What engine started it all? For me it was the Marx 999 that Santa brought in 1949 or so. I still have it although the gears are worn and it locks up some time.
Lets see a picture of yours if you still have it.
Charle
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Trains were handed down in my family. Being the youngest of 3 brothers, my turn came about 1952 . I received a prewar 264E Red Comet, 3 passenger cars, five 600 series freight cars and a 675 steam engine equipped with a box coupler on the tender. The coupler modification was a Madison hardware modification.
The originals are long gone but I have replacements acquired at York.
A Lionel 2026 2-6-2, 1949 model. I still keep it running. It's had a gear replaced, one wheel rim reattached and the smoke unit rebuilt.
Year was 1950, enginne 2344
Mine was lionel chessie system train set bought new in 2002 when i got into O gauge i was in HO and N scale before that. Here is a pic of the engine in my set i have run this engine alot for a starter set engine only thing i have done was replace traction tires
My first set was a 671 Turbine ( Pennsylvania) and a ZW transformer in '49 or '50.
Both are still running in good condition.
My "first" locomotive was my Dad's old Marx 999. I was about 6 when I found the set stored in a closet. My dad and uncle built a small layout on a 4 x 4 sheet of plywood.
The first locomotive that I actually claimed ownership to was a Lionel 8030 Illinois Central GP-9. My family went together to get me the Cross Country Express set for Christmas when I was 10. I still have the loco and all of the cars.
Tom
Lionel 675
Mine was a 726 Berkshire given to my father from my uncle because his son did not want it anymore and the rest became train history I have been hooked on trains since then back in 1952..............Paul
This is mime
Well, with 300,000 Marx sets reported as produced a year in their heyday, maybe it
is not unusual that mine is the third Marx #999 set to be listed here, not sure how old I was when I got it..7 or 8 years old, for we moved after I was 8, about 1947-8.
My first train was a Lionel, K-4 Pacific. It ran fine until the train had a deer mount fall of the wall and land on the train. Now it's just a shelf item, but still looks good.
Christmas, 1950. I was one.
Dad bought me (him) a Lionel freight set headed by a 681 Turbine and 2671W 12 wheel tender. This mighty pair pulled all of three freights: an operating boxcar, gondola with six wooden barrels and an illuminated caboose. An RW and an oval of "O".
I still have the set. The beginning.
Lionel, LV, 44 Tonner, the best train set in the neighborhood. All right, the best one in my basement, but it was cool!
Mid 70's. Plastic body, no lights, no sound, no smoke. Still runs!
That would have been the 1225 Polar Express back in 2008. My first train however was an American Flyer set back in 1960. Just took me a little while to come around...
Gilly
In 1962 dad brought home an American Flyer 3116 pre-war electric engine. We were in S gauge at the time so it sat on the shelf until a Marx set and a Lionel 624 C&O switcher wandered in.
Railroading had already been established as a family passion many years earlier by my grandfather so four locomotives served on the first railroad my father built for me in our Queens apartment. They were the 2321 DL&W Train Master, 2360 Tuscan GG1 with pinstriping, the Pennsy B6 and the 226E. My father had the tenders of both steam locomotives equipped with knuckle couplers for operation with postwar rolling stock. All in all, not a shabby way to be introduced to model railroading.
Bob
It was Christmas 1963 - Lionel 634 "Orbiter" outfit. Still have it all.
2379 Rio Grande F3. It came as a repackaged set I got for Christmas in 1961. Still have it!!!
Hand me down Lionel 1666 from my cousins, 1960 or 1961, got it for Christmas. Still remember it, still have it, still run it.
19244 freight set, Christmas 1966. Still have it.
It happened later in life for me. Christmas of 1993 I bought the Bandlands Express set and my first layout had a western theme. It included a DC powered Dockside switcher, horse car, payroll car, outlaw car and 4 plastic figures. The figures were 2 good guys and 2 bad guys.
MTH Norfolk Southern SD70ACe w/ PS3. Was supposed to arrive today according to package tracking. Didn't. Fingers crossed for tomorrow.
2035 ,still runs great.
hello guys and gals....
My first 3 rail engine was a marx 490 back in 1959 or 1960 and i don't know what happen to it except i remember the number well. OH well!!!!
the woman who loves the S.F.#5011
Tiffany
My first was this hand me down from my Dad - Set 2533W
the first engine that was "mine" was the 18901/18900 PRR ALCo FA & the passenger cars - I beat the crap out of those & unlike the postwar trains my Dad had, they didn't hold up. One day I'll buy that set again.
Well, it was definitely Marx. I think it was a 999 but frankly I do not remember for sure. it was a 2-4-2 though, at least 'til I damaged it by launching it up ramp-trackss to fly across the room. Ultimately it became a 0-4-0!
I got a 1956 Jersey Central 621 switcher in 1983, but it didn't run. My dad had a 601 Seaboard when he was a kid, so he bought the 621 that did run and switched shells to make his run, and I got the remains. Remember the boy scout balsa wood rockets? I had that poor 621 covered with "liberty" stars and rocket stickers from the boy scout rocket kit. Still have the 621, sans stickers, and it runs now.
The year was 1948, the set was freight and the engine, 2026. Still have it. Don
Mine was a 8902 2-4-0 steam engine in the Lionel Freight Flyer train set from the late 1980s and early 1990s. It was originally DC, so I put a Lionel electronic reverse unit in it so I can run it with the rest of my trains.
2025 from 1952. Still have it, still runs great.
A 1951 Lionel 2026 2-6-4. I was three years old and my father was a struggling student on the GI Bill. My parents must have had to save up for it for months prior to Christmas, because we were dead broke at the time. I still have the 2026, and it still runs and looks like new. Still have the original cars from the set, too: a 6017 caboose, a NYC black gondola (with wooden barrels) and two Sunoco 2-dome tank cars. Oh, and the original 1033 transformer.
Thanks, Dad and Mom.
Mars 666, with that Pepe LePew smoke fluid in the Wicked green bottle!
Born into an HO (mostly TYCO) family, I bought my first Lionel, the Cannonball Express in 1989 when I was 23. Golly, half of my life now has been spent with O.
It will be 66-years ago this Christmas. It was the Lionel "Electronic" set. It had a steam turbine with box, dump, gondola cars and caboose. All cars and engine had receivers in them so that they could be uncoupled anywhere alone the track from a gray control box with ten colored bottoms. The colored bottoms matched up with a small color coded Lionel logo on each.
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