My start with trains

jtomstarr Jul 24, 2018

  1. jtomstarr

    jtomstarr TrainBoard Member

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    All,

    Here's my start with trains was with three of these sets on from my Late parents and two from my Grandparents on my dad side. What was yours?

    Tom

    PRE BRIO.JPG
     
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  2. BoxcabE50

    BoxcabE50 HOn30 & N Scales Staff Member TrainBoard Supporter

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    Wish I had pictures of mine. :(
     
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  3. JimJ

    JimJ Staff Member

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    Wow! I had that set when I was about 3 years old. 1966. What a great blast from the past. Thanks for sharing that!
     
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  4. Shortround

    Shortround TrainBoard Member

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    I started with Lionel after getting out of the Army. I had 11 brothers before that so there wasn't much room for such toys on the farm.
     
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  5. rhensley_anderson

    rhensley_anderson TrainBoard Supporter

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    I started with a Marx key-wind about 1944, then a Marx electric and then...
     
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  6. Hytec

    Hytec TrainBoard Member

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    My brother is 8 years older than me. The first I remember was being allowed to play with his Lionel when I was 3-4 years old, about 1938-'39.
     
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  7. jtomstarr

    jtomstarr TrainBoard Member

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    Did I mention that the set in my photo is PRE BRIO !

    Tom
     
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  8. Hardcoaler

    Hardcoaler TrainBoard Member

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    Mine were wooden from the early 1960s, branded 'Tot Railroad' as I recall and were perhaps half the size of modern-day Brio trains. They're all long gone, but I remember having two blue locomotives and coupling them up back-to-back like my oldest brother's Lionel Fs and thinking they looked so cool that way.
     
  9. Kurt Moose

    Kurt Moose TrainBoard Member

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    Bachmann N-scale set back in '79 with your basic loop.

    1 week later, "Dad, can we get a 4x8 sheet of plywood??":D
     
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  10. SP-Wolf

    SP-Wolf TrainBoard Supporter

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    No photos of my first -- bummer. It was and is (Yeah, I still have it - somewhere-) an Arnold Rapido N gauge 0-6-0 with a couple of cars and a caboose. 9-3/4" radius curves with a few 9" long straights. No turnouts. I'd clean off my desk and run my train. Received it for my 8th birthday - 1971.

    Wolf
     
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  11. RailMix

    RailMix TrainBoard Member

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    My start came with a small wooden set- long gone, but not brio, I'm pretty sure (mid 1950's). No paint on any of the pieces and couplers were snaps. Next, at the age of six, I inherited a postwar Lionel set (still have it) from an older cousin and a lifelong hobby began.
     
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  12. trainman-ho

    trainman-ho TrainBoard Member

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    My first train was a tinplate HO gauge that was powered by a "D" cell in the body. It was controlled by a switch near the rear of it!

    don't remember the make, but seem to think that it was a diesel!
    I think it was Christmas, 1958. I was 13.
     
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  13. RailMix

    RailMix TrainBoard Member

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    Ah yes. The 4x8 sheet of plywood. The quintessential first big step for young model railroaders everywhere.:D
     
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  14. Doug Gosha

    Doug Gosha TrainBoard Member

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    In order, my first experience was running my oldest brother's American Flyer set (which I have) on a 4X8 foot sheet of plywood :D in the mid to late nineteen fifties when I was bout 2 or 3 - 8 years old. Then running my next older brother's Tyco HO set with a blue and yellow freight AT&SF
    F9. Then the reception of my Treble-O-Lectric set for Christmas, 1962. Then buying my first Atlas N scale in 1967.

    The intervening years have been a continuation of all of them.

    Doug
     
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  15. Hardcoaler

    Hardcoaler TrainBoard Member

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    Along with the big roll of Life-Like grass! :)
     
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