Mine was when I was around 6? My father built me a 4x8 n scale layout with all the trimmings. Working grade crossing, scenery etc. I remember going to Toys R Us and their being a huge selection of train sets and accessories. Lionel was dominant and affordable compared to todays standards. Did HO scale by the time I was 7. Started out with lifelike sets with the new powerlock track lol I remember when ez track first came on the market. Always surrounded by lionel. Than about the age of 16 got into girls, cars an after school job. Than got back into it after marriage and my career. Now my house is a house of trains! I owe it to my father, my great grandfather who was a rail man and everyone else in the family that grew up with lionel. An uncle went further with live steam and bought 3 acres for it. So I guess it was in my blood?
My parents have a picture of my at around 2 years old dragging a G scale 4-4-0 by the tender down the hall. There's also a picture of me at about 7 months old transfixed by a G scale train going around in circles.
Would be in late 60's watching the O scale layout at Museum of Science And Industry. Also around 1970 running O scale at friends house. Bought a N scale Bachmann train set at about 1971. Joined HO module club for awhile. Then joined new N scale club never left. Dan Brown
To my earliest memories, I have always been fascinated by the real thing. In the fifties, starting when I was about 3 years old, my two older brothers and I would run our American Flyer trains (4-4-2 Atlantic) for hours. My dad had mounted the track on a 4X8 sheet of plywood. My next older brother got a Tyco HO set for Christmas of 1961 and it had the Santa Fe freight scheme F7 in it. I think I was more excited than he was to run it. That loco made such a wonderful gear noise. I recently got a duplicate of that loco at a Chicago HS and it makes the same noise. I got my first set at Christmas of 1962. It was a Treble-O-Lectric deluxe set from Montgomery Ward. The next year, I got the expanded styrene bead layout and the 0-8-0 Baldwin steam loco. In about September of 1967, I was in the local HS and spotted a red Atlas Norfolk Southern composite gondola. I didn't care that the couplers weren't the same as Treble-O. I bought it on the spot. And that started my excursion into modern N scale. Through it all, I still have all of that train equipment, including the American Flyer set and my brother's HO stuff. Doug
Since my Dad bought me my first model train the year I was born (Gilbert S scale MP Eagle train) I guess that'd about make me at 56 year addict. Brian
