Tell How You Became A railroader

[Cody J]

New Idea:
Tell How you came to like trains or to become a model railroader.

Ill start us off.  My great great grandpa was an engineer on the RR and ive always liked the idea of trains.  In about 2005 my brothe got The Challenger By. Bachmann HO and I played with it and I decided I really Liked Model trains so I went To the website and found myself the Thunderbolt and I got it off of eBay for $43.00

-Cody Jackson

[Santa Fe buff]

I saw an train, the trunks appeared to be floatling, I studied them and found out they have wheels. I never took any care in modeling them until one Christmas my dad bought my a Life-Like HO Rolling Thunder set, seeing the realistic senery that came with it, and the extra real locomotive and cars made me want to model for life. I still love real trains, just not as much as modeling them.

[Cody J]

I see..... I love real trains about as much as Model Trains.  I cant get very far on my model because nobody in my family is artistic so I cant build like hills and bridges and what-not

-Cody Jackson

[Guilford Guy]

the trunks appeared to be floatling

Some cars do have floating trunks and no wheels...

But most have trucks with wheelsets...

[john tricarico]

it all started many many years ago
my brother and cousins had there  lionel trains
i as a little boy all i did was watch
of course i got my 1956 set of lionel and that got the ball
rolling with model trains   now iam all H.O trains
and as far as real trains
i worked in grand central termianl in a candy store for
3 years 1968 - 1970  it was fun every day looking at the last days of
new york central  then came penn central
from 1976-1986 i work in sunnyside queens  right in front of the
northeast corridor mainline  walked thru the sunnyside yard
many a lunch hour  and i did take pictures

now i just roam about with my camera shot whatever i can
between tne trains and the nyc subway

and most of all to all out there

you never get trains out of your blood

good luck  john t  brooklyn ny

[Jake]

I saw an train, the trunks appeared to be floatling, I studied them and found out they have wheels. I never took any care in modeling them until one Christmas my dad bought my a Life-Like HO Rolling Thunder set, seeing the realistic senery that came with it, and the extra real locomotive and cars made me want to model for life. I still love real trains, just not as much as modeling them.

Which Life-Like was your dad buying from? I know all of the Life-Like sets I got as a kid were only slightly above complete and utter s***.

[Dusten Barefoot]

I became to like trains when I first smelt the smoke and felt the cold steam hit my face as I stuck my head out of the car to hear the blast of the whistle of ET&WNC #12. Ive been hooked ever since.
Rock On & Live Strong
Dusten

[kevin2083]

It was the usual reason for me- first set for Christmas. I think I was 5, so not much of that original set survived long enough for me to know who made it or the name of the set. I still have the shell from the locomotive, but it's in 3 pieces.

here it is: (3rd pic)
http://www.bachmanntrains.com/home-usa/board/index.php/topic,3821.0.html

Some interesting stories- lets keep this going.

Kevin

[ebtnut]

I've been doing something with trains all my life.  I remember my first "train set", which was a wooden pull toy I got when I was about 2--a loco and a couple of cars to drag along the floor.  I spent several summers with my grandparents up in Pennsylvania, where I got to see the last of Pennsy steam--that probably sold the deal.  I eventually got a Marx electric train set, then graduated to an American Flyer S gauge set.  Finally took up HO in high school, then graduated to O/On3 after I got out of the Navy in the early 1970's.

[Paul M.]

I've been loving trains pretty much forever.....

I got my first train set for my birthday, when I was seven.

When I was about 3, my mom took me to the circus. On the way home, we got stopped by a train. Guess which one I told my dad about when we got home?

[rocknblues]

I grew up in a railroad town, we hopped cars from one end of town to the other. Always chased by railroad dicks. Never had a train set, always wanted one. At 52 I bought my first one. I love it.

[Davy]

I had relatives who joined the Navy in the '50's.  They would go to Great Lakes from Peoria on the Rock Island Rocket.  It was neat watching the action at the station!  Later, I remember seeing North Shore steeplecabs, and the Illinois Terminal streamlined train in Morton.  Still later I got to ride the Aerotrain, and I saw 0-6-0's pulling coal out of the strip mines by Farmington.  I went to college and had a good living in a profession, but I wish now that I'd gone to work for a railroad.   

[GN.2-6-8-0]

Back in the early 50s i had to walk to school every day across a bridge on the Milwaukee Road mainline....leaning over the side of the bridge for a better view and getting a snoot full of coal smoke from class S3 4-8-4s hooked me proper at age 7 or 8 

[Johnson Bar Jeff]

I think I was born this way. 

[PRRThomas11]

Trains are definitely in my blood. My grandfather worked for Erie for 40 years. My uncle works for NJTransit, my father and other uncle are huge railfans. I grew up with little wooden Thomas trains. When I was 4 and my brother was 6 my railfan uncle built us an HO layout on a piece of plywood. A few years later,my brother got some Lionel trains and, sadly, we made the HO layout into an O layout. Then we both drifted away from model trains. When I was 9, we stopped a a rest stop on vacation which had a little N scale layout set up. I thought that it was so cool that I got an N scale train set, a few trees and buildings and set it all up on my coffee table. Soon i got so interested in big layouts and my parent got me the Scenic Ridge layout kit for my birthday which is now still in progress. Then one day I found out that a man down my street has a giant n scale layout in his basement, and that the principal of my school was a railfan. Small world.