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
Wow! I had that set when I was about 3 years old. 1966. What a great blast from the past. Thanks for sharing that!
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.
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.
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.
Bachmann N-scale set back in '79 with your basic loop. 1 week later, "Dad, can we get a 4x8 sheet of plywood??"
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
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.
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.
Ah yes. The 4x8 sheet of plywood. The quintessential first big step for young model railroaders everywhere.
In order, my first experience was running my oldest brother's American Flyer set (which I have) on a 4X8 foot sheet of plywood 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