout that I've dreamed of for all these years.

I was 5, a starter set from Lionel along with a steam locomotive.  My grandfather gave them to me.   Still have the locomotive on my display shelf.

 

My 3 year old son got his frist set the day after he was born.  The morning after he was born I went home from the hospital to change and shower and stopped at Wild Bills to purchase him a Thomas set.  He loves watching it run on Daddies Layout.  

52

Guess I've had the trains long enough now I'm supposed to stop & go chase girls

 

Steve

3 years/10 months. Still have the locomotive and caboose.

5   [12/25/37---a Marx winder]

14 [sports].

40 [HO, O only round the tree]

You can let the train interest go for a while, but you should never stop chasing girls. 

Three.  It was a Lionel o-72 763E Hudson with about four freight cars.  I wish I still had it.

 

EdKing

7 years old, American Flyer, from Hess Bros, Allentown, Pa.

Around 23 years old. My father-in-law had an antique store. I was  amazed how many people would come in with trains after cleaning an attic. He saw how much I enjoyed looking at them and he would give me several pieces a year for presents. All brands.During a move to a new home I hired some less than hones people to help me move. I noticed several years later when I got back into the hobby that many boxes were missing. The main box of steam locos I packed so well was gone. Those were the ones I ran when my kids were small. I was pretty upset when I started to check about how much was missing. 

Age 4....a Marx set that I would store under the couch in the living room and would play with it whenever I could....just a circle of track.  Still have the entire set.

 

Age 8....came home from school one day to find that my Marx set was missing. Mom said she had given it away to some unfortunate children that had nothing to play with and of course I was devastated.  Little did I know the real reason was my Dad was building me my first Lionel layout on a 4x8 hidden in my uncle's basement and needed the Marx track and trains during the construction.

 

Christmas 1961.... 8 1/2....sitting next to the tree was a marvelous Lionel layout with a 2037 going around on the upper level along with my Marx set on the lower level!!!

 

Age 12....everything got packed up when we moved from Indiana to Arkansas.  The layout was moved with the track still on it.  All the trains were moved in an old wooden square nail keg and stayed there until.......

 

Age 25....got my first real job that actually paid something using my degree obtained from college.  Went home to announce that fact during which time my father said to me "wonderful!!...maybe you get now get your stuff out of our attic cause we need the room!".  Guess where the trains were...??  This is when I started my collecting frenzy.

 

Age 29....bought a nice home and had a separate 24 x 32 foot building built in the corner of the yard for the trains.  I built the shelving for the trains and just started to build the benchwork when a life changing event occurred which left me starting over at age 34....collection packed for over two years.

 

Age 36....bought a large home with a basement where I constructed my first Hi-rail layout.  During this time purchased my first "scale" trains from Williams and MTH. 

 

Age 50....bought a church to convert into our home.  Part of the plan was to have my layout above the garage which was an add-on structure to the main building.  This has been a large undertaking and is still ongoing but in 2005 the layout space was basically dried in and ready for preparation for my "ultimate" layout.

 

Age 55....the current layout begins with the finishing of the room interior with benchwork started at age 55 1/2

 

Age 55 1/2 to present.....currently the layout started in December of 2008 and is about 4 and a half years old.

 

Alan

In 1954 I Received my Marx CV set.

1955 to the end of AF, it was S gauge.

HO came next ..and then life got in the way around 1963

In 1987, G gauge reintroduced me to the hobby.

The early 1990's began the O gauge saga..around 2005, I came full circle back to Marx and then expanded into other tinplate.Dabbled very briefly with N for a year or so when I had to relocate to temporary housing due to son's illness.  Gave the layout to my nephew when I left back for home.

To date, I have built around six layouts and a garden RR. 

Bruce

 

Age 3: 2034 set

 

Age 6: MKT 600 set

 

Age 9: 746J, VGN Rectifier; ZW; culverts

 

Age 10: 400 Budd

 

Age 12: Started buying my own stuff with savings

 

Age 63: 726 Berk CC; Black Diamond loco

 

Between 12 and 63, I (a) acquired more stuff and (b) acquired hands for the railroad (read children).

I was introduced to railroading before my first birthday and was already working with the real thing by my 18th.

 

Bob

About Age 6.  A Workin' on the Railroad set from the late 70's for Christmas. 

 

-Dave

I received my first electric train (the LGB starter set pictured) for Christmas of 1980 at 2.75 years old, although at the time I was already playing with my neighbor's electric trains.  I've never taken any significant amount of time off from the hoby. 

 

 

got my first trains christmas eve 1987- grandfather picked it out and passed away a few days before i got it.  

 

never really lost interest in trains but i worked on computer for years so it had to be around 1995 when i got my first computer

 

when i got back in to this hobby about 2008 never looked back from then.  and still have all of my stuff.  

1964-6 15 41

Words to live by!

I guess I may be in the minority, but I got my first train for my 40th birthday as a gift.  Thanks for the disease guys