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 Posted - December 14 2005 : 7:06:30 PM
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I recall it was Christmas 30 years ago this year, The Switcher Freight
The old silver and red Santa Plymouth, Swift reefer, UP gon w/pipes and caboose...
I remember running it round and round the kitchen floor and then we tacked it down on some plywood the next week....
I then saved my coins and bought a Baby Ruth reefer....
In celebration of the 30th, I was able to put together a similar set for my son this year.... Its fun how we can bring back memories with this stuff....It's in many ways better than a Micro-Trains or Kato habit...:)
What was your first set?
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Brian
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Posted - December 15 2005 : 08:23:31 AM
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The first train set I ever had when I was a kid was a Tyco HO set featuring the Chatanooga Diesel loco and caboose.....I can't remember what the set was exactly. I do still have the engine,caboose, and cars in my small collection today.
I believe I was about 2 or 3 at the time...... so that would be '78 or '79 [:D]
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Posted - December 16 2005 : 3:38:21 PM
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Two bitter-sweet memories of Tyco sets:
The first set I remember seeing was in the basement of my father's business partner. It was a table-top full of old blue-box and early red-box era trains with a silver RF-16 cast-metal shark pulling a rake of extruded aluminum cars being indelibly branded in memory. My brothers and I were also struck by a string of B&O silhouette cars; we went home to our battered hand-me-down Lionels and dreamed of TYCO.
Later, after trains were superseded by girls, cars and football on my priority list, my youngest brother, Tony--stricken with MD, wheelchair-bound and fast-losing his ability to use his hands--put a model 7311 over-and-under freight on the top of his Santa list. I remember taking the set off the shelf in the "toy basement" of Accola and Osterfund's Hardware store and walking the set up the steps so Tony could get a pre-Santa look. His smiles were matched only by recognizing the gift-wrapped contours of the set-box under the tree Christmas morning. It was his favorite toy. I will never forget the joy it brought to my brother and that memory is was Tyco is all about to me.
Steve S.
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pcerio
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Posted - January 04 2006 : 3:58:05 PM
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I received a Tyco Brown Box set with a Chessie System engine for Christmas in 1974. I believe it was the Long Hauler 7317, but only because that seems to be the only set available in '74 with a Chessie engine.
I saw a set just like mine at a local train show about 3 yrs ago for $99. I wish I bought it. Hopefully one will pop up again.
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kslrr
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Posted - January 14 2006 : 01:06:59 AM
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I can not remember the specific name of my first set. It was freight with the Santa Fe C430, a flat car with 3 pipe sections, an auto transport, a piggy back with loading platform, I think 2 refers and a caboose. It also had the over-under trestle/bridge set and a freight station. I still have the C430 (and have collected 3 more) and all of the rolling stock in verious states of disrepair/upgrading, the freight station and most of the trestle pieces. My father had weathered the caboose (which now has Kadee couplers and trucks) and the station which is now on my latest layout.
Keep those Tyco's rollin'.
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rrfan
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Posted - January 22 2006 : 11:23:51 AM
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quote:Two bitter-sweet memories of Tyco sets:
The first set I remember seeing was in the basement of my father's business partner. It was a table-top full of old blue-box and early red-box era trains with a silver RF-16 cast-metal shark pulling a rake of extruded aluminum cars being indelibly branded in memory. My brothers and I were also struck by a string of B&O silhouette cars; we went home to our battered hand-me-down Lionels and dreamed of TYCO.
Later, after trains were superseded by girls, cars and football on my priority list, my youngest brother, Tony--stricken with MD, wheelchair-bound and fast-losing his ability to use his hands--put a model 7311 over-and-under freight on the top of his Santa list. I remember taking the set off the shelf in the "toy basement" of Accola and Osterfund's Hardware store and walking the set up the steps so Tony could get a pre-Santa look. His smiles were matched only by recognizing the gift-wrapped contours of the set-box under the tree Christmas morning. It was his favorite toy. I will never forget the joy it brought to my brother and that memory is was Tyco is all about to me.
Steve S.
Originally posted by MagnoliaAcademy - December 16 2005 : 7:38:21 PM
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rrfan
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Posted - January 22 2006 : 11:26:33 AM
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quote:Two bitter-sweet memories of Tyco sets:
The first set I remember seeing was in the basement of my father's business partner. It was a table-top full of old blue-box and early red-box era trains with a silver RF-16 cast-metal shark pulling a rake of extruded aluminum cars being indelibly branded in memory. My brothers and I were also struck by a string of B&O silhouette cars; we went home to our battered hand-me-down Lionels and dreamed of TYCO.
Later, after trains were superseded by girls, cars and football on my priority list, my youngest brother, Tony--stricken with MD, wheelchair-bound and fast-losing his ability to use his hands--put a model 7311 over-and-under freight on the top of his Santa list. I remember taking the set off the shelf in the "toy basement" of Accola and Osterfund's Hardware store and walking the set up the steps so Tony could get a pre-Santa look. His smiles were matched only by recognizing the gift-wrapped contours of the set-box under the tree Christmas morning. It was his favorite toy. I will never forget the joy it brought to my brother and that memory is was Tyco is all about to me.
Steve S.
Originally posted by MagnoliaAcademy - December 16 2005 : 7:38:21 PM
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Posted - February 13 2006 : 11:20:08 PM
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| My first Ho scale train set was a TYCO Rock Island shark nose. It was on christmas morning 1979 that i awoke and ran into the living room and there it was, under the tree all set up. I plugged the power pack in and let'r rip. It went so fast it derailed in the curve. The set had a bridge and trestle. The tyco catalog lists the set as 1980 but was available in late 79 as i got one. Later on i recieved a tyco royal blue steam engine. I took it out of the box and it ran about 10 minutes before the motor fried in it. My mom took me back the next day to get a replacement and they were sold out-so i got the tyco GG1 pennsylvania Black version. While i enjoy the new stuff- nothing can bring back the vivid memories like tyco has nor is anything produced today as far as action accessories like tyco had back in the late 70's or 80's.
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Posted - February 15 2006 : 3:23:37 PM
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I received my first TYCO set for my birthday in 1972, the Switcher Freight. Just about wore out that poor 0-4-0 Santa Fe engine over the years. I replaced the motor with a Mantua replacement motor in the 1990s, and it runs better than ever.
I've been able to replace the cars that I sold, and once again have my first set. I've graduated up to scale railroading, but TYCO trains still have a special place for me.
Pat
Yes, my first train set was a TYCO!
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Posted - November 24 2006 : 11:49:50 AM
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I remember a friend of my dad had a Tyco train on his kitchen table once when we visited him. My eye level was just above the table so I had a great view of the trains rolling around the track. I fell in love with them and wanted a set badly! And I got one for Christmas!
The first set I had was "The Santa Fe Freight" that I received for Christmas in the late 60's when I was around 7 or 8 years old. It had the:
430 (or 630) Santa Fe red and silver engine
Great Western flat car with culvert pipes
Dairyman's reefer
Burlington Route hopper
Santa Fe piggyback flat car w/SF trailers and platform
SF boxcar
Electric log dump car w/bin
and SF caboose
Telephone poles and signs
I had the set for a long time but wasn't allowed to run it with the electric power pack. (My dad said that I'd burn the house down.) The set is long gone but I have since duplicated this set with the 630, but no box.
I still remember going back to bed that Christmas Eve night with the set at my bedside, too excited to go to sleep!
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Posted - November 24 2006 : 4:35:25 PM
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Great stories so far Guys,
I was 5 years old and for Christmas,Santa left me a Life Like train set.
It had the Santa Fe 0-4-0t docksider,yellow UP hopper,Santa Fe caboose.
The best part was the special Toys R Us reefer car with it's many colors.
I nearly ran the wheels off that engine,and the caboose got broke.
A few years later,Santa left me a Lionel HO Santa Fe diesel set under the tree.
I tore the wrapping paper off as fast as i could,and put the Blue Alco FA on the track under the tree.
I turned on the power and NOTHING! The engine was dead.
Very disapointed I ran the new freight cars with the tired Docksider.
The next day my parents went to the store where (Santa) got my set to exchange it for another one,but to no avail,they were all sold out.
So the store manager replaced the Santa Fe diesel with a TYCO Amtrak F9 and all was well again.
I remember that Amtrak loco was the best running engine I had for years.
As I grown up I lost track of that engine,so I'm looking for one to bring back old memories.
Carl T.
President of the Cape James Terminal RR.
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Posted - November 24 2006 : 5:58:34 PM
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Steve (MagAc)...That was an AWESOME story, sir. My memories of this stuff also hold strong family ties. That was GREAT of you to get that set for him.
My first set was the Chattanooga Choo Choo 2-8-0 with smoke, 7731, in 1975. My Uncle Floyd bought it for me (I think it was a 5th B-Day gift).
A 36"x45" oval of goodness. Gulf triple dome, Old Dutch ACF Hopper, Baby Ruth reefer, ATSF Crane Car & Boom Tender, Center Cupola caboose, 17pc. Bridge/Trestle set, and Payday/Maxwell House Whistling Billboard.
Whenever I smell the petroleum-distillate smoke of that engine...I am immediately transported to 1975...powder-blue footed pajamas, sitting cross-legged behind the sofa, on a cold February evening...with the soft 60-watt glow of the decorative lamps from the endtables lighting the oval of track, The Rockford Files spilling out into the air, slightly muffled from the wheat-grilled Zenith console TV speakers and the front of the sofa, listening to Jim and Angel argue about a case between the Billboard Whistle and nickel-steel wheels passing over not-too-tightly-assembled brass track...and the comforting smells of a home-cooked dinner recently removed from the table and put away, Ivory dishwashing liquid from washing the dishes-by hand-in the sink, and my mother's perfume and my father's cologne...just barely permeating the air...ever so slightly...just enough to be put at ease, if only for an hour of a five-year-old's little world. All is well tonight. Clickety-clack, clickety-clack.
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Posted - November 25 2006 : 8:32:03 PM
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Steel Hauler,
I think you had a set with the 430. Mine was SF. The cars you listed are the ones I still have. That's why I use Alco Fan as a screen name. The engine is complete and runs and I run it often, only missing the front uncoupling pin. I love the slow speed growl it has, who needs a sound system? I don't think I have ever used the operating log car. I don't have the set box but have the individual boxes minus some liners. Like most kids I didn't use it much because of not having good track work and ,oh yeh, it derailed alot because, I ran it fast. I think I was 14 when I got it for Christmas and about a year later got interested in motorcycles. I got it back out about 22 1/2 years ago to put around our first Christmas tree.
Alco Fan
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kevin
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Posted - November 30 2006 : 12:01:28 AM
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| Santa fe? 74' I do remember the Rock Island distinctively 76'. Mom bought us a new set every Christmas. 1st engine was Super Spirit, my brother's Chessis. 1st set I bought myself was The Golden Eagle 84-85? from the local hobby shop. (Sat around for a while)
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thesid
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Posted - December 16 2006 : 09:21:50 AM
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| Rock Island(4301) rail was my first train set. My Dad bought it for me one Christmas. After many years, there was one time I was going to sell it at rummage sale and my Dad interveined. I glad he did. Since then, never had the heart to get rid of it.
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Posted - November 04 2007 : 08:40:23 AM
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My first Tyco set was sort of a mish-mash of trains put together by "Santa" when I was six years old. I had begged and begged all year for a Tyco set after seeing all the neat boxed sets up for sale at Caldor's and W.T. Grants and the commercials that ran between the cartoons on Saturday morning. I had loved trains since I was a toddler and would sit transfixed in total awe whenever we would get stopped by a passing train at the railroad crossing in town.
So when the big morning rolled along and it was time to run downstairs to claim all the "loot" from under the tree, I was off the wall excited to see a TRAIN rolling around under the tree! The set was not a boxed set per-say....it was a set that had been put together from different single items. A wide oval had been tacked down to the board holding up the tree, and a few buildings were set up. My train consisted of a silver and red warbonnet Tyco F9A hauling a Tyco Texaco tank car, two Tyco 40 foot box cars with opening doors (one Penn Central, one Burlington), an AHM Santa Fe 40 foot box car, three AHM modern livestock cars, and an Athearn Rio Grande caboose. Right there, I didn't care if it wasn't a boxed set...the train was long, the engine was shiny, and I was the engineer!!! With a few minutes of "training" from my father (not running at full speed, bring the train to a complete stop before changing directions, how to put the cars on the track) I was up and running...spending all day going backwards and forwards, coupling and uncoupling, loading the box cars with candy as cargo, lining up the cars in various order and so on. Everybody who came over for Christmas that week were happily asked by me to "come run trains with me!"
After Christmas, my father and I set to work building a permanent layout on a big sheet of plywood in the downstairs family room. A trip to the hobby shop yeilded a few turnouts and some more track. And a few weeks later a second hand Tyco Pennsy F9 and a Fleichmann Baldwin switcher in Chicago and Northwestern joined my roster. I was on my way!
I still have the Fleishmann switcher and a few of the cars from the original set running on my as-yet-to-be completed layout. But remembering that fun Christmas morning with my father giving me lessons and seeing that big train rolling is a permanent fond memory. Looks like I have my task cut out for me at the next train show...reclaiming the original train and consist from that morning!
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Posted - June 07 2009 : 11:27:41 AM
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| Mine was the Super Over & Under from 1971 which had the Burlington (CB&Q) train. I got it for Christmas that year with the money I earned picking up black walnuts out in the field, there was alot of walnut trees on the farm. I also did other chores on the farm as well. All I have left of this set is the train itself. The Burlington GP-20 has never been taken apart for major servicing, but I've replaced couplers on it whenever they got damaged. this locomotive was made before Tyco came out with the now infamous Power Torque drive. I received this set by mail order, and like most mail order items, packaging varies. The locomotive, flat car with tractors, and the Autoloader and 6 autos came in red boxes and every thing else came in brown boxes. I do not have the original boxes to prove it, but I remember how i received it. I give the locomotive an oiling when it needs it and it still runs fine. It's 38 years old and still running strong.
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Posted - December 16 2009 : 10:47:14 PM
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Since  We have a lot of new members -- If you haven't shared your Christmas morning first train experience -What are you waitng for? We want to hear it
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Posted - December 16 2009 : 11:11:26 PM
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Hmmm - "first train set". In my case, it's somewhat convoluted.
When I was either 2 or 3 years old (this would be either Christmas 1982 or Christmas 1983), my father received a Chattanooga Choo-Choo set with the 0-8-0 variant and a Baby Ruth chug-chug car. I don't recall what the other cars were except that there was a red Chattanooga caboose and a checkerboard Ralston Purina reefer car.
Now, this set was Dad's, but I was allowed to play with it every now and then. Dad would set it up and show me how to run it (slow), and how to treat it carefully. Over the years, stuff went missing or got thrown out, but somewhere I still have the shell of the Purina car.
The first set that was MINE came for Christmas '87. I got a Bachmann "CN Hustler" set. As I recall, they were available in two flavors - CN and CP - and were the Canadian versions of the Bachmann "Diesel Hustler" set. The sets came with an F9, a 4-bay coal hopper, a plug-door boxcar, and a wide-vision caboose (this later got changed for the CB&Q-prototype streamlined-cupola caboose). My set came with a later-sergeant-stripe F9 numbered CN 9162, a silver plugdoor box with black CN lettering, a boxcar red CN hopper and the red caboose (CP sets had a green CP Rail box and a black CP Rail hopper).
The F9 burned out its motor somewhere around '92 or so and was retired, but by then I'd gotten other locos and cars. The bug had bitten.
I have a photo taken at around 8:00 AM on that Christmas of 1987, showing seven-year-old me dressed in the height of Christmas-morning fashion - long johns, blue ones at that - sitting just outside that circle of track watching that F9 highballing with a hotshot time freight (well, in my mind at least - that plugdoor reefer was full of fresh Nova Scotia fish after all). My Dad - who in 1987 was only five years older than I am now - is sitting to my right watching the look on my face.
Kris Carver-Seaboyer
Modelling the Grafton Terminal Railway, set in New Brunswick, Canada in the 1978-1984 time frame
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Posted - December 17 2009 : 12:30:33 AM
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My first wasn't a Tyco. It was a Life-Like set from either the Sears or JCPenney catalog. Two trains, a GP38-2 in Delaware and Hudson, and an 0-4-0 in Union Pacific. Just the other day I broke out those locos and the original rolling stock to run a "nostalgia train."
My first Tyco was a simple Shazam! billboard boxcar that was on a dusty shelf at the old hobby shop. I think it was the only Tyco item I ever saw back then.
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Posted - December 17 2009 : 01:02:53 AM
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Great topic! Funny I don't have any idea what started my fairly large layout from 1970-77. Funny I remember nearly anthing about my old layout except what got me started with Tyco trains...
Walt
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Posted - December 17 2009 : 3:10:47 PM
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Deep in the locked vault of childhood lies one of my earliest memories - one of the scarce, fleeting type that can't be specifically time lined but for clues that appear later and the relationships to other non-timelineable haze:- a small apartment with an oversize artificial Christmas tree and an HO train set underneath. This set was Lionel's "Burlington 181" with the famous BN GP30, GT boxcar, Rio Grande gon (or hopper, as ours was), BN hopper, DOW tanker, P&LE coil car, and BN caboose. Running wild on a piece of plywood covered in Life-Like dyed sawdust mat, pockmarked with holes my dad used for inserting Christmas lights to illuminate the Tyco buildings (Arlee Station, Interlocking Tower, Machine Shop) that comprised the under-tree landscape. I loved the sound of the train and the myriad colors the Christmas lights' soft glow enshrouded it in. The BN logo actually terrified me as it looked like some sort of monster - but I was enthralled all the same (and of course saw countless real ones throughout our neighborhood).
But this was not my train, so my excited hands were smacked aside on occasions far too numerous. The tanker became a hapless victim of some incident, and I remember seeing a load in the coil car which, to a toddler like me, looked like some sort of great big Vanilla Tootsie Roll, and was promptly treated as such - to the peril of both the train and myself.
Of course I'd later find out Lionel's HO foray was short-lived in the 70's... but I know that set was bought new, probably as discount overstock. So I could only have been two at the time. Maybe almost three when I accidentally "broke" the train, which would have been the first Christmas in the house I would grow up in. That would have been 1979. I don't remember much from those younger days, it's all a blur. But I remember seeing that train, even though its very existence was denied every time I asked about it.
When I was 7 (1985) I got my first train set at Christmas: a GI Joe set by Tyco. I was beyond excited of course but there were a few problems: I never got to have the army men or accessories, because my little brother was only 2 and would have eaten them. Which meant without this context, the train had no point and looked absolutely nothing like the ones that surrounded my house. So while I was delighted, it was somewhat tempered. I begged to have the train I barely remembered to go with it, but again was denied it ever existed - even though I had seen the plywood base with Christmas bulbs buried immobile in our garage, behind a dead chopper motorcycle a parental friend had been storing there.
It didn't help that the Tyco locomotive burned up after maybe a month. I was blamed for this, and forbidden by my mom from receiving more trains or anything new "because I couldn't take care of anything". Rats. The "Tyco" name was often cursed, even at a young age.
Fortunately an uncle and aunt came to the rescue for my birthday in 1987, taking me to Child World to pick *whatever* I wanted. Bachmann's Overland Limited set was of course biting a bit too much... but their Diesel Hustler with Santa Fe F9, TheRock boxcar, UP hopper and SF caboose was just the ticket. Plus a couple extra model power cars to add right off the bat! New motive power meant I could resurrect the GIJoe consist, and I was back in business... until the Bachmann unit burned up. Carpet, you see... sharing a room with my brother meant there was no room for a "permanent" layout, and even the GIJoe mat with plywood got banged up pretty good, with assists from my brother. My mom was nonetheless furious that I had "picked another damn train he won't take care of" but honestly, you have any idea how fragile that HO toy junk was back in the day? Especially when it had to be "set up and put away" every single time, with no proper storage, and a destructive kid brother sharing the room?
A couple years later I got the surprise of my life when, on a random summer afternoon, I came home to find a huge cardboard box containing the Life-Like foam layout resting on my bed. A Toys-R-Us special my dad got me "just for being a good kid" as he said (to my mom's chagrin). That proved a steady and reliable setup, my first "permanent" layout even if the geography made no sense whatsoever.
In 7th/8th grade a friend of mine was working on a layout and this finally proved the motivation and inspiration to build a real layout. My brother and I had been moved into a larger room, my mom had finally left, and so my dad allowed me to build a custom permanent layout in the room using the mysterious 4x6 plywood base in the garage, and take me to hobby stores that sold honest-to-goodness *model* trains. Athearn was a godsend - no more balky, horrid, unreliable break-if-you-sneeze Tyco and Bachmann locomotives! But not before he finally relented and gave me the old Lionel set I remembered as a kid: a little beat-up, and far too similar to those Bachmann locos I'd sworn off, but no matter. I knew I didn't imagine it after all!
So which of those is my first: The one that taunted my memories all through childhood? The first one that was given specifically to me only to be immediately half taken away? The one I stubbornly bought a couple years later only to have destroyed by the various uncontrollable forces of childhood? The one that was properly gifted once my siblings were old enough to respect it? Or the one I cobbled together with those remnants and others, thus rescuing that first childhood memory from the garage for once and for all? It doesn't matter. They all started me on a path toward a hobby that's lasted a lifetime so far - and provided endless friendship and adventure everywhere I go.
Edited by - GoingInCirclez on December 17 2009 10:45:28 PM
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Posted - December 17 2009 : 4:11:04 PM
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Well, like many here, my first set was not a Tyco.
I suppose my first set was an old Marx O scale set. I was maybe 6 or 7. Even when I got it, many pieces were missing and the set as a whole did not function. It had already lived through the childhood of a previous generation, so there was little I could do to harm it further. Plus, looking at it now, it was more or less built to be abused. So I would hook up the tracks and push everything around by hand. Because the locomotive did not work, I used a work caboose as the engine. 
The first set that was bought for me was a Life-Like hunk o' junk. Diesel Thunder I think it as called. I remember quite vividly firing it up for the first time, and the power truck snapping out of place about 10 minutes later!  
Much like GIC before me, I was blamed for the problems with the set. And into the basement it went...until about three years ago, when I was looking for something else and happened to find it.
This particular set came with some road signs and signal lights. I was very much into 1:24 model cars at that point, and decided to build and paint some of the accessories to see how they'd look with my model cars. Too small obviously! But I started taking more and more pieces out of the box, until I eventually had the whole thing set up. Seeing this little empire beginning to grow, I decided to expand. I saved up my change and whatever I found on the ground until I could afford a very basic Bachmann set.
And it was this Bachmann set that really got the ball rolling. This was one of their modern sets mind you, so compared to everything previous it was like a Cadillac.
I kept saving up after that, buying new sections of track or freight cars when I could. And that led to buying different locomotives, and then buildings, etc. After receiving a substantial sum of money for my birthday, I decided to buy some lumber and screws and build a 4'x8' table to run the ever growing train set on.
And not too long after that, I joined this forum. That's how it goes! 
Here's some early shots not long after I built the plywood table:
And I can't forget Woody of course! He'll be your friend till the end! This grainy old fellow is made of scrap benchwork pieces, and he's followed me through most of my adventures in model railroading. His pipe and eyes are knots I pushed out of a plank. I think I used spruce to make the table...I would only recommend it for the price. The quality of the wood itself was quite poor!
    
- Matt -
Edited by - MM 1498 on December 17 2009 4:15:49 PM
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Posted - December 17 2009 : 5:15:56 PM
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| hehe my 1st HO wasn't Tyco it was a Bachmann Golden Spike 1980-1981Similar to the one in Tony's site & I want ya'll to know I hated the blinking bridge! It used power from the rails & would slow down the loco
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Posted - December 17 2009 : 10:37:52 PM
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My first train was a Tyco I got for Christmas in 1975. It was a Spirit of 76 over and under figure 8 set up. My brothers and I set it up and ran it for hours. Like many others here there wasn't room for a permanent layout so it would be set up and taken down many times. After a lot of whining my dad finally relented space in the basement for a permanent layout.
After saving money from the paper route I bought the layout expander system and the first 4 x 8 was born. I tried to follow the layout expander manual as far as accessories go, adding the piggy back unloader, unloading box car, etc.
The layout went into hibernation for around 10 years after high school to be rejuvinated. At first it was the same 4 x 8. I moved to a larger house with a big basement and built a 12 x 16 layout, all the layouts have seen the Spirit of 76. I still have it and it still runs. The set box is long gone but the individual boxes are still intact.
I did find the exact set on ebay last year or the year before that in shrink wrap. I bought it for old times sake. What memories.
Tom
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Posted - December 18 2009 : 03:34:38 AM
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 I recieved this Mark set at Christmas in 1971.. I was 11 and never saved the original box. I still have the set & get it out and run it once in a while. I don't think this was my first train set though. I had several slotcar sets back then starting with the Motorific, Matchbox, T-Jet, AFX & Tyco. Only the Marx train set & Motorific Wildcat set shows up in our photo album during those years... Walt
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Posted - December 22 2009 : 7:54:39 PM
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My first train was a Tyco Rock Island Line (7239) in 1976, at Christmas. All of the pieces were made in USA, and I still have them ALL. They've been well-loved. I accidentally saw the box in the trunk of the car at K-Mart, although I didn't get a good enough look at it to realize WHAT it was. Christmas morning was spent with my dad who probably had as much fun as I did setting it up and playing with it. The realistic (at least to me) metal handrails and all the neat details made me fall in love with Tyco trains for life. I don't CARE if the billboard cars didn't exist - it's a fantasy railroad for me and will always be so.
For my 9th birthday the following May in 1977, I got $10 to spend any way I wanted. It was straight to K-Mart for cars. I got THREE things for $10 including a Santa Fe switcher that, looking back on it now, had been returned, but it STILL runs and I've never even lubed it. My parents told that story the other night as we're visiting them for Christmas.
Rus
Starting my Tyco and other favorites collection over again after 37 years.
My still in progress list of inventory and wantlist: tyconut.com
Edited by - Tyco Nut on December 22 2009 9:58:07 PM
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Posted - December 22 2009 : 9:22:18 PM
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For me it started Christmas 1965 with a Lionel uncatalogued X616 Canadian National Set.
How a set that was targeted for the Canadian market ever made it down to a EJ Korvettes down in central New Jersey is still a 44 year old mystery ???
Still have the loco but the motor has been replaced twice.
BT
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Posted - December 22 2009 : 11:54:58 PM
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quote:For me it started Christmas 1965 with a Lionel uncatalogued X616 Canadian National Set.
How a set that was targeted for the Canadian market ever made it down to a EJ Korvettes down in central New Jersey is still a 44 year old mystery ???
Still have the loco but the motor has been replaced twice.
BT
Wow, that is a mystery. It is not close to CN colours...
Mike
Originally posted by taycotrains-December 22 2009: 9:22:18 PM
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Posted - December 23 2009 : 4:16:04 PM
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1971 - "red box"-era freight set:
Santa Fe "Warbonnet" AA F's
New Haven 50' boxcar
Texaco tank car
Western Maryland flat w/tractors
Dairyman's League woodside reefer
Santa Fe streamlined caboose
also possible a UP gondola in the set - not sure (although I have one kept with the rest of the remains of the set)
and a Santa Fe flatcar with trailers - I believe it was a seperate item from the set
I'm not sure exactly why my parents gave a 5-year-old (me) an HO set - one would assume it would be destroyed in short order. That being said, most of the set has survived almost 4 decades - the Santa Fe and WM flats had a lot of "play value" so they didn't make it past Nixon's first term (I did retain one of the tractors, which got re-painted during my teenage wargaming phase) and the loco died due to lack of maintenance sometime in the 70's. Luckily, I managed to replace the WM flat and F-units courtesy fo my favorite hobby shop.
I also still have my Christmas 1979 Royal Blue set - minus the Baby Ruth "chugging" boxcar and the lond-deceased loco (replaced with another, non-working, 2-8-0 that awaits a CD-ROM drive motor conversion) and my Christmas 1975 Lionel O27 freight - Santa Fe Warbonnet ALCo FA/FB, Motorcraft boxcar, Republic Steel gon, Burlington gon, UP flat, ATSF caboose and a Cracker Jack reefer bought as an add-on - again mostly intact despite my best efforts...
Edited by - Vanderbilt on December 23 2009 4:24:20 PM
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Posted - December 27 2009 : 01:13:44 AM
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I have vague memories of my Dad's Marx train which he ran for me until it finally couldn't go on anymore. I guess it decided it didn't want to find out if I was just another kid going to ramp it into the sandbox, too.
The first train sets that were mine filled most of the living spaces at Christmas when I was about four. The one I noticed first was the plastic Lionel 0-27 Micro Racers set in the living room, which my dad had expanded with the track from the Marx train. It came with a 2-4-0 lionel lines engine, Micro-Machine-sized formula one cars on a repurposing of the sloped barrel hauling car, a bright yellow tank car (which I had specifically asked Santa for several weeks before) and an orange lionel lines caboose. It was my favorite train for several years, but I slowly lost interest in it due to everything else Lionel being wayyy out of the family budget.
The other set was a little circle of HO scale track on the linoleum around the corner in the kitchen, lit by the red glow of Bachmann crossing signals. (It was still dark outside, since I probably got up extra early, unable to sleep much due to excitement.) It was most likely a Diesel Hauler set, with a stripeless warbonnet F9, a blue The Rock boxcar, a D&H hopper, a white Cynamid three-dome tank (an add-on) and a Santa Fe caboose. It was this little train that really led to the rapid increase in train population at my house.
Later the next year came my first train show, which included the facinating layer-cake layout that had G scale at the bottom all the way to Z at the top, a long tank car train on one of the club layouts that had the last car derailed (and I seemed to be the only one who noticed and alerted my dad, who got someone's attention), and my first encounter with Tyco. I don't remember how it happened, but I probably saw a little engine on one of the tables that looked like the big one: a used Tyco Santa Fe shifter in a beat-up brown box with a sloped tender, just like the big Lionel. My grandma and grandpa were along on the trip, and were eager to oblige. It became my next favorite train until it succumbed to lack of maintenance and was placed in the bottom of the train bin, replaced by a free Tyco PowerTorque 0-6-0 from the neighbors when they moved, and a Bachmann Jupiter 4-4-0 I'd wanted ever since grandpa had gotten one.
I began resurrecting the shifter a few years ago, and in the process found this forum. It promptly got an alcohol bath and complete cleaning, addition of a waving engineer, and a little light weathering around the details, and now runs good as new, except for a probable short somewhere in the winding that gives it a cramp every now and then. As being my first HO scale steam loco, and carrying on the spirit of it's big brother Lionel engine (complete with that smiling face that you have to use a little imagination to see), I'd say it deserves a new Yardbird can motor, wouldn't you?
--Rio Grande--Thru the Rockies
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Posted - December 27 2009 : 12:26:18 PM
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quote:Well, like many here, my first set was not a Tyco.
...Seeing this little empire beginning to grow, I decided to expand. I saved up my change and whatever I found on the ground until I could afford a very basic Bachmann set.
And it was this Bachmann set that really got the ball rolling. ...I decided to buy some lumber and screws and build a 4'x8' table to run the ever growing train set on.
And not too long after that, I joined this forum. That's how it goes!
Here's some early shots not long after I built the plywood table:
Originally posted by MM 1498-December 17 2009: 4:11:04 PM
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Man, some of you guys are making me feel OLD, talking about childhoods in the 80's...mine being in the '60s. I love your use of AMC cars here, MM, ie Fresh Cherries Pacer and Gremlin ( I have literally HUNDREDS of both now, for my HO empire future AMC dealership/manufacturing plant dream....). I finally just set up a 4' x 4' platform over my stairwell upstairs, as that's the last open space in this pack-rat occupied house that is available.
My first train set was Lionel 0-27 in '63. My second was a "set" cobbled together from individual pieces at Christmas around '72?, from AHM to Tyco, I think the engine was an old AHM blue-box C&O switcher ( My Dad worked for C&O until the mid-'60's ), and I think I still have all the original cars and engine, although the engine has burnt up. I never got a true HO set per se, but after that first train, I just started buying pieces from the profits of my lawn-care empire I got into when I was 10 years old, my Dad made me save most of my money, but I did buy stuff after Christmas, when rolling stock was priced down to $1-4 apiece, and engines $10 and up. As I've gotten older, I'm 49 now, I've gotten into a local club,and operate some DCC equipment. But I still love my old Athearn and Tyco pieces, and collect more all the time.
Looks like you got a nice basic set-up there, MM, thanks for the look at it ( and the AMC cars, too).
Jerry
" When life throws you bananas...it's easy to slip up"
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 Posted - December 27 2009 : 5:31:13 PM
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Hello all!
My name is Scott; I am new to this forum and this is my first posting, anyway...
My first "electric" trainset was given to me on my fourth birthday back in November of 1974, I put the quotations around electric because my first railroad was a battery powered O gauge Marx set called the "Comet". This Marx product utilized a large lantern battery as a power source which was installed inside the plastic control box that had a single lever to move the train forward only. I wore this set out within a year.
On my fifth birthday in 1975 I received my first HO equipment in the form of the Tyco "Twin Diesel Freight" set No 7312. This set included two Santa Fe F7s, the Western Maryland skid flat with three tractors, a Hinze Pickle reefer, a Southern Railroad pulpwood flat, a Santa Fe Piggyback flat car with two truck trailers, and a Santa Fe wide vision caboose. Interestingly the piggy back flat was not a common item in this set, all the catalogs I have seen list this set as containing a fifty foot plug door boxcar instead. Perhaps there was a shortage of boxcars the day my set was packed in Hong Kong and the flat car was substituted.
In addition to the train set, my father also built a 4x8 foot table on which to build my first layout, scenery was limited to grass mats and the track plan consisted of a single passing siding and a single spur track.
By summertime of 1976 I had worn out my Santa Fe F7 so my mother took me to Toys R Us to pick up a new locomotive, I came home that day with a Tyco Chessie System F7 with a matching streamlined caboose. Of course by the fall of 1976 my Chessie F7 had worn out too so my father took me to a Hobby Shop where I picked my first Athearn locomotive, a Union Pacific GP 7. Although the shell of my first Athearn geep wore out years ago, the motor, trucks, linkages, flywheels, and chassis will still be running strong in 2010. The only other piece of that early Tyco trainset that I still have today is the Hinze refrigerator car, the rest of the equipment has disappeared over the last three decades.
Now that I am approaching 40, I am interested in recapturing some of the magic of that first Tyco trainset so my next layout project is build a layout with old Tyco equipment and accessories that my 5-year-old-self would have enjoyed.
Proudly keeping Tyco Pluggers out of landfills since 2016
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Shawn
Switcher
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Posted - January 07 2010 : 08:27:06 AM
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Hi everyone! I found this site and topic on a browser search and had to register and share!
Like many of us here, my first set wasn't Tyco...I think it was a Marx O27 that I got when I was about 5 years old. It was cool but didn't last too long.
Christmas 1976 I got my first TYCO...The DURANGO!!! Man that was the coolest! I can remember getting inundated with the commercials every Saturday morning for all the big sets that year; The Durango, The Chattanooga, and all. I wanted that Durango though...with the spotlight caboose, the cattle depot and cattle car.
I was exstatic. We set it up for a while but couldn't leave it up and Dad was worried about getting carpet fibers in the motor. It got put back in the box after Christmas where it stayed for a few years. Christmas of '77 I got the layout expander set but between space and time limitations, immaturity, and moving 2 times in 1 year it too stayed boxed up. It drove me nuts! After we settled into our last house Dad got the plywood and 2x4's and built the table...then dormancy!
Fast forward to Christmas 1979...my grandmother had a male co-worker, Adam and friend who was a model railroader. I got my first Model Railroader and a couple Tyco action accessories and Adam got to work. He built me what he called a double dog-bone with 2 crossovers, 2 industry spurs, blocks and 2 cabs. Man...ity was awesome!
Over the years it grew then declined and the Durango ceased to exist.
Enter EBAY! 2 years ago I was able to find a Durango set that was nearly complete. I got it and then found the cattle depot that it was missing. Since then through local auctions and FREEcycle, I have now collected 2 more Durango diesels, one more caboose, a matching BN GP20 and caboose, and a nearly complete Silver Streak set.
Now that I own a house, I think I may recreate the "double dogbone" that I had as a child so that I can show off my Tyco's!
Thanks for reading.
Shawn
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Posted - January 23 2010 : 10:04:35 PM
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| hey all, im new here too and im gonna make all of you fell old. Haha. I got my first train set in 2000. I was 5. It was a Life like set, forget the name but i believe it was a santa fe gp-30 with its caboose, a gondola, a hopper and a boxcar. That started my collection of HO trains. But since my dad was 1 he's been collecting O-scale trains. He started with a 1955 freight set that came with a lackawanna diesel locomotive, not sure model, a milk car, log car, western pacific boxcar, tank car, wheel car, red gondola and a Lehigh valley gray caboose. Since then weve been collecting O-scale. In 2004 i opened up my christmas wish of the Lionel Polar Express. Ive collected 4 of the 5 extension passenger cars for it and plan on getting the 5th. Ive recently started collecting better HO's and plan to start my layout this summer. If any of you would like to see some of our stuff heres my youtube channel http://www.youtube.com/user/PRRK4Lover
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x2f
Switcher
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Posted - May 13 2010 : 10:05:39 PM
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I was 4 on Christmas morning 1978. Under the tree Santa had left me a Tyco Amtrack observation car and a AHM ore hopper. I remember telling my parents these are very nice but I dident have a train set. They then took me to the basement. My father had built a layout from the Atlas Track plan book. I believe it was the Trunk Line. I was amazed. This was my first electric train. On the outer loop was the Tyco Long Hauler set.
Many hours of my childhood were spent running trains on this layout. There were however some flaws. The layout itself was just a board propped up on a couple ancient end tables. My grandfather remarked one day "It's (the layout) growing a belly". Indeed it was as the rolling stock always seemed to migrate to the center of the layout. Then there was the problem of the track comming right up to the edge of the layout. The first casuality was my coveted Chessie Alco. Then a tank car that was purchased for me at Woolworths. Being a child I was never able to properly repair these trains . The center of the layout became a vast scrapyard. The final straw was when I ran my fathers Tyco blue B&O pacific off the layout smashing the pilot. The "good" engines ,AHM,TYCO,Athearn got put up. Still it was great fun and I have rebought most of the trains I had as a child.
X2F
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Posted - September 20 2011 : 6:27:35 PM
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My First Train Set Was a N Scale Bachmann F7 Chrome Set. It had a few peices of track, but they had no joiners. It never was Ran. I Carried It Around ALOT. Its Shell Still survives.
And Its Beside Me Right Now!
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Posted - September 20 2011 : 6:42:14 PM
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Additional to my last statement:
My Bachmann Golden Spike set did NOT have the Golden Spike boxcar
I didn't get one untill later in life
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Posted - April 11 2012 : 9:37:13 PM
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| Re-Freshing this Topic - PLEASE ONLY POST YOUR MEMORY OF YOUR FIRST TYCO train set or locomotive- rolling stock. If you received other train sets by other makers - start a new topic. Re-freshing mainly for new members as this is an interesting older thread on members First Tyco train sets / stories
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Posted - April 12 2012 : 4:28:52 PM
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It was 1962 (or so) and I wanted my own train set since my brother did not let me use his Lionel. My dad came home with a Shifter set in B & O. SF cattle car, GN skid flat with pipe load, and BM operating hooper. The little 18r curves kept me busy for years! Good times.
rich p
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Posted - April 12 2012 : 5:06:41 PM
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It was a few years ago when I got some Tyco. Only being 20, its wasn't like new stuff LOL! I was 15 and somebody I knew I loved trains. He used to work for the FEC. Turned out getting some Tyco cars, a F-9A ( it was trashed) and a 0-8-0 (still have) Then the other stuff was Marx 0-27 and a nice hoard of Marklin track. This all started my love affair for trains again when I was a 8th grader. Heres that 0-8-0 to which I still have. Funny story is that the drivetrain was used from a melted 0-8-0 I bought $1 and the previous owner had went and painted the 0-8-0 a funny color. I stripped it down to find out it was a Clementine once ago. Here she is:
" Heck with counting 'em rivets, TRAINS ARE FOR FUN! Not called the Mad Scientist for nothing either!"
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Posted - April 28 2012 : 9:38:08 PM
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What an awesome topic! I wish I had read this earlier. At the time I remember thinking noooobody had toy-ish Tyco but me. The LHS's were stocked with Athern blue boxes and Atlas track.
My earliest childhood memory involves what I only guess were my first trains. I remember the red CB&Q GP20, white Holly Sugar hopper, and green log car. I think this was 1972. My grandfather gave me a Spirit of 76 C430 set around 1976, but I dont remember the contents. I've looked through catalogs, but none of the SO76 sets had all of the cars I had.
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Posted - November 25 2012 : 03:51:03 AM
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My first HO set was the 1975 Tyco Chattanoogo Choo Choo. I remember my Dad would lie on the sofa and listen to his Big Band records, among them Glenn Miller's Chattanooga Choo Choo, which of course caught my attention since I've been a rail fan as long as I can remember. So when I saw Tyco's set I had to have it. I would play with it while my Dad listened to his records, and whenever Chattanooga Choo Choo would play, I would start my train off slowly along with the beginning of the song. One of these days I'm gonna set up the Chattanooga set I have now on the living room floor, play some Big Band music and turn my back to the sofa. My Dad's been gone for 11 years but as long as I don't look, he'll be lying on the sofa listening to the Big Bands and I'll be 8 years old again.
Glenn
I was thinking of the immortal words of Socrates, who said, "... I drank what?"
Edited by - gmoney on November 25 2012 06:11:35 AM
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Posted - November 25 2012 : 09:01:25 AM
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"One of these days I'm gonna set up the Chattanooga set I have now on the living room floor, play some Big Band music and turn my back to the sofa. My Dad's been gone for 11 years but as long as I don't look, he'll be lying on the sofa listening to the Big Bands and I'll be 8 years old again."
-Do it!!!
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Posted - January 09 2013 : 09:56:15 AM
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My first was a Silver Streak set. I remember it being on the floor upstairs in my toyroom on Christmas morning, can't remember how old I was though, probably about 5 or 6. It was on a piece of plywood painted green by my dad with a brown painted path for the track. I think there may have even been a sidetrack for the Piggyback loader. I don't ever remember the truck depot though.
Regards,
Dan MacKellar
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Posted - January 09 2013 : 10:41:13 AM
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My first set was a xmas gift in the early 60s. It was what I think was a TYCO Pacemaker set.
Had the Burlington F unit and caboose with the frt cars. Oval of brass track. I'm still trying to find/collect the set a piece at a time. I think I'm only missing 1 car. That elusive flatcar with the girder on it.
caboose 1
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Posted - January 09 2013 : 5:46:48 PM
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| My first tyco set was a black santa fe 0-4-0 switcher in the very early 80"s. The track was circle and had a few cars. No pieces of that set remain today. Now 30 yrs later my dad and I are rebuying what was broken,destroyed or lost over the course of my childhood. Going to the train shows,this board and ebay are a big help. Sitting back watching my son and his pap running the trains brings back so many memories of dad and I running his Royal Blue 2-8-0,which he still has.
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Posted - January 12 2013 : 11:18:44 PM
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| My first "Tyco" set wasn't made by Tyco at all, but by Revell. Around 1959 when I was 11, my father was an optician, working for an optical company that had a contract to supply safety glasses for Revell employees. He would visit the factory on Glencoe Avenue in Venice, CA, every couple of weeks or so. They had an employee store there, where all employees could buy any Revell items for half price. My dad would bring home model kits of all types and then for my birthday he gave me a Revell HO train set. It had a B&O F-7 that had the old belt drive with a clutch. It was a beautifully made loco, but like so many early HO locos, its operating characteristics left much to be desired. Over the next few years I got the Omaha 0-6-0 switcher, an SP tiger striped SW switcher and all of the Revell building kits. I built three different 4'x8' HO layouts in our garage. On one occasion, my father got permission to bring me for a visit to the factory, where I watched as the various items were manufactured. I even got to visit the factory store! As it turned out, I would end up owning my own train store and making it my career for 32 years. In addition, in 1988, I bought a condo on Glencoe Ave, just a block away from where the old Revell factory had been, but that part of Venice is now called Marina del Rey. To finish up this story, I actually bought my first TYCO set a couple of weeks ago. It is a T-7 Mikado freight set from 1955, in the original cream & green set box. I had never even seen a set in a box like this before and I was thrilled to get it. It is the cornerstone of my Tyco collection.
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Posted - January 13 2013 : 12:52:57 AM
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My first HO I ever owned was a Mantua set made in the mid-90's, which Grandpa got me for my birthday. It had the yellow 4-6-0 DRG&W locomotive, and old tyme cars. Box car, stock car, matching yellow combine and coach, DRG&W drover's caboose and a "bonus" flat car. Included as my gift, but not in the same box (sold together?) was an Atlas starter set of track with an oval and manuel siding. There was even a Tech II power pack!
No idea why he got, or from where, or even what year birthday it was from (sad; I'm not old), but I always thought it was a neat set. The locomotive ran reasonably well, best with the Tech II, but I found in later years it had trouble splitting switches, with the Atlas or any other type of switch.
Only in the last 8 years did I learn the history of tyco, and though an era before my time, I still find that it makes a decent start for a railroad collection. Be it 'Tyco' or 'Mantua', I will always appreciate that for its faults, it was still a set my penny-pinching grandpa was still willing to spend on. What a great investment it was!
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Country: USA ~
Posts: 182 ~
Member Since: April 30 2011 ~
Last Visit: March 04 2023
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Posted - January 29 2013 : 2:29:59 PM
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Tyco had discontinued trains by the time I got my first electric train set, for Christmas when I was eight years old: it was a Life-Like "Toys R' Us Express" train set (obviously a Toys R' Us exclusive; the one in Brockton, MA used to sell a LOT of Life-Like train stuff until maybe 2001-2003...)
At the time, Power-Loc track was still relatively new. It wasn't much of a "real" layout at the time; I expanded the circle of track with a few straight sections and an operating switchman to make it an oval, added some more freight cars and a 42-piece accessory set of figures, signals and stuff, and a few building kits so the train could be played with on the floor.
Eventually, I decided to add a diesel locomotive to my "train collection" at the time, and got this:
Instead of a conventional power pack, you would hook up that small station building (actually a receiver) to the terminal track section, plug that in, and use the blue 9-volt battery-operated remote for a radio-controlled train operation! You had a few speed settings, in addition to forward and reverse, and a "SOUND" button that would play diesel train sounds on the receiver building. This was still fine as a regular old train set. But the train set that really helped start my model railroad layout was my big Christmas present when I was twelve: the Life-Like Railroad Empire train set!
The set really lives up to its name, like the Tyco version did. For this train set, I set it up on a piece of plywood with some other accessories (both new and old) and some spare extra track from the previous sets, and it was good to go! Unfortunately, the included power pack wouldn't work, but I hooked up the receiver power pack from the SuperTrain set to the terminal rerailer, and that got the Railroad Empire started! (pun intended)
I still have a few bits and pieces from this set on my current layout, like the log-dump car and station.
Edited by - wiley209 on January 29 2013 2:31:36 PM
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Country: USA ~
Posts: 595 ~
Member Since: January 03 2013 ~
Last Visit: December 24 2023
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Posted - February 23 2013 : 7:19:23 PM
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I remember when my dad set up the model railway in my garage, at first, it was a table with a large loop, a athern 1776 loco, some tycocars, and a bachmann plus line J class, soon, it became a railway, and i burnt the motor in the J class(to much smoke) a few years(7) SPECTRUM J-class. And now, a massive fleet of Model power hustlers, trolleys, P-32s, a Hornby 0-4-0, a Bachmann 0-6-0, the J class, the athern 1776 loco, a model power S4, a Bachmann 4-4-0, and the icing on the caik, a chattanooga choo choo 0-8-0
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Country: USA ~
Posts: 91 ~
Member Since: February 16 2013 ~
Last Visit: September 09 2013
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