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I'm guessing most of us got our first model trains this time of year, so I thought it would be fun to start a thread about our very first model trains, and the ultimate fate of those trains.

I know I had some push-toy trains as a toddler, but my first model train was an HO Life-Like work caboose in Santa Fe blue with working spotlight given to me by my grandparents on Christmas eve when I was probably 6. The next day, Santa gave me my first locomotive, a Soo Line F-7 which I am sure I destroyed within a few months Smile I ran both of them on my brother's 4x8 HO layout in the basement.

The first model train I bought with my own money was a few years later when I bought one of those Life-Like F7 and caboose combos (Burlington Northern) at an after Christmas sale at a craft store. I probably used birthday money, and I think with the after Christmas sale it was something like 7.99.

Both F-7s are long gone. The cabooses, however, live on! The "caboose" part of the work caboose was kitbashed into an HOn3 caboose, and the Burlington Northern caboose has been given a veneer of wood siding and additional details and is now one of my standard gauge cabooses.

What were your first model trains, and do you still have them?
HO scale Bachmann train set with a Chessie F unit and a few cars on a circle of track when I was five or six. Later added a Tyco set with a Santa Fe (!) C628, which launched my first 4x8 layout, and another Bachmann set with a Santa Fe F unit. I also had an Athearn F7 in Chesapeake & Ohio colors. After a few years I got bored with it and switched to N scale and never looked back.
Tyco, Lil' Hustler set. With the Plymouth switcher in Santa Fe colors, gondola, Swift refer and caboose with 36" circle. Yeah..It was for Christmas. My dad liked it also.
I guess thats where it all started. Started mowing lawns for more rolling stock, buildings and track. Scrap piece of 4x8 plywood and I had my first layout. Built up a pretty good layout right up through high school(Saved enough for the AHM Shark nose diesel) Sold it all before I went tp collage.

Wish I still had it all now.
The very first, FIRST, were the Strombecker wood model kits.
The first powered HO steam locomotive, was a Varney "Little Joe" B&O 0-4-0T. I still have that loco, and some of the kit rolling stock ( that Swift Reefer right behind the 0-4-0 "is a steel side kit" ) I built to go with it, on :
[attachment=15785]
Yes, some of those buildings were paper kits ! :o Big Grin
On the far left side, above, all the way to the back, is the Revell Depot kit that is now,
The seaport village and museum "Gift Shop",
last gray building on the left, below.
[attachment=15784]

There is a span of about 58 years between the first photo, and the second. :o Confusedhock: Big Grin
Tyco Silverstreak train set. I loved that set -- just an oval of track that I added buildings to. That was almost forty years ago! Last year I came across the Silver Streak loco and caboose at a sale, so I snapped them up. I also found the Tyco piggyback crane and flat car. I figure my son may like them in a year or so.....

Chuck
Yep , Christmas 1955 , my Dad bought a Marx , O scale , one switch , 3 rail , transformer etc. My stepfather got a 4x8 sheet of 3/4" plywood , set on saw horses . I played with that for hours and hours at a time . I was 9 then and when I was 16 , sold the Marx and went HO .

T
It was Christmas for my first train too, a Hornby 00 scale GWR 57xx Pannier tank freight set. I was eight, and despite scale changes and moving from modelling UK to US railroads, I've never looked back!

Cheers,

Kev
A Marklin.
Like some of you, my first train was a tin, wind-up set of European origin (probably Marklin) that operated forward and reverse, and had a 3 car consist, all properly fitted with bumpers on the ends. This was around 1954 +/-.... I would kill to have it back... :cry:
This was followed by an American Flyer set-a work train with an 0-8-0 engine, crane and, pole-car and a work caboose. Luckily, I still have it, with additions that came later (tank and refrigerator car). I pull it out at least once a year at around this time... 2285_
My "final" version is an HO layout that had its roots in a few HO items I inherited from my ol' man (Pacific loco, a few cars and a caboose-all of which still see action on my layout...(My avatar picture is the caboose mentioned above.)

I suspect that all these trains were acquired as much for my ol' man's benefit as for my enjoyment...
Back in '36-'37, I got a Marx windup. It had a little emery wheel inside that shot small sparks out the funnel. I had to settle for that as electric (AF, Lionel) cost double the price. I played and played with it till it broke.
Shortly thereafter, I took up building model airplanes. That worked good, as a kit cost $0.05 and kept me occupied for a week. It was 45 years later before I got back to trains; about 30 years ago. I'm back to having fun again.

Lynn
yellowlynn Wrote:Back in '36-'37, I got a Marx windup. It had a little emery wheel inside that shot small sparks out the funnel. I had to settle for that as electric (AF, Lionel) cost double the price. I played and played with it till it broke.
Shortly thereafter, I took up building model airplanes. That worked good, as a kit cost $0.05 and kept me occupied for a week. It was 45 years later before I got back to trains; about 30 years ago. I'm back to having fun again.

Lynn

Lynn...Seems like "great" minds do think alike... On top of several HO car kits I've yet to build, I have 2-3 rubber powered model airplane kits standing in the wings (pun intended...) waiting on me to get'em built... Goldth
I'm guessing most of us got our first model trains this time of year, so I thought it would be fun to start a thread about our very first model trains, and the ultimate fate of those trains.
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Sorry, to disappoint.Never received for first train as a child as a wrapped Christmas gift.(see below)..My dad was a modeler so,I ran his two rail O Scale

I have received Christmas money that I spent at Woolworth's and Halls hobby shop on trains but,until I was married there wasn't nary a train unwrapped on Christmas morn. My wife got me a Model Power RS11 for our first Christmas..I still have it safely tucked away and that remains the only train received as a wrapped Christmas gift.

Guys,off topic but,I would like to share the reason I usually got cash.

I was a hard child to buy for so,my family gave cash which usually totaled around $90.00.

A tidy sum of cash to spend on model trains every 26th day of December.
I can't say exactly what my first train was. I probably received a number of cheap tin windup sets in the late 40s -- I think one was a Rheingold.
I did receive a Hornby windup set sent over by an uncle in Scotland.
My first electric was a Hornby O gauge about 1950/51. That was never successful.
My first Lionel was in 1953 -- May I think. I'd accumulated enough money to buy it, somehow, but the money didn't come out of my savings account. The price was $57 in Canada. Dad was paying $50 a month rent at that time.
Much later, at the end of the 50s, I got an Athearn reefer, Mantua stock car, and a HObbyline switcher which were my first HO.
Just a bit off-topic, but not much...

While reading Catt's posts (Z-Scaler), I realized I have ALL gauges of trains...From an O scale set, the S scale I mention above, HO of course, and N and Z-Scale sets....
Is TT still a going concern..?? If so, I might have to get me one of those... Goldth
Gidday, From my Uncle and Aunt in England, 1963???
[attachment=15786]
Wonder what the Advertising Standards Authority would say about the packaging today. 357 All I can remember is that very small boy had alot of Fun.
Cheers, the Bear.
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