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 Posted - October 18 2013 : 07:15:47 AM
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For me, it was in 1955, when I noticed a small HO layout in a hardware store window display.
It had a Varney "Little Joe" 0-4-0 switcher pulling a short string of freight cars. They also had a Mantua "Goat" 0-4-0 that was used from time to time.
My first HO purchase was a Globe F7A Santa Fe diesel dummy and a Lindsay 4-wheel power truck frame. Also picked up a few Mantua metal side box cars and a couple of pieces of flex-track with fiber ties.
Edited by - Dan Vincent on October 18 2013 07:21:53 AM
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Posted - October 18 2013 : 08:30:46 AM
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Christmas of 1971. In a sense, the decision was made for me by a nice train set under the tree.
Carpe Manana!
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Posted - October 18 2013 : 10:50:27 AM
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I already had a Lionel set for a few years (1961 Xmas), then I went into a local hobby shop and saw the detail of the HO stuff (with no third rail!) and bought myself an Athearn BB flat car kit- that Christmas (1965) I got an Athearn train set and never left HO afterwards.
I also discovered Model Railroader on that hobby shop visit and bravely walked thru 10 blocks of sub-zero weather for many winters going to buy the magazine and an occasional BB kit- it could be 10 below zero outside (MInnesota) but the fun of getting into that hobby shop beat any bad weather!
Ron
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Posted - October 18 2013 : 1:17:18 PM
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| I had some train sets a few years before I had a layout. I believe the layout come along approximately 1972...
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Posted - October 18 2013 : 1:23:39 PM
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I had a Lionel 027 Rock Island set before called The Rock Island Line
Then I got a Bachmann Golden Spike set in the 1980s & it did NOT have the Golden Spike boxcar!
I used the same grean 4X8 board for that too Still got that green board but its used as a shelf sans track in my garage 
Plus HO does more or less fit with the Matchbox & Hot Wheels cars & I has ALOT plus semis & other trucks 
Atm no room for trains but still collecting them hehe
Edited by - microbusss on October 18 2013 1:25:28 PM
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Posted - October 18 2013 : 8:13:29 PM
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I think I was around 10 years old when I decided to make a foray into HO. I was making good money cutting grass, and I liked the smaller scale and more realistic detailing than the larger Lionel trainset I had( and still have ). I don't think I expanded much past age 17 or so, when I put them away for some years. But I occasionally got them out. Wasn't until I got my own house at age 42 that I finally got my trains from my parent's house in storage, and started up my long-time interest again. Now my house is FULL of HO ( to my wife's dismay, LOL ). Will try to downsize some of the stock, but still I enjoy collecting them. :)
Jerry
" When life throws you bananas...it's easy to slip up"
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Posted - October 18 2013 : 8:25:30 PM
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Jerry, sounds like my story. I'd cut grass for money in the summer and shoveled snow during the winter 
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Posted - October 18 2013 : 9:10:39 PM
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1975. I always was fascinated by trains and got battery operated toy train sets every Christmas probably since my first Christmas. (I'm not sure; I really can't remember quite that far back!) I got a Lionel starter set one year, probably 1974; the first electric set I ever had. Anyway, my Dad used to listen to Big Band records when I was little and naturally the songs "Chattanooga Choo Choo" and "On the Atchison, Topeka, and the Santa Fe" fascinated me. So when I saw Tyco's Chattanooga Choo Choo set I had to have it. It happened to be HO, so I sorta backed into the scale, but I've been with it ever since. I still have what's left of the locomotive, crane car and boom tender from that set, and some of the track.
Glenn
I was thinking of the immortal words of Socrates, who said, "... I drank what?"
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 Posted - October 18 2013 : 9:14:21 PM
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I love the smell of ozone - and fresh smoke fluid in the morning!!!
I received the first edition Chattanooga Choo-Choo set in 1976 as a birthday gift from my uncle. My father set it up on a 4ft. x 4ft piece of plywood, painted light blue. I had that set until the beginning of 1977, when the tender-driven motor gave out. I then focused on drawing and sketching, Legos and Star Wars stuff.
For Christmas of '77, my father went kinda wild and bought 3 of the second edition Chattanooga GP-20 sets (the full sets, not the "Express" edition - on sale at Sears for the holidays), and spent an hour or two each evening after supper, from Thanksgiving weekend of '77 'til Christmas Eve of '77, building a 4ft. x 13ft. layout, locking it away each evening in his office at my childhood home, until completed on Christmas Eve.
This layout had 3 loops all the way around, with a large 6 track yard on one end, and a spur for M.O.W. equipment (the Santa Fe crane and Boom Tender, and a gondola). One set was for him, one for me, and one for my sister, although I spent the most time with all 3 consists, running loops and switching the yard.
Immediately after Christmas, my mother made the mistake of telling my father that "trains are on sale" at the local K Mart. Dad ended up coming home with the "Comin 'Round The Mountain" and "Durango" sets, plus 5 each of several rolling stock - Virginian hoppers, U.P. gondolas, and the 2 62ft. Hi-Cubes and 3 40ft. Hi-Cubes.
For my birthday in 1978, I was at JC Penney with my family picking out clothes...and ended up hustling all of the chrome 40ft. tankers, the 4 DC Comics Boxcars, and a few cattle cars and 40ft. boxcars. This haul ranged from 39 cents to 89 cents (after Christmas sale).
There was a special ad in T.V. Guide in 1979 for cabeese @ twenty-nine cents each. He picked up 3 of each from that ad...the Gen. Purpose 689, Chatt (maroon), Chatt (red/yellow), U.P., Santa Fe, and Rock Island.
The layout survived until 1985 - until my father donated the layout board, track and a few buildings (sans the rolling stock and locos) to his Boy Scout troop for Railroading merit badge, and a diversion for anyone interested in model railroading during the week-long summer camps. I still have most of the original stuff, and all but 2 of the original locos run.
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Posted - October 19 2013 : 01:32:14 AM
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Didn't really decide, just came to me. Dad loved trains and had Tyco HO as a kid, when my brother was born in 93 he was immediately brought into HO trains by our mother. So when I came along in 96 it was only natural that I like trains. Now it's just me. My brother has his life at college, my parents let me do everything with my stuff. I build the layouts, I have bought all the engines and rolling stock since 2008, I restore, repair, and rebuild the engines. I do it all. And I've always got a box full of projects to move onto when I get one done. I'm always happy to be rebuilding and working on engines. It can be just me for as long as I live and i'll still be happy.
It's a part of my life. And I would not have the mechanical, electric, and tactical skills that I have now had it not been for HO trains. Like I always say, I always find more interest in rebuilding engines, then running them. I won't be happy till I get every one of my engines running. And if I do? Then I'll buy more project engines But I wouldn't expect to see that happen, and that's okay. I like knowing that I have more stuff to work on after I finish a certain project.
I'm only 17 so I'm very fortunate to be able to do what I do at such a young age. Having HO locomotives taught me how to be creative. And for that I'll be forever thankful!
I buy, repair, and collect
http://scvr.weebly.com/
http://seyboldlocomotiveworks.weebly.com/
http://www.youtube.com/user/TheDeputation?feature=watch
Hyde.
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Posted - October 19 2013 : 02:31:37 AM
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It all began Christmas 1980.....And it all blew up from there!!!!
~John
Many have tried to, and failed, ya just can't repair stupid...
Do NOT try to Idiot-Proof anything!!!! God, will simply create a better......IDIOT!
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Posted - October 19 2013 : 03:01:03 AM
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If it's possible to be born into it, I was - my dad had a large HO layout going from before I was born.
I think the first set I got was also a Tyco Chattanooga steam set, the one with the cardboard fold out mat with the photo print of a layout on it. 0-8-0, Conrail hopper, Southern Pulpwood car, Railbox box car, caboose -
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Posted - October 19 2013 : 11:38:07 AM
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My dad started model railroading in 1964. I was 3 years old, and I've been hooked ever since. 
-Thomas
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Posted - November 05 2013 : 9:30:32 PM
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Christmas 1996, I got this:
I was excited because it was my first "real" electric train. Back then I'd set it up on the floor and run it, and I got some additional track for it, and a few additional cars as well. This started my love for HO-scale trains AND Life-Like.
But it wasn't until Christmas 2000 where I really began to get into model railroading (with plywood, sidings and everything), when I got this train set:
My trains are still set up on that very same 4x8 piece of plywood I set up that Railroad Empire train set on back in 2000.
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Posted - November 05 2013 : 10:50:25 PM
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I honestly have no idea how or when I became interested in trains.  My mom used to bring the "I Love Toy Trains" videos home from the library when I was little and I can't remember a year when I haven't gone to a train show, which is strange since no one in my family has even a remote interest in trains.
I bought my first HO train car when I was about five (with birthday money I guess), but didn't have an actual working set until I turned eight. My parents were determined to follow that damn "children 8+" label on the box. -__- Ah well, I'm sure I've more that over compensated for those first eight years!
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Posted - November 06 2013 : 06:48:55 AM
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From a very young age I was hooked on trains... Dad built me a 4x8 figure 8 layout with a life like train set and it went from there. My motive power consisted of everything from a Tyco Santa FE GP20 to an old Athearn GP38 that made strange grinding noises... I must have had over 60 pieces of rolling stock, and when I turned 12 I sold it all for 50 bucks to get into RC cars! FACEPALM!
Now that I'm in college and I've got an entertainment budget, I got back into the hobby in 2010 and joined my local model railroad club. Onwards and upwards!
J.B.
Modeling the modern-day SPSF in HO scale
https://www.facebook.com/SPandSF?ref=hl
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babuff
Little Six
Status:
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Posted - November 06 2013 : 11:18:42 AM
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| for me it was almost form day one. my father bought some a.c. gilbert/ american flyer cars and a hudson ( not the automobile, strictly a GM man) after the war 1946, and kept them stored in the closet in their aprtment. It was after he bought his house that he put up an open oval bench for them in the basement. It was 1954 that I saw my first HO layout in a department store window and I was hooked. It was a little varney 0-4-0 with some red ball cars.(didn't know you had to build them, but to a 9 yr old boy it didn't matter) still got the engine and a couple of the reefers made of paper board sides.
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Posted - November 06 2013 : 11:26:01 AM
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| I had gotten a used Mantua Pacific for my bithday. And I started some customization work on it, sent it to Yardbird for remotoring and detailing. And then I had gotten more and more engines.
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n/a
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Posted - November 06 2013 : 1:39:15 PM
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quote:I had gotten a used Mantua Pacific for my bithday. And I started some customization work on it, sent it to Yardbird for remotoring and detailing. And then I had gotten more and more engines.
Originally posted by LGLrr845Â -Â November 06 2013Â :Â 11:26:01 AM
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My first train set was a Hafner in the mid-1940's. it's been so long ago I barely remember it, but it was a wind-up 0-4-0 with a stmped gondola with a V-shaped interior and a red caboose. I have no idea what happened to it, but the next trainset was a Marx Canadian Pacific 0-4-0 and three freight cars and a caboose.
What I consider my REAL introduction to model railroading was in 1953 when I purchased an AF S Gauge set witha 283 Pacific (you whippersnappers probably don't even know what that is) and six freight cars. Thirty years later, I tried to find any remnant of that set that my mother had thrown away, but never did. However, S stuck with me, and by 1974 I was ensconced in craftsman construction of S scale cars and engines. By 1982, I had a five locomotive set of brass kit-built engines. 1980 saw the release of the first imported S scale brass models (I have an RS-2 and 2-RS-3's from that release.
More later, ther dog's about to get my lunch!
"S"tring boB
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Posted - November 06 2013 : 5:14:22 PM
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quote: [quote]I had gotten a used Mantua Pacific for my bithday. And I started some customization work on it, sent it to Yardbird for remotoring and detailing. And then I had gotten more and more engines.
Originally posted by LGLrr845Â -Â November 06 2013Â :Â 11:26:01 AM
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Anyway, I snatched my lunch from the jaws of the hungry dog, and now I'm back. The timeline for my model railroad efforts would be as follows:
1946-1953 -- Hafner and Marx tinplate and 0-27
1953-1958 -- American Flyer, then a two year break to chase girls
1960- 1972 -- Girl caught, started modeling HO with a Mantua Booster 0-4-0T and a handful of freight cars
1972-present -- S scale modeler
2013 -- Began to dabble in HO again via Ebay
RBNicholson
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Posted - November 06 2013 : 7:19:34 PM
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I had no say in the matter. My dad got me hooked on N-scale trains as soon as I could talk ("8 and up?" What does that mean? Oh, he's 18 months old, that's old enough...) by bringing out his old set from when he was a kid in the 60's. I only learned last month, having wondered for 15 years, that it started with an Aurora postage-stamp train set (I found a boxed one and it looked awful familiar.) Normally, a toddler wouldn't be so keen on N-scale trains, but I was enchanted and never broke a single car 'till I was 8.
Mom and Dad gave me an HO starter set for my 5th birthday, an Amtrak one on my 6th, and it's just spiralled out of control yet. My dad regrets he ever showed me those trains, I always tell him it's his fault that they're taking over the house!
--CRC
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Posted - November 06 2013 : 7:22:51 PM
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quote:| My mom used to bring the "I Love Toy Trains" videos home from the library when I was little and I can't remember a year when I haven't gone to a train show, which is strange since no one in my family has even a remote interest in trains. Originally posted by DaCheez - November 05 2013 : 10:50:25 PM
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This is me as well. I still have every one of those stinkin' videos, and they all think I'm nuts for liking trains so much...
--CRC
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 Posted - November 06 2013 : 9:09:50 PM
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If I remember correctly, the only videos the library near me had were numbers 1,2,3, and 9. I never saw the rest. I still have copies of the first three on VHS. 
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Posted - November 10 2013 : 9:29:54 PM
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| As long as I can remember in the 70's as a kid my parents had a pool table,they never played much pool as dad put up a train table on top of the pool table and had his trains then and I broke alot of them. Fast forward to 2008,i started rebuying everything again for my dad and we have a layout together now. now the grandkids play with them too under much supervision now.
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Posted - May 11 2014 : 12:43:45 AM
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| 2010 i bought a mantua shifter in the great northern glacier scheme
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Posted - May 11 2014 : 01:12:15 AM
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I know I've already said this a bzillion times on this forum but my first H0 scale train was in 2004 when I got an Athearn train set. Here are the pictures I have of it.
-Steve
"A lot of modellers out there who go to these train shows see broken HO stuff and go, 'This is useless' when, in reality, they can still be used for modeling whether it's as a prop on your layout or a cool project to make something old new again."
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 Posted - December 25 2019 : 09:53:11 AM
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Grandmother bought a Lionel O scale steam set for me 53 years ago.
After that set was used and damaged it was thrown out in 1971.
Stepfather bought a HO scale Tyco Santa Fe passenger set in 1973.
No photo of it. Thrown away years later but acquired another set later.
That makes it 46 years in the HO scale club for me.
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Posted - December 25 2019 : 11:01:48 AM
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Wishing all my TF friends a very happy holiday, and years of creativity to come!
Great thread. I never get tired of hearing the stories, Kovocste, this is the first
time I've read your post, also. WKS, what a great picture- adulthood seemed
like a million miles away, no?
For me, it was in 1966 in Shiplake, England, where we were following Dad on
his academic career. I saw my first trainset, maybe around 1964, I
was awe struck. I got my trainset in '66. It was a little Wrenn OO
wind up affair, with a small oval of track. To this day I managed to keep the
Robertson's Currant Jam wagon- and little by little I reconstructed what
I remember that wind up set contained.
The model railroad bug bit me hard- computers were largely science fiction-
and for a kid this the bomb. This thread gives me an excuse to rerun this
video, decades later, the bug still got me:
https://youtu.be/iZel38A182E
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Posted - December 25 2019 : 1:44:22 PM
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My parents got annoyed of my screaming and yelling when I was two. So they bit the bullet and introduced me to the TV. Of course, it was my boy Thomas the tank who was on. Seasons 6 - 9 were what I watched. I ended up getting lots of thomas DVDs, and watched them there. My love of trains was fostered then.
The wooden railway and track master served me until I was about 6. My dad took me to a yard sale and they had trains. My dad found two sets. A rock island line set, and a 0-4-0 saddle tank set. Both lionel, both cheap. The sets were circa 1970, even though it was like 2012. The fact that the sets were old, and we had just started getting into it was what led us to sell the O scale. I never had plywood. I remember taking gobs of copy paper and coloring each one green with crayon for grass!
My dad also figured O was too big. We went to a train show a few years later, and bought some random HO trains. My first HO was a layout of EZ track, a lionel Daylight, john bull, tyco 430, and the tyco transformers loco.
Only the daylight worked, but its gears are cracked now. Soon after, I somewhat lost interest, but once I started conjuring ideas for my series in 2016, I bought a V2 Bmann Jupiter, and started HO collecting from then on. Now I'm an expert and know everything about these models.
We actually had an HO model power 0-4-0 set that went around the tree when I was really young, and sold it, then went to O, then back to HO. Ha! I will NEVER go back to O!!
The Rock Island Line Set
Edited by - BlaxlandAlex3 on December 25 2019 1:52:39 PM
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Posted - December 27 2019 : 12:18:42 AM
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| I would like to see those pics, Kavocste.
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Posted - December 27 2019 : 12:32:45 AM
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quote:My dad started model railroading in 1964. I was 3 years old, and I've been hooked ever since.
-Thomas
Originally posted by Redwoods - October 19 2013 : 11:38:07 AM
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Glad to report, I'm still hooked!
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Posted - December 27 2019 : 09:00:10 AM
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quote:!
The Rock Island Line Set
Originally posted by BlaxlandAlex3Â -Â December 25 2019Â :Â 1:44:22 PM
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THAT'S the one I had!
it had thin cardboard signs, a bridge & buildings!
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Posted - December 27 2019 : 09:03:02 AM
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quote: quote:!
The Rock Island Line Set
Originally posted by BlaxlandAlex3Â -Â December 25 2019Â :Â 1:44:22 PM
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THAT'S the one I had!
it had thin cardboard signs, a bridge & buildings!
Originally posted by microbusss - December 27 2019 : 09:00:10 AM
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Yep! I could never get the tunnel to fold properly, so dad made me a tunnel out of paper mache!
Edited by - BlaxlandAlex3 on December 27 2019 09:03:24 AM
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