Just found this photograph while going through an old family trunk. It's me. As near as I can tell the date is sometime in 1951. I'm amazed by this - I thought my obsession with model railroading started when I was 9 or 10. I love the expression - "This is, like, SO totally COOL!" ^_^ So when did it start for YOU? --Bryan Pfaffenberger Charlottesville, VA
Wow, Kenneth. I was just over in your old neighborhood today. I had to pick up my son's car that had its motor replaced at a business over there. I rode into Houston with my wife when she went to work and caught the Metro #50 down Harrisburg to South Wayside. That is not too far north of ground zero for the first railroad in Texas. Anyway here is a shot of me and my first train on the left, my brother's on the right.
When Did It Start? The facination with trains started when I was about four years old or so. Dad and Mom bought me a Lionel Scout in 1951 when I was six. Still have both model trains and photograph real trains.
when i was about 2 years old my dad took me to see a train and wright wen it was over than my hobby came
Interested in trains? Since before I can date, let alone remember. Actually into modelling? Around 10, with a Bachmann set. I have no idea where the very few photos from that time are.
Cant even remember. Some of my earliest memories are of trains. My father was a locomotive fireman in his youth until he lost his hearing. His father was a locomotive engineer and a railroad inventor. He had several inventions patented. One of which was a semi-mechanical oiler for the air brake air pump. So I guess you could say railroading ran in the family. I eventually followed in their footsteps,so to speak, much,much later. I do recall getting a wooden locomotive kit, a model of the "Pioneer" of the C. & NW. My mother used to listen to a morning radio program on the local NBC(?) station. One of the sponsors was the C & NW and they offered it as a gift if you sent in the postage for it. We built the kit and I played with it often. It eventually began to chip and disintegrate (soft wood) and was discarded. The host of the radio program was a radio legend, the late,great Norman Ross Sr. I was maybe 5 or 6 at the time I got the kit. Later on I got a plastic model of an F7(Atlas?) I was maybe 8yo at the time. I still have that loco somewhere. CT
In 1949 we moved to Madisonville, a suburb of Cincinnati, and our house was a block from the B&O main. It was double tracked then, and I remember the shock as the first steam engine flew by doing about 60mph. The tracks were elevated above our house due to terrain, and I was one scared 5 year old that night. It didn't take long to adjust, and I learned to love the times when both tracks were occupied at the same time with both steam and diesel. The tracks became a shortcut for my brother and I to go places as the shortest route. Our neighborhood playground was the "station yard", the outlined area in the second picture that was at one time a station - but was gone when we moved there, leaving a grassy lot to play football and baseball. On a bicycle trip to visit our grandmother in Newtown, Ohio, we discovered a N&W yard at Clare, a junction of the Pennsy and N&W at Mariemont. Once I saw, and eventually rode on a Y6b, I was a N&W fan for life. In 1955 we moved to Norwood, and were two blocks from the N&W line to Berry Yard from Clare, and a block from the CL&N line (Cincinnati, Lebanon & Northern) that ran through Norwood. It was a great time and place to grow up......
I grew up and indeed still live in England. My first train memories are around 1950 from beside the London Transport Metropolitan line from London. We had EMUs, electric loco hauled trains and some steam hauled passenger and the occasional goods (freight) trains. Now I live beside the UKs West Coast electrified mainline from London Euston to Glasgow and see a very busy freight and passenger service. My first trip to the US was in the late 80s to WV and saw Chessie freights (Cat logos on trains ) and also travelled on MARC from Brunswick to Washington DC. In more recent times I've been visiting Chicago and riding Metra. That is something for an Englishman to go upstairs on a train!!!!!!mg: My kind regards to all as this is my first post :thumbs_up: Johnb
Welcome John, good to have you here! If you go to the "Storytime with Charlie" thread on the "Railfanning Discussions" board. You might see some stories about those same Metra trains you enjoyed riding. CT
First off Johnb, welcome to TB My introduction to RR'ing came in 1968 with a trip to Fla. on the old IC Panama Limited. My father grew up with the Pennsy in his front yard just outside of Casey Il, and I grew up with a C&EI branchline running less than a 1/2 mile across the field from our backyard( Goodwine to Cissna Park IL) and then later the Old C&EI from Chicago to Evansville, and Chicago to St. Louis both within shouting distance at various houses we lived in. When we finally moved to town in '76 we lived within 6 blocks of the Family Lines System Chicago Sub. in Hoopeston, (ex L&N, C&EI, now CSX CE&D div.)
I grew up 1/2 block from Rock Island 2 blocks From Santa Fe 1/2 mile from Frisco. Most of my moms' family work for the RR.
