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...no , not me . I pulled this off the net , but it was Christmas 1955 when I got my first "train set" ( I was about to turn 9 in 5 days ) , an O scale Marx with steam loco , tender , box car , gon and caboose . My stepdad made a simple table out of saw horses and a 4x8 sheet of plywood . Layout was a loop with one turnout .....added a second turnout immediately . If I had a dollar for every lap that train turned , I'd be a wealthy man . 357

T
Yes, It does bring back memories.
As a yungin' and as a father setting up the trains around the tree for my son.
Yep, 6 years old and it was an American Flyer freight set. My Dad had taken a door and put legs on it. The river was where the door was painted blue, the road was where it was painted gray and so forth. It was populated with Plastiville buildings and I thought it was the greatest layout in the whole wide world! Icon_lol
I don't remember every having a train set when I was very young, I probably did, I just can't remember. When I was a bit older, there was a war going on and things were scarce. I remember seeing something on TV recently about them making train sets out of cardboard during those years since all metal went for the war effort. Those were tough years for Lionel and others. I do remember going downtown where the large department stores had trains running in their window displays along with animated elves and Santa.
Same story here....On X'mas 1957 I got an AF freight set headed by an 0-8-0. I still have it and pull it out every year when the g'kids come for Xmas.
The only age it shows is in the "Pul-Mor" wheels where the rubber rings have disappeared....Any one know where they may be gotten..??
I'll say it brings back memories! I got my first Lionel train set at age 6. Can remember laying on the living room floor and watching the train chase itself around a large circle of track for hours on end. Sure got years of enjoyment from it as it grew and grew, after getting a home where my Dad constructed a 4x16 foot permanent layout (2 - 4x8's butted together) for me.

I was always a little envious of my friends American Flyer S gauge set and his even larger permanent layout. Everything (except the grossly over size couplers) seemed better proportioned and more to scale than much of the Lionel equipment and I grew to hate that third rail track I had! Of course, one day at about age 10, HO equipment began showing up at the local hobby store and from that point on, my goal was to switch to HO. Of course that wouldn't happen until years later when I was on my own.

My younger brother, although he loved trains, had no interest in the Lionel as he was lucky enough to be given an HO set on Christmas when he was 8 or 9 years old. (Lucky little monkey!) All the old Lionel stuff just vanished while I was in the Army in 1966-1969. Most of it given away or in many cases just thrown away by the family in my absence.
You guys are making me reminisce ......and that's good .

I liked reading the Hardy Boys mysteries back then and would incorporate the various plots ( there were about 30 volumes ) into my layout .....it was all great fun letting my imagination run wild .......the train would be running the same loop for hours on end but with a different Hardy Boy plot to make it "seem different " , atleast to a young kid . Goldth

T
Not around the Christmas tree but,from watching Lionel trains run loops on the toy floor display layout of F&R Lazarus Department store in Columbus.I still have vivid memories of those Lionel trains and the all the operating accessories and how a dozen or so boys watch those trains..Of course these was the newest releases Lionel had to offer..

There were other displays as well from Ft.Apache to the Alamo play sets,fire trucks and police cars with flashing lights,Red Ryder BB guns,Roy Rogers and Hopalong Cassidy cap gun sets with holsters etc..
Only made me "flash back" about 46 years... Eek Eek

Same as above... One loop around the X-mas tree... Watching the Santa Fe Warbonnet set A-B-A pulling a few passenger cars around the tree... We had that white cloth (simulated snow) too Smile The cat would play with the "real tinsel" and it would fall on the track so when we would start the train, we would have to clear the tracks of any tinsel, since the tinsel would short out the tracks Smile Smile
When I was 2 years old my father bought an American Flyer set for himse... I mean me. In the late 60s he informed me that we were going to have to change to HO because we couldn't get AF any more. We even made our own track for a while. We used balsa wood strip covered with aluminum foil. Don't laugh it worked! here is a photo of me running our I mean my trains. It brings back some really good memories.

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I still have that locomotive and coach. :cry:
Geez , 2 years old ...you looked BIG for your age . Goldth 357

That's amazing making your own track with balsa and foil ! Talk about ingenuity . Thumbsup

T
Needless to say, I was the big bad Leroy brown type in first grade,