Your First Train Set

Oops, I left out the Pennsylvania operating box car with the little blue man. Here it is:

Now, that's a very nice set indeed.

I unfortunately don't have any photos right now, but I remember my first train set vividly.  I was in the 1st grade in 1981, and after one of our family trips to Chicago where Dad & I would go to Downers Grove and watch the Green BN E (F?) units pull around the bi-level commuter trains all day, I started asking Santa Claus for a "toy commuter train"

Seems that Santa had an old Lionel 736 freight set on a figure-8 layout with an outside loop that he had been given by his parents when he was a boy, saving at his parent's house, maybe for just such an occasion.  So That Christmas, when I woke up, there it was on the floor, 11' x 4' of a puffing steam engine filling the house with the most bizarre and interesting smell...

We played with it on and off for a while, but the house was small and life happened so it went back under the bed and into storage for years.

I'm 43 now, and dad (I mean Santa) & I are just this year getting back into the game.  We've been Skyping each other from several states away, with plans on setting up and expanding the old Christmas layout that first ran in 1951. I've learned how to repair modern and PW engines, and dad was motivated to clean out the much larger basement and make some room.

Looking forward to more good times!

My first was the 210 Texas Special and the 1599 set given to me on Christmas when I was two. The video shows it running on an old layout from a couple of years ago. What makes it special is not that is was my first, but that my dad had to look in Sears catalog in 1958 and decide what gift to get for me, chose a train set and was thinking of me when he did. My dad has since passed away but he did get to see them taken out of the attic boxes and set up in my adult home. I love this train and think of him every time I run it.   I have added the only picture of me with my trains and it shows the 210.

I grew up in a small town in western Massachusetts that had trains rumbling through on a regular basis and was enthralled by them, but my family could not afford to buy me a model train set. When I was about 10 or 11 years old, I entered a contest for a model railroad set by filling out and sending in a cut-out panel on a box of cereal, never thinking I could win and soon forgot about it. Lo and behold, about 6 months later a brand new American Frontiersman set arrived at our door with a letter stating that I was one of the winners and, from that point on, I was hooked.

This would have been around 1963.

Unfortunately, our house was rented out for many years and the last tenant stole the boxed up set I had saved. My mother didn't tell me for years after she moved back into the house and discovered it wasn't there for fear I would go after them - she was right, grrr.  

My first was a large Marx set with a figure eight track and seven freight cars received new for Christmas, 1939. A crane car had been added. The Commodore Vanderbilt loco could sure scatter those four wheeled cars around the room at my warp speeds on that very light track.

Later, I saw a Marx set on display in a department store toy department that had a four wheel lighted searchlight car. Cool! So that was on my wish list for Christmas 1941. By then, the Santa thing was long gone, and being an only, Mom, Dad, and I celebrated Christmas Eve with my Mom’s special dinner, followed by the opening of  gifts.   

The first was a searchlight car, but not the four wheel Marx I had asked for. Instead, it was a far more beautiful eight wheel, two truck, red and grey Lionel 0-27 #2620 complete with electric box couplers. Great, I thought, but doesn’t Dad realize these couplers are incompatible with my Marx tab couplers? What’s going on? I’m sure my Dad relished the puzzled frown on my face, while I sure missed the repressed grin on his.

After a seemingly drawn out period of opening the other gifts in front of the Christmas Tree, my Dad said “Hey, I think there’s one more box way back behind the tree. See if you can fish it out.”

As I pulled it out, the Orange and Blue Lionel label said it all. The set included a 1666 steamer with the newer realistic Bakelite Whistle Tender, three freight cars, and a pair of electric switches. Somehow, that always seemed like my “first” set.

Fast Forward about six decades. I saw that very same 1939 model Marx set in good plus condition, complete with original instruction sheet in its original box offered on e-bay, and retirement age nostalgia set in. I bid to win, and succeeded. My ventures in Lionel and MTH high rail not with-standing, I so enjoyed the couple Marx set ups on our living room carpet, partly under my professionally vital and beloved concert grand piano. Strangely, this Marx train holds the rails as well as my 1941 Lionel did. I guess it’s the life-long mastery of my boyhood warp speed tendencies.   

Lionel 2026 freight set, Christmas 1948, rehabbed once, runs great, first grandson has it now.  I don't see why his first grandson might not run it someday.

@Arnold D. Cribari posted:

I will start, not with my first train set, but the first train set of my dear Forum friend, Melgar.

During my telephone conversation with Melgar yesterday, we were discussing the Postwar trains we had as kids. It turns out that Melgar no longer has his first train set, but he described it to me. It was a 1949 Lionel freight set, and he believes it included a 2035 or 2025 Pacific steamer, tender, operating milk car, black gondola, Sunoco 2 dome oil tanker car and Pennsylvania caboose with round windows or portals.

I have that engine and those cars, which are shown in the photos below:

 

Arnold

@Arnold D. Cribari posted:

Oops, I left out the Pennsylvania operating box car with the little blue man. Here it is:

Now, that's a very nice set indeed.

Arnold,

That steam engine looks like the one I had back in 1949 but the cars and caboose in your pictures look like they are from the Lionel 2307W set with Santa Fe A-B-A diesel locomotive that my father bought for me in 1953. Although the trains were mine, I have come to realize that my dad was a "closet" model railroader who liked the trains as much as I did. All my O gauge trains were eventually given away when I converted to HO some years later. My trains were a huge influence and led me to become an engineer - but not the railroad type... I still like railroads and model trains many decades later. You can take the boy out of Brooklyn but you can't take the Brooklyn out of the boy.

MELGAR

Right at about 1 minute, it is 1956 and you can see me playing with a Marx set. It is a Monon diesel set.  It disappeared somewhere in my childhood.  I replaced it in 2006 when I saw an exact set for sale at York.

Fast forward to 2:05 till the end.... It starts in 1958 and ends about 1963.  You can see my Lionel New Haven F3 freight set from 1958. I still have all my postwar O gauge and my SuperO track.

Peter

My first set is a Lionel “Heavy Iron” that I received for Christmas in 1981, a few weeks before I turned 2 years old.

Here is the set when I recently ran it on my club layout.

My first set was the 2227W from the 1954 catalog, which I received at Christmas 1955. It included the 2353 Warbonnet F3 diesels, the B&O auto boxcar, the NYC double deck stock car, the glossy red Lehigh Valley hopper, the Santa Fe operating barrel car, and the Lionel Lines N5c caboose. Here is a picture of the set (but not my particular set) from the postwar Lionel Trains Library. I still have it.

https://postwarlionel.com/comp...-diesel-freight-set/

Marx 898 engine, NYC tender, Rock Island gondola, Santa Fe tank and NYC caboose.  Still have it.

Another Marx Story:. Probably in 1946-47 l played with my cousin's pre-war latch coupler Lionel freight set, in his house across the road, and clamored for an 'lectric train for Christmas. I got one, mounted on a cream train board, with a larger loop of added track.  It was one of the thousands of Marx #25000 3/16 freight sets, spoked driver, three part collector #999 2-4-2, wedge tender,  PA. box, B&O gon, Niacet tank, Reading caboose. It was damaged when water heater broke, years later after l left home, but it was replaced, and another twin set is probably in an internet auction now.  Sadly, my cousin's Lionel set was stolen out of his apartment's basement storage unit.  I have its station and water tower.

From 1952: #2025 steamer, SF animated boxcar, black gondola w/barrels, 2 dome Sunoco tank, SP-type caboose. All still running on my layout.

The only trains I ever got rid of were those H0 things that constantly jumped the track at any speed over a crawl and those expensive brass pieces of junk that kept losing parts. Oh, how I curse the day when I listened to those evil tempters that tried to lure me to the dark side of "scale"! 

Mine was earned on a bet and it was and still is the 2353 AA War Bonnet pulling a 2 2533 Pullmans, 2532 Vista Dome and a 2531 Observation with O Gauge Track and a 275 Watt ZW 2 weeks before Christmas 1953. Still have everything including the track. Since then I have added both versions of the 2530 Baggage Car and the 2534 Pullman and several B Units both with and without portals. It stills on the top shelf under glass in a display case I made. Once the new lay out track work is complete it will be cleaned and lubed and will stretch out its leg once again. Top shelve, second shelve is the set Lionel did in 1990.

My first Lionel set, MPC era number 6-1661 "The Rock Island Line" from Christmas of 1976 (I had an AHM with a New Haven Plymouth switcher, before that, but that was HO). This one is my first O-gauge set, and I still have it, as evidenced by it being posed upon my 'test track'. Since this photo was taken in 2013 for a similar thread, locomotive 8601 has been given a new lease on life courtesy of a motor swap + hardware transplant performed by Ridgewood Hobbies in northern NJ (the original motor had worn out its driver gears, and it was deemed simpler to swap in the donor motor unit, transplanting the siderod guides and painting the driver centers to match the original).  As a bonus, the loco now sports a reversing unit and headlight, absent on the original.

In the quest for parts to resurrect this loco, I wound up with a near-identical 8601 (this one had plastic driver centers), its DC-powered cousin 8201, the Black Cave Flyer, and its extra-cheapo plastic-wheeled "Workin on the Railroad" predecessor. I'm on the lookout for smokebox fronts, drawbars and siderod guides for first two of these units, though I may have to resort to 3D printing for the siderod guides.

---PCJ

[2023 edit: Last year I located, purchased and installed the above-mentioned drawbars, smokebox fronts and siderod guides, making all three into runners, albeit two of them still DC (plans are afoot to address this)]

My first, when I was about 5, was this Lionel freight set headed by a 2026 steam loco.  We had no place for a layout, but Mom would let us set it up on the dining room table.

A second-hand Marx 666 set with Santa Fe markings was the one that shoehorned trains in the house. My dad had been set against having trains for a number of years ("It'll take up half the basement!") So it was my mom who got it from a friend who was cleaning out the attic and brought the set in. Well, once a train was set up and running, my dad go the bug, and one thing led to another culminating in quite an accumulation of MPC-era Lionel... and a layout that took up half the basement...

And I still have that Marx set to this day 

My father had Marx growing up and I'd pour over his guides and cataloges. I had been given HO and G trains to play with because they were cheap but I really wanted a train like his. For some reason I really loved the looks of a Joy Line train set from one of his guides. One day when I was quite young he got me a very beat up rough set. He removed the busted up wind up mechanical innards so I could use it as a floor toy. I still have this set and it is always on display someplace no matter what. My 1st real train set is certainly an oddball since I doubt many Joy Line sets are given to small kids anymore.

My son and I bought this in 1998. He outgrew it....I didn’t 😂

I still have my first train set, including the PW ZW transformer we got that year (app. 1962-3). The boxes are long gone, but the trains remain. Unfortunately, I won’t be back home for another week or two, so I’ll have to use some stock images to recreate the “set” (I’m not sure if it was an actual set or if “Santa” picked individual pieces for me).

The set was headed by a 637 engine...

The 637 needs a bit of restoration work due to the bottom of the engine being caught in a basement flood, but otherwise, everything is intact except for the nozzle on the end of the tube at the rear of the boat. I even have a bottle with some smoke pellets and a packet with some of the pills that made the boat move through water.

@greg773 posted:

My first set is a Lionel “Heavy Iron” that I received for Christmas in 1981, a few weeks before I turned 2 years old.

Here is the set when I recently ran it on my club layout.

Sweet, Greg. Nearly 40 years on, still runs like a top!!!

My first O train set was the Lionel HHP-8 set:

I had trains for many years, this was just my first complete and new  set.

Note that the HHP-8 died after running about a total of an hour and a half or so; a friend who worked for Amtrak said that Lionel got that right, the real ones were not too reliable, either. BTW, I could not return it for warranty work as I had the set for over two years before I opened the box and my plan was (is?) to convert it to two-rail using the drive from an Atlas AEM-7.

Another nice thread, @Arnold D. Cribari !!! I knew this one would fill up fast, I mean, who on this forum didn't have a first train set, right. I'll post mine later, my bed is calling me!! I love ALL the responses so far!!!

George E

 I still have my first set, but don’t have the boxes. Maybe someone can figure out what set I have. 
239 locomotive, 1130T tender, 6476 Lehigh valley hopper(black), 6465 two dome orange Lionel lines tank car, 6473 horse transport, 6119-100 D.L.&W. Caboose. 10 -027 curves 5 -straights 1 - magnetic uncoupler track, 1 - pair 1022 turnouts, 1043 transformer.

We had a JC Pennys, Firestone, Otasco, Montgomery Wards, Also a Sears but to this day my father will cross the street before walking in front sears.🙄

Drum roll please, here's mine, which includes:

Lionel 2065 steam locomotive with coffin style tender:

Operating milk car:

Green operating log dump car and red gondola:

Yellow stock car and Lionel Lines caboose with round portals:

Here is a short video of it in action:

I don't have any boxes and do not know the set number. It was a Christmas gift when I was 3 or 4 years old so it was probably in the 1954 or 1955 Lionel catalogue. 

Also, it was an O27 set that might have come with some track. switches and a small transformer like a 1033.

So much nostalgia and fun seeing all of these first train sets. Arnold

Although I believe a similar thread was started a year or so ago. I like threads like this. 

My first set was a used set from my father's lawyer at the time. it was set #2572, 2359 B&M GP-9, 6544 missile launching car missing the brake wheels ( very common ) and missiles, 3830 missing the submarine, 6448 exploding box car missing the sides, 3519 missing everything except the winder, and a 3535 security car missing the guns and yoke on top and the floodlight cover and lens. But to me back in 1966 that was the greatest gift in the world. Sadly I ended up having to sell it and the rest of my trains when we moved into a smaller apartment ( wife and mother inlaw ) no room to store them. I have since replaced the set. not the best picture of it but it is there on the forth shelf down. 

I agree with Bill that there was a similar thread, and I did a search before starting this new one. However, I did not see this specific title: Your First Train Set (with an emphasis on "Your" and "First"), so I started this one. 

Many of us know how strong and positive our feelings are about our first set. Doesn't matter how basic and simple (which I sometimes prefer), it was our first love of trains that we will always treasure.

For those of us who no longer have that 1st beloved set, I hope you can acquiring it in the future, and you may be very pleased what a good bargain you will get when you do, especially if it is without boxes, not mint, but rather in good working order. Arnold

I can't seem to locate the pictures I have of my first set, so I'll use the one below as a fill in.  My dad purchased my first set at a Dearborn, MI hardware store on his way home from work one day.  I think I was just shy of turning 3 years old, so it would have been in December of 1997 as it immediately went on the track under our Christmas tree.  He had traditionally put the Postwar Lionel stuff that had been passed down from my grandfather but with my being 2-3 years old, he was worried about me damaging the family heirlooms and decided to get me my own set to play with.  It got used quite frequently, mainly around the holidays, until I believe a the thermal circuit breaker went bad in the transformer and then it sat around for a few years until we finally took the time to fix it.  After that I assembled a small 4'x4' layout which was great fun, until it unfortunately got away from me one day and took a dive to the basement floor after rolling off the corner of the track.  A wheel was damaged but repaired at the time and beyond that my collection sort of exploded in size so it mostly sat packed away except occasional short runs.  Last year I decided to try to run it again for Christmas and found my old repair to the wheel hadn't held up to time.  I recently purchased a parts donor locomotive and transferred the chassis over to mine as well as the tender whistle which hadn't worked in mine for some time.  Now it runs great again.  Although I have much nicer locomotives, cars, etc in my collection now, this set is definitely still my favorite for the memories it holds.  I have since also gained the caretaker status of the Postwar trains that I wasn't allowed to play with in my younger years leading up to my first set being acquired.  

I enjoy reading threads like this.  Although the trains change somewhat through the decades, the basic stories and memories are often pretty similar generation after generation.

My first train was a Marx UP Green M-10000 and an operating Glendale Depot Christmas presents from Santa. I can still remember the strong ozone smell created by its electric motor.

@father.dragon posted:

 I still have my first set, but don’t have the boxes. Maybe someone can figure out what set I have. 
239 locomotive, 1130T tender, 6476 Lehigh valley hopper(black), 6465 two dome orange Lionel lines tank car, 6473 horse transport, 6119-100 D.L.&W. Caboose. 10 -027 curves 5 -straights 1 - magnetic uncoupler track, 1 - pair 1022 turnouts, 1043 transformer.

We had a JC Pennys, Firestone, Otasco, Montgomery Wards, Also a Sears but to this day my father will cross the street before walking in front sears.🙄

In John Schmid’s book on Promotional sets, Set number 11540-500 and 19580, made for Bronco Modelcraft, are similar except that they did not include the turnouts.

Peter

@Arnold D. Cribari posted:

...I don't have any boxes and do not know the set number. It was a Christmas gift when I was 3 or 4 years old so it was probably in the 1954 or 1955 Lionel catalogue. 

Also, it was an O27 set that might have come with some track. switches and a small transformer like a 1033...

Hi Arnold,

I have a 1954 Lionel catalog, so I looked up your set. It's #1519WS ("The Green Ball Express") on pages 12-13.

I recently inherited my late father's entire collection. As I opened box after box, I recognized some of the pieces as being those that I enjoyed as a young child. I hadn't seen them in more than 50 years. Thank you for starting this thread. It's nice to see how many other folks have kept/reconnected with their first set.

Bill

My first train set was a Tyco Santa Fe Freight set when I was 7.  I still have most of it.  It originally came with the Warbonnet F9, a UP hopper, a BN 50' plugdoor boxcar, and steel cupola caboose.  The first day I operated it on the dining room table the engine flew off on the curve and broke.  My dad was kind enough to find a ICG painted high-hood Alco C-628 to replace it.  Being the young modeler I was, I started repainting trains around age 13.  The Alco got a poor rendition of CNJ in yellow stripes, the caboose painted into something just odd, and the hopper got painted grimy black. The BN boxcar is the only original piece untouched.

I wasn't allowed to get it out very often until I was a little older and by then, my uncle who is also a train collector got me some Athearn equipment for Christmas one year.  A Pennsy SD9 and a PRR caboose.  The Tyco engine never ran like the Athearn, so my second "original" locomotive got sidelined.  By age 14 my dad and I would regularly go to swap meets and my collection slowly grew from there.  I spent 30 years in HO before moving seriously into O.

Tyco in many ways was the Lionel 027 of the 70's.  Budget colorful sets that either hooked someone on the hobby or got put away never to be used again.

The other memory of my first train set was that my dad often found add-on cars on deep discount at "Two Guys".  Don't ask me how I remember that nearly 40 years later!

My first set, everything still works only the track is gone(rust). It is 60+ years old.

My first set is Lionel 1477s steam freight set.  See http://postwarlionel.com/compl...r-steam-freight-set/ .  I've had it since around 1953.  It provides a tangible link to people, places, and memories from my childhood.   I took care to keep it safely around through household relocations and living life over the decades. It was stored away in a box for many years.  Back in the 1950's, we lived in a compact apartment.  There was no space for a permanent layout, so the train would be set up on the floor for a few days or less at a time.  The consist can be seen in the attached video, which I made after adding True Blast II to the tender a few years ago.  I had the smoke unit overhauled at Charles Ro a couple of years ago.  My granddaughter was thrilled by it when she first saw it operating a few years ago.  The set is now part of my semi-permanent floor layout.

I need  new bearings for my 2037; bought years before I was born. Every grandkid had an old but unused set waiting on day one.  (Ive worn out  bearings on it before. Even a set of drivers)

I can't recall for sure what cars were there; I ended up with so many. Some survived my play, others didn't. There was a flood that took a bunch of stuff away too.(rust, all the boxes had to go too.)  A two dome silver Sunoco, black lehigh hopper (# with better frame/ladders etc...flood rust death) are all I'm sure of.

I bet I remembered correctly in an older thread of maybe 5 years ago 

My best set was an Mercury/LSA set. I'm pretty sure I'm "Automotive", of the largest "X" set made. The local VFW bought it for me because I always left out the door with a jump out, and a Cur Ra Hee    If I could see the phone number I might be able to prove it, but it's always got a privacy blurb over pictures of the paperwork.

The Sailors and Marines were very dissappointed the Navy sub was on a Marine's flatcar. It almost came to blows until I interjected 😳.

Here it is and it still runs just fine....Oh yes, the tank car- a stocking stuffer from my Grandmother - same Christmas and still going strong too.

My first set was purchased by my father in 1948.  It was Lionel freight set #1423W.  It consisted of a Die cast 2-4-2 steam locomotive #1655 and its associated freight cars.  My dad passed away in 1953 from wounds he received in Southern France and Italy during WW II and I eventually inherited the set  because my older brother had absolutely no interest in model trains (Thank God).  I still have the entire set along with the set box as well as all of its component boxes.    The engine still runs great and the whistle tender although a tad raspy still sounds great to me.  One of my fondest memories is of my dad running this set around our Christmas tree with all of the lights off in the living room save the tree lights just before my brother, sister and I were tucked in each night.  What a magical memory.  I can still smell the ozone and the pungent fragrance of our Christmas tree.   I make sure I run this set every Christmas under our tree at night and sometimes it almost feels like my dad is there watching.   The set is prominently displayed in my train room.  Here is a photograph of the set on my layout a couple of years back.

@Putnam Division posted:

In John Schmid’s book on Promotional sets, Set number 11540-500 and 19580, made for Bronco Modelcraft, are similar except that they did not include the turnouts.

Peter

 I never heard of Bronco Modelcraft, the most likely was Montgomery Wards( had an Aunt that worked there) or Otasco. All the track has silver ties.  Brad.