First Train Set - Where did you start?

[Crisis Rail]

No BRIO please 

 

This.

 

                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                                 

1975 - from Mears Models Lune St Preston.

 

With an H&M Single Controller - only problem it was a second track slave unit....!!! which connected to the main power unit with 2 copper pins at the side - my electrician uncle saved the day and cobbled together a DC transformer 2 foot long and weighed a ton.

 

Added Diesel Traction in the form of the  legendary Hymek D7063 with paper round money - I think it took about a year to save up.

 

Ian

 

Edited September 28, 2020 by Crisis Rail

[Steamport Southport]

First was the classic 1970s Hornby clockwork set with little black engine and two wagons.

 

Then it was this with three GWR four wheel carriages and a Toad added separately.

 

 

Not mine. My box is still in pretty good condition.

 

http://www.hornbyguide.com/item_details.asp?itemid=348

 

 

Jason

[MarkSG]

I never actually had a train set as such. I kept dropping hints to my family that I wanted one for Christmas/birthday, but to no avail. But I had a friend who had a motley collection of Tri-ang and Hornby Dublo, but nowhere to set it up as he lived in a small house. Our house was much bigger, so he brought it round to mine and we set it up on the floor in a spare room. Over time, I acquired some odds and ends myself (mostly scrounged second hand from other friends who had been given train sets but no longer wanted them), so, by the time he moved away (and took his train set with him!) I had enough to keep going on my own. Eventually, I managed to persuade my dad to let me have a shed in the garden as a railway room, in which we constructed a permanent roundy-roundy baseboard, and I gradually upgraded that piecemeal from just a train set to a model railway layout. 

 

I can, though, remember the first new loco I bought with my own money. It was one of these:

 

I've still got that loco, although it's no longer functional.

[BernardTPM]

I didn't get a train set either, but my Dad bought a Tri-ang R59 with three suburban coaches, something like the trains that ran on the LTS at the time (1959, so just before electrification).

Photo is 1961 by which time I'd also been given a Jinty and goods wagons, double track, etc.

 

I still have the original loco, not exactly mint condition though:

 

Edited September 27, 2020 by BernardTPM

[Big James]

I started with a Hornby a Hornby Percy and  troublesome trucks when I was 6. My grandparent bought me a Hornby 0-4-0 Holden, a couple of sidings and a station. It’s all long gone but Percy survives on my memento shelf. 
 

big james 

Edited September 27, 2020 by Big James

[phil-b259]

I didn't get a train set as such - in the early to mid 1980s my dad purchased a Britannia (Evening Star), two of the pseudo Maunsel Brake 3rds Hornby were pedalling at the time and a handful of track (2nd Radius curves and a few short straights) to go with the power controller he built himself.

 

Over time this basic setup was augmented by further individual items , but the closet I ever got to a 'train set' was a Hornby HST train pack.

[ikcdab]

The triang RS24 Set.

More than 50 years ago now, but I still have most of the bit lying around...

Ian

[melmerby]

I got a load of S/H Triang stuff for one Christmas, some was in better condition than others

46205 + some coaches, a TPO coach & lineside equip, A Trancontinental Pacific & some "US" outline wagons, a few Triang UK wagons, a Met Cam DMU motor car (only!) and enought S4 track for two ovals and some points.

All driven by a Triang RT42 resistance controller and a Triang RT40 Battery connector which took three 4.5v bell batteries.

Suffice to say the batteries didn't last long so I was soon bought a cased transformer and a Cased (H&M?) rectifier

Edited September 27, 2020 by melmerby

[MyRule1]

Combined birthday and Christmas present purchased about 50 years after this photo in the second shop from the far end. Silver Street, Edmonton.  I received the Triang R1X Passenger Train Set  although I recall that I wanted my parents to buy the Goods set with the Jinty.

 

The set got bigger with series 3 track etc until a house move in the early sixties when I had (as I  thought then) moved on to Airfix kits and the whole lot was given to a neighbour. Up until this point I was not into railway modelling and I would say I started modelling  with my 2nd train set - the initial Farish N gauge set.

 

 

[cravensdmufan]

My Dad bought me an oval of Tia-ang track (with grey plastic moulded ballast, a Jinty plus two very short red and cream coaches, and a couple of wagons (UD milk and a cattle wagon).  Plus a big metal transformer / controller.  All Tri-ang.  And all from a church jumble sale.  I was absolutely delighted with it -  the love of toy trains started there - and has never left me since - some 60 years later!

[The Johnster]

I got my first train set for xmas 1956; I was 4 years old but had proved that I could re-rail my cousin’s HD 3 rail Duchess of Montrose.  HD prices were too steep for dad (he could afford ‘em, but he didn’t want to pay ‘em, so I got a Rovex Triang Black

Princess, an oval of track, two short LMS coaches, the 6 inch version, and a battery controller.  This clipped on to the top of the battery leaving it mostly exposed.  It lasted about an hour on the dining table before the battery died, just as well or there’d have been no way I’d have allowed the table to be cleared for dinner.  Service was resumed on Boxing Day using the car battery chager and a pair of crocodile clips as the transformer, a duty it performed for several years.  Some time after this, a neighbour whose lad had lost interest donated a figure 8 of track and an original Rovex Black Princess with plunger pickups and 2 more 6” coaches with original hook and loop couplings.  Father bought some straights (grey ‘Standard’ Triang track, and 4 turnouts, so we could link the outside track to the inside figure 8 track and have a siding for each.  Some Trix tinplate 7 plankers turned upfrom somewhere and were no use because they were for 3 rail use, had Simples couplings, and wheels too course for the flangeways: I learned a bit about compatibility and electricity.  Father screwed it all to an 8x4 board.  The following xmas turned up a Triang station, a home made wooden loco shed from a neighbour, and a 748 saddle tank with a brake van, cattle wagon, and dropside low steel open, just as well as the older Rovex Princess had died.  Next birthday brought a 2 car EMU, and we relaid the layout to feature an inner oval instead of the figure 8, the diamond xing being employed to place the outer road’s siding inside the running lines.  
 

That, and a move out to the garage, was basically it until I was 12 and took over the buying of stuff myself with paper round money.  New coaches, a Winston Churchill, and a Brush Type 2 were pressies in this period, and plastic wheels brought the Trix minerals into rather stiff service.  

 

 

Edited September 27, 2020 by The Johnster

[Paul H Vigor]

I'm a 3rd generation railway modeller ('Model railways are strong in my family, my grandfather had them; my father had them; now I have them.') so, no train set for me! I was brought up with layouts from the start!  Christmas, birthday and pocket money saved up and invested in locos and rolling stock, initially from The Pooh Shop in Lymington (alas, now long gone).  

[Ben Alder]

1964 with this one - battery operated and no points. I remember being frustrated with the lack of play value as it was and the time it took me to save up for a point and extra track - Airfix kits were a weekly purchase as well.. The two open wagons are still in use, under new chassis.

 

 

[James Makin]

 

My 8th birthday, I would even sneakily peek at it whilst unwrapped underneath my parent’s bed for a few days before..! 

[4901]

I didn't have a first train set as such, but my father was a mechanical engineer with great metalworking  and woodworking skills and he built me an O gauge loco when I was five years old (in 1947).  I got various pieces as birthday and Christmas presents.  My loco is a GWR prairie tank with purchased wheels, chimney, buffers and safety valve.  The rest he built himself.   He bought lithographic coach sides and built a B-set on obeche wood  bodies and the same with goods stock.  He bought wheel sets and cast metal axleboxes.    Track was hand-built on wooden bases.  He even built the controller/transformer.  The loco's motor was ex-WD and I suspect the controller was from ex-WD stuff, too.   After the war the right bits were in very short supply.  

 

Being very young, the Christmas gifts came from Father Christmas.  When my parents thought it wise to tell me that Father Christmas didn't really exist so I wasn't made fun of at school, I had a hard time believing them. "What about my locomotive and coaches?  What about the submarine?"  The reason for my disbelief was that no other child had anything like my models, let alone a sub that actually went under water.   I knew all their stuff came from shops.   

 

I still have the loco, coaches and submarine.  For the information of those of a certain age and place, most of the supplies came from a model railway shop in Dale End, Birmingham.  

 

  

[Ben B]

Well it's not Brio at least...

 

 

I had a 6x4 layout built by my parents (with Airfix buildings painted by mom), with Thomas, Percy, Duck, Diesel and a selection of wagons back in the mid-80's, but the first 00 gauge train set I ever played with will have been this one.  Wells Brimtoy (or more likely their cheaper brand, Welsotoys) 00 gauge clockwork tank loco and track, and at least second-hand, probably third-hand, by the time it ended up in the toybox at my grandparents house...

 

 

I love this thing, I actually built a layout during lockdown incorporating this set so I'd have somewhere to run this, and a few other 00 clockwork locomotives

 

 

[Metr0Land]

I can't remeber the exact year, approx 1956:

 

 

[LNER4479]

Hornby O gauge tinplate clockwork.

 

That makes me sound older than I am. This was early 1970s. My Dad had some of it and the local model stop seemed to have an inexhaustible supply of it for birthday / Xmas presents (perhaps he bought up a load of it cheap in the aftermath of the Hornby collapse/takeover?)

 

First 'proper' loco was a Mainline J72 in 1978. Still got it. Might still work; haven't tried it in a while.

Edited September 28, 2020 by LNER4479

[chris p bacon]

Hornby Night mail set with a 37 and working TPO I received around 1970.  At the next birthday I got my older brothers ex Hornby Dublo 3 rail A4 'Silver King' which had been converted to 2 rail. 

 

Still got it all and wouldn't part with it.

[Oldddudders]

Hornby O Gauge tinplate here. Circa 1952, I suppose. I started skool on 6.9.53 - the morning after mum gave birth at home to twins. Given that there was no money, and only one baby had been expected, the fact that I was then given a turntable was quite remarkable, if good psychology!

 

Hornby Dublo came in 1956, when the neighbours passed over an Atholl, an N2 and stock and a lot of track, w two transformers and controllers. I was ecstatic!

 

[Crisis Rail]

11 hours ago, James Makin said:

 

My 8th birthday, I would even sneakily peek at it whilst unwrapped underneath my parent’s bed for a few days before..! 

 

……...To assess the conversion detailing and weathering options no doubt

 

 

[Binky]

Growing up with a father who already had a layout in the shed (and later a garden railway, O-16.5 so I could also run OO on it) I never had a first train set so to speak. But I remember a BR blue Hornby Class 25 and Intercity 125 set being what I mostly played with until I got my own loco, a good old Smokey Joe!

 

..and yes, like a lot of them it ended up being converted into a narrow gauge loco!

[cypherman]

Hi all,

This was my first train set. I was 5 years old when I got this for Christmas 1965. I also got this Triang castle and a pack of cowboys and indians. Not a clue who made the cowboys and indians . They may have been Airfix as they were the same scale as the train set. But not sure. A strange mixture but I loved them The train set ran round the castle and was use to attack the castle. Sadley all of it has now gone.

[SM42]

Hornby HST set, Christmas, 1977 or 1978, I forget which.

 

Older brother (also a modeller) and dad spent Christmas Eve building a layout in his old bedroom whilst mum and sister in law kept me entertained downstairs.

 

The pretext was they they had gone to the pub. The occasional bump from upstairs was passed off as the neighbours clunking about next door.

 

The baseboards were chipboard on 2x1 frame laid directly on the carpet across one end of the room. Track was held in place by drawing pins that came witha bright yellow plastic cover over the heads.  Controller was the Hornby black box with two slide switches

 

After that it was borrowing some of my brothers stock that he hadn't moved out (only been married a year at most) yet to supplement the roster.  I remember a Wrenn Peppercorn and my brother's concern at the 14v the controller pumped out.

 

Still have the set, spread around SM42 towers. The box is a bit worse for wear though and the track power clip long expired.

 

Next loco was the Hornby class 47

 

Andy

Edited September 28, 2020 by SM42

[TrainMan2001]

https://www.walthers.com/thundering-rails-santa-fe

 

Here's a link because I can't get a picture.

 

This was my first electric train set! I got it for Christmas when I was 8 and I would play with it on the basement floor a lot! The locomotive didn't die until I was 13 and the rear truck (bogie) broke. I still have the two tank cars, stock car, and the caboose (although the corner of the roof is missing). Eventually I need to get around to changing the couplings on those.