03-02-2012, 11:24 AM
I had my first train set at the age of 6 or 8, I don't remember exactly when. I received a Marx O-27 set for Christmas. We switched to HO scale when I was in Jr high, and that went well until my dad installed a siding across the oval making 2 reverse loops on the 4 x 8. It never ran again!
In high school I lost interest in trains as I became more interested in girls and cars. I'm still interested in cars, but the only girl I'm interested in is the one I married in 1973! didn't have any sons, only daughters. One day in the 1980's in Toys-R-Us I told my wife, "I'm tired of looking at girls toys. I'm going to go see what is available for boys now." I found a couple of ho train sets by Bachmann, the Dewitt Clinton and the John Bull. I bought the John Bull. It is not much of a train set, and runs absolutely awful! I still set it up on a section of track with my wife's Christmas Village display at Christmas time, but I haven't attempted to get it to operate in at least 30 years.
The John Bull re-ignited my interest in model railroading, and I started planning a layout then. I had a house that had the access to the garage taken away when the city widened the street behind the house we lived in. The garage was kind of behind the house so there was no way to access the garage from the other side. The result was that I had a one car garage that could not be used for the car, so I built a model railroad by modifying one of the track plans in an Atlas track planning book. That layout was torn down when we sold the house and moved across town a couple of years later. I learned a lot about model railroading and about radius the hard way on that layout!
I've since joined a modular club, and now that my daughters are grown up, and married, I have a spare bedroom to build a layout in. I guess you could say I became seriously interested in trains about 25 years ago or so at the age of @ 35. I think that is why I don't get too concerned when kids are not that interested in the hobby now. I don't think most model railroaders really get serious about the hobby until after they are 30, and, in California at least. probably don't build a model railroad until close to retirement age. We need an "empty nest" to find room for the layout.
In high school I lost interest in trains as I became more interested in girls and cars. I'm still interested in cars, but the only girl I'm interested in is the one I married in 1973! didn't have any sons, only daughters. One day in the 1980's in Toys-R-Us I told my wife, "I'm tired of looking at girls toys. I'm going to go see what is available for boys now." I found a couple of ho train sets by Bachmann, the Dewitt Clinton and the John Bull. I bought the John Bull. It is not much of a train set, and runs absolutely awful! I still set it up on a section of track with my wife's Christmas Village display at Christmas time, but I haven't attempted to get it to operate in at least 30 years.
The John Bull re-ignited my interest in model railroading, and I started planning a layout then. I had a house that had the access to the garage taken away when the city widened the street behind the house we lived in. The garage was kind of behind the house so there was no way to access the garage from the other side. The result was that I had a one car garage that could not be used for the car, so I built a model railroad by modifying one of the track plans in an Atlas track planning book. That layout was torn down when we sold the house and moved across town a couple of years later. I learned a lot about model railroading and about radius the hard way on that layout!
I've since joined a modular club, and now that my daughters are grown up, and married, I have a spare bedroom to build a layout in. I guess you could say I became seriously interested in trains about 25 years ago or so at the age of @ 35. I think that is why I don't get too concerned when kids are not that interested in the hobby now. I don't think most model railroaders really get serious about the hobby until after they are 30, and, in California at least. probably don't build a model railroad until close to retirement age. We need an "empty nest" to find room for the layout.