I started my collection a couple months ago and I started to wonder what other peoples first train they had for their collection. Now mine was A Marx 898 I recently repainted with a New York Central tender and 8 cars
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1954 American Flyer... Got this for Christmas 1960. I ran and played with it pretty hard until 1967 when it stopped working. Repairing toys was not a priority in our home. It sat wrapped in newspaper in a cardboard box in the basement until I took it and got it repaired around 2007.
well the first train I remember getting was an HO Santa Fe set. First, I knew it wasn't the same as Dad's or my Uncle's Lionels, and I never did care for diesels. Later on Santa brought a Marx Penn Central steam set. I got a lot of play from that, wish I still had it. I cared for Dad's Lionels after Mom and Dad moved, and after I got married, Dad passed them on to me officially.He had a 1684 2-4-2, and a 6110 2-4-2 steamers, and a modest collection of Pre and Postwar rolling stock. I have more locomotives and rolling stock than Dad did, but it was Dad and my Uncle that got it all started for me.
My very first set was a Marx Mechanical 400 locomotive powered set back in '56.
When I decided to start "collecting Marx" I figured that I'd try to replicate that long ago given away first Marx electric set that I received as a child('59).
The while in the grip of Marx-itis, various steam locomotives, both mechanical & tinplate as well as plastic & tinplate cars accessories found homes with me and eventually filled out that original electric set.
I've never owned a Marx diesel, so you might say these M10005's, creme/green-electric & yellow/brown-mechanical are first's.
Then there are mechanical & electric CV's & Mercury's as well as a cast iron Joy Line mechanical that would qualify as "first in the collection."
In the the backgroud you hear non-Marx O scale as well as the N, S & Large Scale train collection yelling "Me Too!"
Happy Rails!
Dave
Received my first train for Christmas in 1949...it was a 027 Lionel 1115 Scout three car freight set (see attached photo) with a retail price of $15.95. Pocket change today, but I'm sure my parents had to think twice about spending that much money for a toy way back then.
1955 American Flyer set with a 372 UP GP-7 loco, 911 C&O gondola with pipes, 915 unloading car with gasoline truck, 924 jersey Central covered hopper, and 930 tuscan caboose.
Still have it today, along with some duplicates acquired over the years.
Tyco HO Bicentennial set at about age 12, Sorry guys, I never had any O-gauge as a kid! 
A 1947 Lionel Scout, the only thing I got for Xmas because it was expensive-almost $20 !! My youngest nephew still runs the cars for his boys, the engine was burned up long ago but I have the replacement 2018 that I bought.
Marx NYC winder and four cars for Christmas 1938. Survived intact with its much repaired spring until my 10 years younger brother used it as a "dozer" in his sandpile [while I was in Korea saving the world from Communists--I think].
Christmas 1949, New Orleans, La.
Gilbert American Flyer No 310 PRR K5 freight set.
Was glad that Santa liked the 2 rail 'real' trains too!
I repainted it many years ago in Brunswick Green. It was originally letter 'Pennsylvania' on the tender. Still have the original 3 set cars boxed away. It was previously owned when we acquired it that Christmas. The 310 had no smoke or choo choo like most of the others. It was a very early post war S gauge locomotive.
Mine was a Lionel scout style set my dad bought at GoodWill and gave to me for Christmas. Then I went to HO then down to N scale and now Im back at scale O, O gauge is still the best!!!
A Lionel Soo Line Yard Chief. Still bring it out to run from time to time.
Mine was a 1956 American Flyer Mountaineer set (bought second-hand in 1962:
A Lionel 249e with 600 series freights. My dad bought it 2nd hand in the mid-1960's from a guy he worked with. It would rule the living room every Christmas, and a few times in between holiday seasons. That is where my love of tinplate came from. The 1st real set I got would have been the H0 Amtrak set around 1974, but the lure of tinplate never left me. Then I found standard gauge.... look out!
I still have the 249e set and the Amtrak set, but I am more proud of the 249e!
ARNO
Mine was a Marx 666 that my brother and I received for Christmas. When I "rediscovered" trains, the first addition to the addiction was a Marx 666. 
Christmas, early 50's an O-27 turbine with several cars including an operating milk car and a coal dump car and of course a Baby Ruth box car. Wish I still had the set today.
Scotie
My first train set was the Lionel 2026 set with the Baby Ruth boxcar. My dad bought it for me for christmas 1991. It still sees regular christmas duty as does my fathers 2018 set.
My Dad (probably with Mom's encouragement) bought a used American Flyer set from 1951 with two locomotives (290 and 300), a hand full of cars, track and a transformer. The red box car being pulled by the 290 with a chugger at Christmastime is like magic to me.
My first rain was a Marx 'ride it' locomotive and tender in 1946. I was four years old. Dad fixed up a headlight for it by bolting a Ray-O-Vac flash light on the top of the boiler.
My second train was a Marx 999 freight set for Christmas in 1949. In 1962 I gave it to a family in town who didn't have money for Christmas for their kid. I hadn't used it since about '56 because of a raging case of HO-itis that finally got cured in 1990.
Two years ago Santa brought me a near-identical 999 set and it was 'off to the races'.
We will be moving into a new home mid-October and I have a 24' x 32' room that is going to get real train set like I've always wanted. Nothing scale, just toy trains.
Lionel 2037 steam engine.
- Mike
Our first Lionel Train that nobody in the family can remember exactly what it was came before I was even a glimmer in my parents eyes. It was given to my oldest brother sometime in the 1950's by my Grandfathers boss "Old Man Morton" my memory is that it was a passenger set headed by PPR green ABA diesels. Others in the family seem to remember a frieght set and others believe it was a combination of both.
So I don't know and wish I did. I do remember laying on the carpet with my ear to the floor and watching it run for hours, but I was just a young kid and when we left it behind after a move when I was still in kindergarten, Grandma gave it away to a neighbor.
Most everything was used Postwar which was fine as a kid, but my first set I could play with was the 1973 Milwaukee Special with 2 extra add on cars.
My first one ever (at the age of 6) was a Lionel "rock island line" set with the 0-4-0. A google search turned up the set # as 6-1661.
Almost 40 years later, I still have the locomotive, in a container in the attic.
Xmas 1957; Lionel Scout set. The photo of my layout was taken in April of 1959
My first set: a 1960's uncataloged special, with some sort of Scout style engine. I think it was a 246, I am not certain.
We added some track, trestles, and a few cars. I know we had a 6650 missile car.
Lionel 2046 engine ..... & Sunoco tanker, NYC gondola, WP boxcar, Lionel searchlight car & caboose. 1033
The aunts and uncle gave the set to my brother when he was 5 years old in 1953. He lost interest, and the set was "transferred" to me years later. I love it.
My first outfit was a Lionel #295. It consisted of a peacock 253, maroon 811 flat, a dark green 812 gondola and a dark green over peacock 817 caboose in 1929. Still have the outfit with the box lid.
Ron M
I had a 1960's Lionel set with a small (2-6-2?)steam loco and the blue, pop up giraffe stock car (which I still have).
Soon after my uncle gave me his trains from the set he'd been given as a boy, a postwar Hudson, a white (I think) MDT reefer, a WP "rides like a feather" boxcar, and a Lionel Lines caboose.
Wish I still owned those trains, but I ended up giving most of them to my nephew, and he traded them for Hot Wheels cars.
Jeff C
Lots of unique sets everyone, like lots of these engine but I am into more of tin, steel, and cast iron. All of these engine are very nice though!
The first trains were bought by my dad and uncle for my two older brothers and myself in the early 1970s, so all MPC stuff. We had a Santa Fe F3 AA set, an IC GP-9, and I believe a C&O steam engine. There were no passenger cars, all freight cars. Over the years one by one the engines stoped running and were put away and eventually somehow gotten rid of.
The next chapter is when I am a newly wed at 28 years old in 1999 and I wander into a LHS and rediscover O gauge trains, this time MTH. That night my wife came home to me lying on the kitchen floor in our apartment playing with a toy train set that I didn't have when she left for work that morning. I could tell she had no idea why a grown man would be playing with toy trains but she didn't protest. It's been downhill ever since.
John.
My first train was a Lionel freight train with Hudson engine. It was given to me for Christmas by my grandpa in 1954. Since then I had the locomotive motor refurbished and I had it repainted. It's new cab number was my badge number when I retired from law enforcement.
Matt
My first train,under the Christmas tree when I was five, was a Lionel set with a 2-6-4 steam engine, a Baby Ruth boxcar, a gondola, and a caboose. Very basic. My first Standard Gauge train was a Lionel Hiawatha, and my first original tinplate train was a 390E that I picked up at a train show with the most common versions of the cattle car, gondola, and caboose. The 390E is gorgeous, in excellent original condition with repro (I think) boxes. The boxes look original, but their condition is too good to be true so I assume they are repros. The locomotive runs quieter that the new repros and the buzzing of the e-unit is all but inaudible.
My older brother and I, 1955? with a steam train and a Santa-Fe passenger train set, with a new ZW transformer. I am setting these trains up on my new layout, in tribute to my dad, who passed away at age 90. These were bought at the May Co. in Cleveland, OH, - they had a whole floor devoted to Lionel trains.
Tyco HO Bicentennial set at about age 12, Sorry guys, I never had any O-gauge as a kid!
I'm with Andy, no one ever gave me a train when I was a kid. I wanted one for some time, and finally literally saved up my quarters to buy this when I was 13 in 1969.
The Diesel Flyer
(No.T6902-A -Penn Central without power pack)
This set's contents included a lighted powered F-9 Diesel; 50' Box Car; Hopper Car; Skid Flat with Culvert Pipe; 8-wheel Caboose; 1 section 18" radius terminal curved track; 11 sections 18" radius curved track. The set sold with power pack for $26 and without power pack for $19 in 1969.
So for $19 I bought the set and they sold me a Lionel DC power pack.
The power pack is all that survived. The cheap plastic engine and cars succumbed to heat while packed away in an outbuilding when I left home for my first job. I did find an identical olive green Western Maryland flat car, minus the pipe load and brake wheel last year at a thrift store.
I was then in HO from '69 until about 3 years ago when I finished selling off all my HO for our daughters' tuition and started buying O Gauge with the first being an MTH set from Dave Minarik of Mercer Junction Train Shoppe, a proud OGR sponsor.
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