This is the title of a Washington Post article last week.
There is the mention of a Lionel Electronics Kit and, in the comments, "a simple Lionel train." Frankly, I was surprised in this article, and a November story about toys, that electric trains were not mentioned more by commenters as important toys in their lives. We all must be a very nichey bunch here! 
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My 1st freight set known as the Lionel Greenball Express from the mid-1950s. It included the 2065 ATSF baby Hudson steamer and tender, operating milk car, operating log dump car, red NYC gondola, yellow stock car and lighted Lionel Lines Tuscan red caboose with tound portal windows:
Arnold
I got this set in 1955 and still have it today.
Johnny West I loved cowboys and Indians I tore all mine up but I've collected a few Even now, I see them and smile
Lincoln Logs, Erector Sets, Mattel's Major Matt Mason figure & accessories, Matchbox cars, Aurora/AFX HO slot cars.
lionel trains, wooden trains, hot wheels and Transformers toys like Optimus Prime, Bumblebee etc
Legos, trains (wooden and electric), Star Wars toys, video games, and die-cast cars
We didn’t have a lot of money growing up, but I did have a father who loved all of us kids, he did the best he could for all of us, ….my most prized possessions were the hand me down Tonka, Nylint, Structco, and whatever other stamped steel toy trucks my dad would find at the local scrap yard, or in the trash,……every Christmas he’d restore, rebuild, paint, & hand letter some truck he found for me, ….he’d also do the same for bicycles, we’d all get a “new” bike for Christmas, ….but my stamped steel trucks were my prized possessions, to me, they were good as new, ……..
Pat
My N scale trains and Aurora T-jet slot cars. Later on Pong circa around 1976.
My G.I. Joe Tyco Train set my dad got me for Christmas when I was 8. Like many, we didn't have a lot of money growing up. But man, would my parents make Christmas special. That year he stayed up till 2a setting up the train with all the toy soldiers and vehicles, etc. I loved that little set. Anytime I think of that set,it brings back a lot of great memories. I guess that's why I fell in love with trains.
This list is not in any particular hierarchy except Lionel trains and later HO trains are number 1 from elementary school through early years of college. Kenner building set where I could build high rise buildings ... A.C. Gilbert Erector Set which would allow me to get in the "zone" when creating structures from the book that accompanied the set ... Porter Chemistry Set ( grade 7 ) ... I found this set fascinating and could sit for hours learning how to make various concoctions.
For me though, there was always something magical about electric trains, and real trains too. However, the electric train always held a special magnetic charm that would hold my attention indefinitely. As with many folks who grew up in the 50s/60s era, my Lionel set began in 1957 with a loop of track around the family Christmas tree. My mom created a tiny Christmas village which the train encircled on its' countless laps around the tree. The next year my dad build a 4x8 ft collapsable train table so it could be stored after the Christmas season and brought back out the following Christmas season. Also that second year the loop of track from the first year expanded to cover the perimeter of the 4x8 table plus I received two automatic 027 non derailing switches and a N&W 4 bay covered hopper car. After that the layout grew each year one accessory and car per Christmas. The trains really engaged my imagination and wetted my appetite to learn as much as I could about real railroads. I checked out every book on trains in my elementary school library. I would also get books on trains and railroad history from the county library. When playing with my Lionel trains I would get into the "zone" very quickly and stay in the zone the entire time I was with my trains ... usually for hours!
My dad was a carpenter and my mom was a stay at home mom. Mom was a saver. Each week she put away a little bit of money into a Christmas Club which was a special Christmas savings account at the bank. My parents always made Christmas very special! It truly was "the most special time of the year" as the song goes. My father always believed in buying the finest quality items be it his own tools, clothing, household appliances, or electric trains for me and my brother. Dad was a name brand kind of guy and of course in the 50's/60's name brand meant high quality .. built be reliable and built to last. When it came time for him and my mom to buy me an electric train, it was either Lionel or American Flyer. Marx would not do because in his words " Marx train were not built to last. That's why they are so much less expensive." The set they bought ( I thought Santa brought ) in 1957 was a Lionel set headed by a 2065 Hudson steam loco, automatic milk car, automatic log car, automatic Pacemaker box car, a Sunoco 3 dome tank car, and a Tuscan Red Lionel Lines porthole caboose without a rear coupler, and a 1033 transformer ... all of which I still have fully intact and in good working order! A tribute to Dad's thinking ... name brand = high quality and built to last. That set was one of the higher priced Lionel sets of 1956 but the May Co. Dept Store in Baltimore, where it was purchased, must have given my parents a special price because it was left over from 1956. At least that's my thinking. Whatever the deal was, if at all, that set cost a lot of money back in 1957 .. my guess is almost a full week of pay for my Dad at that time.
Wooden trains and track.
I think Donnie brought up the reason for most of us: it wasn’t so much that first train as what having one meant. For most young families, money was tight and at least one parent was working extra hours for Christmas money. Some kids asked for a train set. Some parents, mostly dads, started saving for a set as soon as they found out we were inbound and highballing. A lot of young fathers-to-be had lost their childhood trains to wartime scrap drives or hand-me-downing, so having an excuse to buy one before Junior got here meant undoing the interruption in their young lives.
Others had been so broke growing up that any toy was a luxury, and they gave up a lot of extras of their own to get that Scout or plain Marx they’d sighed over at the neighbor’s house. Overtime? “Yes, sir! No kid of mine is going hungry or cold or doing without if I can help it!”
They weren’t “simple Lionel trains.” They were tinplated hope and die cast love.
my father bought me n my brother one set of American flyer which we wore out when me and my brother got older we repurchased the same American flyer set then we went to HO and eventually went to G scale. while my brother went to O gauge any engines that Lionel post and prewar my brother even got into Ives and like repairing Basket cases! I still have many ZW transformers 275 n 250 watt but mostly use Z4000 because I have MTH and legacy Lionel with electronics I love all thespecial sound effects with the Modern trains and puffing smoke effects! now I'm mostly O gauge MTH N LIONEL legacy me and my wife's favorite is the 4014 Legacy 2nd edition which we take to NJ highrailers at Patterson NEW JERESY and see our friend Ben Fioriello gunrunner Alex M and others We surely miss Marty Fitzhenry very much!
Alan
Lionel ZW to power the trains around the Christmas tree at the age of two. Arnold
Christmas 1958 is when and where it started and, I've nver really stopped except for 8 years (circa 1971-79), when I was in college and medical school.....these pictures are salvaged from an 8mm filmstrip.
I think you can make out the 1958 New Haven F3 freight set in the picture.
Peter
My first LIONEL train set in 1954. Little did my parents know what influence it would have on me later in life. Merry Christmas and Happy New Year to everyone that is on this wonderful forum.
Peter! You look the same!…..you haven’t aged a lick!!!!
Pat
@Putnam Division posted:Christmas 1958 is when and where it started and, I've nver really stopped except for 8 years (circa 1971-79), when I was in college and medical school.....these pictures are slavaged from an 8mm filmstrip.
I think you can make out the 1958 New Haven F3 freight set in the picture.
Peter
Awesome Peter!! Such a precious life moment frozen in time! Merry Christmas!!!
Oh yeah, I almost forgot those awesome Kenner SSP ("Super Sonic Power") ripcord-powered racers. My favorites were the blue salt flats "Laker Special" (which I think was based on Craig Breedlove's "Blue Flame" that held the world land speed record) and the Smash Up Derby Set. Craig actually just passed away in April of this year. He set many world records.
Correction: "The Blue Flame" was a rocket-powered vehicle driven by Gary Gabelich (a competitor of Breedlove's) and had achieved a world land speed record of 622.407 mph.
About 1946-47, l received a Marx #25000 (#999) freight set after playing with my cousin's pre-war latch coupler set, and whining for an "electric train". This, a bicycle, and endless numbers of cap pistols broken in playing "cowboys", with my brother's Marx playsets and Gilbert Erectorbriks, which built structures on the layout, and out in the yard to be blown up with firecrackers, also taking their turns at entertaining.
GI Joe, 1/32 slot cars, my dads Lionel 1684 set. JohnA
@colorado hirailer posted: "...endless numbers of cap pistols broken in playing "cowboys", with my brother's Marx playsets and Gilbert Erectorbriks, which built structures on the layout, and out in the yard to be blown up with firecrackers, also taking their turns at entertaining."
Ah yes, pyrotechnics took things to a whole other level indeed!!
My First Lionel Train Set back in 1956 when I was 3, A 520 Box cab and 3 cars plus an extra Gulf Tank car.
Gilbert Erector Set,
Kenner Girder and Panel Building & Bridge Sets,
Elgo American Bricks
And of course, Tinker Toys.
Not a train (had them too), but an almost worn-out white Teddy bear that had originally belonged to Mother's mother.
Lots of toys, many non-model railroad, hold a warm place in my heart. Unfortunately, aside from only one boxcar from my original HO Lindberg Line set I received for Christmas 1962... they are all gone.
When I was but a lad, they were just toys. I really enjoyed them at the time, but each would inevitably get played to death (if fragile or mechanized), or my interest would shift and the toy would fall into disuse, and their disposition is unknown to me. (I figure mom would have a "toy-cleaning" every year or more and clean out stuff I was no longer using.)
"Back then", I didn't realize, nor even consider, that perhaps I should preserve and save them for later. Besides, like I said, by the time the toy was reaching the end of its service life... it typically wasn't worth saving. Also, I think I myself dumped some of them after several years of disuse as I progressed on to be more interested in "young man" things. (Mini-bikes/motorcyles, cars, girls, etc.)
It wasn't until I was well underway as an adult that I reflected back with fondness for some of the toys of my youth.
In retrospect, I wished I'd kept the little 1940s Marx litho set that was given to me in '59 or '60 by another family who's son has gone off to college. (Its robust nature was certainly capable of surviving the banging and bumping of being moved from place to pace as my life unfolded.) I also wish I'd taken better care of my original HO Lindberg Lines set. Same for such Marx toys as "Super Crane", "Big Bruiser", my original G.I. Joe's, and on and on.
However, you can't save it all and as a lad, I didn't grasp the concept of "the future" too well. I just lived for the day without a care in the world and played and had a ton of fun with my stuff.
EDIT: I just happened to remember. I have my ORIGINAL Fox 36X model airplane glow fuel engine that I purchased in 1966 0r '67, along with my original Supertigre C35 and possibly my original Fox 35 Stunt glow engine! And yes, those are special to me.
Andre
My Team Associated RC10 (1988) remote control car. Best Christmas gift ever!
A similar reproduction car is at this link,
https://www.associatedelectric...ic/RC10_Classic_Kit/
This is back when most hobby RC cars came as kits. I had a lot of fun and learned a lot from it. Later on also did some racing Still remember my first race, the Gonzo Dirt Blast in Chesterton IN at Wings and Things.
Thanks for the memories!
Besides trains:
Block City sets, Gilbert Erector Set (I now own six of these sets, my middle grand daughter loves them), Kenner Girder and Panel Building & Bridge Sets, View Master and Chemistry sets. Loved Large Tonka Trucks too.
Enjoying go carts made from old carriage wheels and 2x4's. Scooters made from old skates, 2x4's and a wooded crate. If I recall, these went about 1,000 miles an hour down hill. I still remember my feet feeling like they were vibrating after using the scooter on the street for a while.
My brother and I used to play a single game of Monopoly for hours, too
Other than trains, two things I remember rather vividly. The first was this refrigerated tractor-trailer. The wheels rolled, the back doors opened, and it was METAL! Not plastic. And it was huge, like a Tonka Toy.
https://images.app.goo.gl/z4xvDiCxua9QqY1E6
The other one I remember seeing under the tree one Christmas morning. A Fort Apache set from Marx Toys. Like a lot of people on here I was fascinated with anything cowboy-and-Indian related. And this fit the bill….even better, the “cowboys” were in uniform, which somehow made it even more exciting. 🤷♂️.
https://images.app.goo.gl/9r5Ki9aj4pwyuYY56
To me, model trains are a more dignified, and sophisticated, way for a guy in his 60s to recapture that same feeling of being on your hands and knees and pushing an oversized metal truck around the room. 😄
Lionel trains and Dinky military vehicles! Great toys and a great childhood-both from great parents !! P Hering
Growing up, my brother and I had quite a collection of Ertl tractors and farm equipment, along with a number of Tonka trucks. We had a dirt pile in the back yard where we would play with these toys. We would attempt to turn the dirt pile into a village or farm or whatever our minds could dream up. The bottom line is we beat the s##t out of these toys to the point there was no scrap value left. Occasionally, we would salvage the rear wheels from a deceased tractor and perform surgery on another tractor, adding dual wheels and often cutting the cabs off. We actually came up with some pretty neat equipment.
Another favorite toy was my Hot Wheels cars. I had quite a collection, which I again beat the s##t out of. I remember the neighbor kid and I taping smoke bombs to the the tops of the Hot Wheel cars. The smoke bomb acted as a rocket and would propel the cars down the road for quite a distance. Usually the wheels were pretty well worn down and anything made of plastic on the rear of the car was melted. They literally lived up to their name!
Now when I see any of these toys it brings a smile to my face. Especially if it is one of the toys I used to have.
I think I know why my parents waited to get me a train set 
Tom
Aurora
@Tuscan Jim posted:Aurora/AFX HO slot cars.
Same here. No train as a kid but had an Aurora AFX racetrack in the basement - loved it. Change out the standard issue tires with colored fatty tires, trim a little plastic off the car body, oil it up and let 'er rip. When they came out with the faster magna traction cars it wasn't as much fun because you could go full throttle without the fear of flying off the track. Half the fun of racing was to master the feel of the controller so you didn't spin out while racing your brother or best friend, especially on the inside track. Went through a lot of ink erasers keeping the track clean!
When I say no trains, it comes with a qualifier. When I was 10 my mother bought a used set from the hospital auxiliary shop that came with a station that played sounds. She set it up on a card table in the same basement (cement floor) and on the very first run my brother bumped the table and the engine went flying off and smashed on the floor. The setup was a simple oval, but I don't recall it even making a full run.
Same brother used to beat me up just because. Also used to call down from the upper bunkbed and order me to go and make him a peanut butter and fluff sandwich during the night. Other times he'd drag me out of bed at 5 in the morning during a snowstorm to help him deliver the morning newspaper. Somehow, we are best friends today; how does that work? I don't let him anywhere near my trains though.
Big brother received a used Lionel 1666 steam engine with a nice string of cars right around the time I was born (1946). Trains have been accumulating ever since. I can truly relate to Tootsie Toys, cap guns, cops and robbers, cowboys and Indians, Fort Apache, Schwin bicycles, Army forts, Red Ryder air rifles and several wooden hull toy sail boats. Did anyone ever get a toy Texaco Tanker ship...like Mooner before me, his locomotive and my ship, they went down on day one...thanks to Big brother in a real row boat. Thanks for sharing your memories - we have so much in common, including Big Brothers.
My HO train set was nice and a good childhood memory, but army men, Lego and GIJoe were the most used toys. All of them provided many years of service and were the foundation first the kind of setup/arrangement/layout play that I essentially still do with Wargames and model trains.
something that i forgot in my original post that gave me great fun from 14 on was my Erector set made by meccano. i remember seeing the gilbert ads on youtube and begging my mom for an erector set christmas 2009. while it was not a gilbert set i still had a blast with it. as time went on i would add smaller sets to my big set and consolidate everything into one big set for more building fun. i would build concept cars and machines all the time and i had a little camcorder and would film my projects and act like a mad scientist just building and doing crazy stuff. that erector set got me through tough times. i still have it too, haven't played with it in about 5 years but i dug it out last night just to look at everything and get hit by a giant wave of nostalgia. i think if i ever had to give it up i would be pretty sad . i would love to still find some gilbert sets as well as some of the erector sets that come with mini power drills and stuff. ebay might have them. thinking about pulling out my erector set today and building something again for oldtimes sake.
I enjoyed my Gilbert Chemistry set for inspiration. Comfort was not a consideration as one use was to make gun and flash powders. I bought many more chemicals at the drug store in the 5th and 6th grade. I also enjoyed a large erector set that was a combination of my fathers old set and a modern Gilbert set. My brother and I also used the nuts and bolts along with erector set parts to build all kinds of different things.
Later the Allied Radio companies The 10 in 1 Electronic Set was the new inspiration as one fun item build was a AM radio transmitter that we could communicate with a near by friend who also had a 10 in 1 and AM radio transmitter. We all learned how to solder and later build electronic items including Heath Kit stereo amps.
I later became a chemical engineer and brother was electronics technician and big into Ham radio Extra class operator for decades.
Charlie
@Bruce Brown posted:This is the title of a Washington Post article last week.
There is the mention of a Lionel Electronics Kit and, in the comments, "a simple Lionel train." Frankly, I was surprised in this article, and a November story about toys, that electric trains were not mentioned more by commenters as important toys in their lives. We all must be a very nichey bunch here!
When I run my first set along everything that came after, I only run it on O-27 track……and I think it’s the greatest to this day. While today we have TMCC/legacy/vision line. Nothing beats direct running with the smell of ozone/and smoke as is runs around a tree.
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