Who or How did you get interested in Railway Modelling

[QRModeller]

I was mainly influenced by Thomas the Tank Engine and can remember asking for my first layout when I was 4. Since then, I've been encouraged by both of my parents (Dad and his older brother had a layout when they were young but I don't think it got very far. We still have the board somewhere almost 40 years later even though it's now unusable!) and my grandfather (Not sure if he has a connection with railways or modelling them from his childhood).

 

This is the best hobby in the world in my opinion and wouldn't give it up for the world. Besides, it keeps me sane when the assessment works starts piling on!!

 

Matt.

[daftbovine]

Hi,

 

My father was the enthusiast. There is a picture of me aged two holding a red plastic push and go standard tank. Some of the first things I bought with my pocket money were Lone Star push along locos.We used to live in Teddington and I can remember going over a railway bridge and seeing Q1 s shunting below. Then when I had my tonsils out aged four I was given a clockwork trainset which consisted of a green plastic USA tank, two wagons and a brake van. We moved from London to Hayling Island, I'm convinced that one of the main reasons for moving was Hayling Billy. Sadly the branch was closed in 1963.

 

We moved to Africa (crossing over Victoria Falls bridge pulled by a Garratt) where Corgi cars and Britains farm animals were available. We played in the dust of the back garden making roads and farms and played with Lego for hours. We moved to South Africa.

 

As I got older I put those toys away and only became interested again once I started working, there was a shop in a large shopping centre nearby that stocked Fleischmann locos,I was captivated by the N gauge ones as they reminded me of the Lone Star Locos. I remember thinking it would be nice if they did Britsh locos.

 

On a trip to London I saw Graham Farish locos at Hamleys and went back home with a Black Five, two coaches and a piece of Peco Flexitrack. After that the rot really set in!

 

I still have my Lone Star Locos and Britains farm animals.

 

Regards,

 

Veronica.

[bmg]

Three factors got me into this obsession:

 

1. My son hitting an age where we could have fun together with toys and models (age 2 and a bit).

 

2. Hearing sound locomotives at a local exhibition.

 

3. Finding out that DCC would allow us both freedom of operation.

[simon hudson]

For me some of dads old 0 gauge Hornby (sadly long gone).Then christmas morning. 1961 Hornby Dublo Talisman set with Golden Fleece(still my favourite A4)tinplate blood and custard coaches,all set up on what seemed to a 6 yr old a gigantic board with lots of buildings.Also from as far back as I can remember watching the Lambton tanks at Phili, and J27's Q6's at Seaham Hall dene and Seaton Bank. We lived in a house over looking fieds to Seaton Bank and I still remember watching in awe (as then) an unamed Deltic doing the Sunday diversion run over the Wellfield Branch I still remember to this day (I would be 6 or 7 yrs old)the ground shaking and pounding as it went full pelt up the 1 in 45 incline.Two tone green and well if you aint heard a pair of Napiers at full roar you havent lived.Like many others I have always had some sort of either layout or kits to build

[Torn-on-the-platform]

Rev Awdry! I was always a fan of Thomas (taught me my colours and numbers too!). My parents bought a complete set from a friend which came with a couple of 43s and a coach. This progressed to my parents buying me my first set - Flying Scotsman and Industrial Freight from my Granddad. The 125 has since been sold and the original layout was dismantled quite quicky - it's replacement is tired but is still in regular use. My Granddad wasn't exactly a railway enthusiast but he always encouraged my own interest.

 

I joined my club when I was about 10 or 11 and it is really since then that my knowledge has really expanded. Nearly a decade later I'm about to take my first steps into serious modelling...

 

In summary:

 

1. My parents

2. My Granddad

3. Rev Awdry

4. The members of my club

[Pacific231G]

My grandfather and my father. My mum's dad was a signalman so I have happy memories from early childhood holidays of being in his box, riding on footplates and "helping" to push locos round on the turntable. I never really knew my dad's father who had been a station master but my dad was also interested in railways so we often used to visit them and on one memorable occasion I was even taken to see one of the last slip coaches in action- probably at Bicester. I did have a couple of the early Awdry Railway Series books but I don't remember being that impressed by them.

When I was about three and a half I was given for Christmas a complete Hornby Dublo 3 rail layout that had been bought second hand. It was a simple layout, just an oval with a reversing curve and a couple of sidings on a 5'x3' baseboard that lived in my bedroom but it all worked well and all four points were operated wire in tube from a central lever frame so it was fun to operate. At that age using the the Dutchess of Atholl to shunt wagons when it wasn't pulling its two coach main line train didn't seem at all incongruous.

[Wayne Rite]

Well, in my case it was my Mother!

 

My mum was manpowered during the second world war as a telephonist at West Marina MPD near Hastings in 1944 (in those days the railways telecommunications network was bigger than the Post Offices) and when I came along she had to leave the railway in November 1945.

 

My mum was very popular with all the staff at the MPD and she was asked to take me down to the engine shed so all the footplate staff could see me. So aged approx 3 weeks my Mum took me down to the shed and after the usual oohs and aahs one of the drivers said 'Give him to me to me, I'll take him for a ride on the engine" I'd like to think I was taken on the footplate of a "Schools' but it was probably a C or R1, but as was the norm in those days I was dressed in white and was handed back to my mother in clothes that were various shades of grey and black!

 

Later on when we lived in West St.Leonards I'd spend hours watching the loco's being coaled and turned for the following days duty from a vantage point on the bridge overlooking the MPD.

 

So for 65 years I have been an enthusiast and a modeller and have enjoyed every moment of it!

[d winpenny]

for me ive always been into trains as long as i can remeber i used to watch listen and read the thomas storys, i used to play with brio trains, and many ride on real trains on days out as a child and visits to the NRM at york

 

david

 

 

[mwrosebury2000]

For me I always remember playing with my grandads trains as a kid and getting a roundy roundy Hornby intercity set (I must have been 6 or so), when my grandad died it seamed to me as a way of keeping him alive in my memory, although maybe thats just an excuse to keep doing something I love.

 

Mark

[Darwinian]

Well for me, I had some Hornby dublo bought by my Dad from one of the Londion market stalls when they were selling off three rail locos for £1 each , He bought one for me and one for my brother and had them converted to two rail by Hamblings (I think). This was in the mid sixties I think, when I was about 7. The train-set grew to include triang too, all on the old super-4 track pinned to a big sheet of insulation board. He built superquick buildings for me too.

It stayed like that and I spent most of my early teens buildibng aircraft and military modelling subjects. Then my uncle bought me a Ks K40 brake van kit. I'd never really considered building model trains myself but here were models that I could do something with when they were done, rather than just sitting on a shelf in my room until they disappeared under cobwebs or fell to bits .

 

Then "Mallard Models" opened in Camberley where I grew up, the triang was exchanged (but not the Dublo, that only went a couple of years ago to finance my current layout) and I started building etched and whitemetal kits too.

 

The rest as they say " is History".

 

Oh, the fact that the Ascot to Guildford line runs along the bottom of the garden where I grew up might have had some influence too as I can vaguely remember seeing the LMR 2-8-0 "Gordon" go past as well as an occasional goods train pulled by a dirty black engine.

 

Adrian

[AMJ]

Perhaps this should have been a POLL.

 

I bet that there are plenty like me that dad bought me this or that and allowed me to run it on his railway. That reminds me I chipped his Trix Scotsman the other month.

[Oldfield_Park]

Two things got me interested in railways:

 

1. My genes.

2. A Hornby TV advert from 1989.

 

Regarding the genes. My late Gran grew up in a house on Lansdown Road, Cardiff. Pretty close to Canton and with a garden that backed onto the Cardiff-Swansea mainline. She loved railways as a result, and Dad grew up with a similar interest through the 50s and 60s...

 

Therefore, when I saw an advert for Hornby in the run up to Christmas '89 showing their 'Flying Scotsman' set, I asked for a train set from Santa. He obliged with Hornby's 'Mixed Traffic' set, containing a 'Caley' tank (which is built like a tank of the Sherman variety and remains in my collection to this day), a few wagons and a circle of track. Dad provided a few bits of his own 'OO' collection from 25 years previously and so it went on...

[mezzoman253]

I suppose it was living in the shadow of the North London line near Wanstead Park station from an early age. Though I didn't realise it I was subconsciously taking in those sounds and images. Later, when I was 6, we moved to Romford but not near the railway. I was bought a clockwork train set just after moving, but never progressed to an electric set.

 

My best pal at junior school was responsible for spotting days, at the footbridge over the GE line where the branch to Upminster diverges, from about 9 years old, he rekinded the spark. He also got me spotting 'planes, but that's another story. Oh, and buses.

 

But it wasn't until I left my first job in 2002, and started at a well known hobby and craft shop, that my interest and ability to house a layout became a reality. I'm retiring tomorrow full time, so hopefully I can finish the layout, if there is such a thing as a finished layout, and enjoy it in my dotage.

 

Regards,

 

Rob

[coachmann]

How did you get interested in Railway Modelling

 

Easy. I drew inspiration from the real thing by first watching them, drawing them and later modelling them.

 

Sure, there were family links with the LMS and LNER and I visited Bassett Lowke with an uncle after war ended. But I knew what I liked without any prompting.......trains, buses, trams and girls.

[MarkSG]

I followed the fairly standard path of graduating from train sets to railway modelling. I started out with a plastic "Big Big Train", and then moved on to a Triang train set which was sort of shared between me and a friend - it was his property, but he didn't have space to set it up in his house so he used to bring it round mine to play with it. Over time I bought or scrounged extra bits, and eventually I had enough to make a layout of my own. Eventually, my dad allowed me to use one of the sheds for a permanent layout, although it had to be ripped up three times as it was moved to a different location.

 

By the time I left home, and thus lost the space to run a railway, I'd got to be fairly good at it. But a life of bedsits, house shares and one-bedroom flats meant I had nowhere suitable to do any serious modelling for several years, until I finally earned my way to owning a nice big house of my own with a spare room that I'd earmarked as being a railway room - an idea which was promptly scuppered by marriage and the arrival of our first daughter!

 

It wasn't until August last year, following another couple of house moves, that I finally had the space to be anything more than an armchair modeller, and there's now a baseboard and some track gradually taking shape over the other side of the converted garage which is my study and modelling room. I'm now having to relearn all the skills that have become rusty over the years, as well as realising that there's some stuff that I'd completely and utterly forgotten!

 

Fortunately, I now have a lot more disposable income than I did as a teenager, and the quality of RTR locos and rolling stock (as well as RTP buildings) has improved considerably in the meantime, so I can concentrate on the things I'm still good at (scenery, weathering and kitbashing buildings) rather than grappling with kit-built locos (which I was never that good at in the first place). Although I do have one scratchbuilt wagon which has survived from the early years, so, even though it's hardly state of the art, it will get a repaint and brush up so that I can use it on the new layout!

[Rivercider]

I'm 5th generation railway, my dad had a collection of O gauge clockwork that we used to set up

on the floor running through the dining room and hall. Later I was given a Triang set for Xmas (Nellie), also set up on the floor

and my first Railway Modeller was from 1970 (Hampstead Moreton was the railway of the month I believe).

I've kept in touch with railway modelling on and off as an armchair modeller until my first 'proper' layout in 2009.

 

cheers

[Perkins04]

The Skarloey Railway from the Railway Series, so Awdry was the influence.

[Gwiwer]

I am told I gazed awestruck at a GWR-origin tank on the Marlow "Donkey" aged about 3 days. The steam was replaced with diesel shortly after so although my first trip on the branch was steam-worked the occasional revisit has been by dmu. I also had a very early fascination with the comings and goings at Uxbridge LT and just across town the WR terminus at Vine Street when the family was in town shopping. My maternal grandparents lived in Yiewsley so before my first birthday I had managed to "bash" the West Drayton - Uxbridge branch!

 

By the time I was two I had acquired - possibly as birthday and Christmas gifts - a few well-battered pieces of Hornby tinplate 0-gauge and some equally rough track but I had my first "train set" and am told it was near-impossible to get my hands off it when required for meals or sleep.

 

On my fourth birthday I was introduced to Hornby 00. An oval of track, an 0-4-0 tank and a trio of basic wagons. This was set up on a table top by dad (who had no other interest in railways whatsoever) and I was supervised until such time as I had mastered the motor skills to assemble it myself. That grew into a motley collection of pieces over the years some of which survive to this day. Some slightly better tinplate which I acquired a little later also survives and is watching me write this post!

 

My late Great Uncle drove from Wadebridge shed and, while I don't have clear memories, I do recall being taken to see a rather gruff old man who seemed more intent on his duties that any sense of family responsibility. By the time he retired he would have been on the top link there, and we know that his regular turn was to Okehampton or Exeter, but we are assured he took his turn driving the Wenford goods and the Beattie well tanks.

 

While that connection has resurfaced as inspiration in my adult life I cannot knowingly claim it to have started my lifelong interest in small trains. That probably arose from my very early exposure to the hissing and wheezing beast at Marlow and the gift of something representative of that not so long afterwards.

[GreenDiesel]

It was mainly through the influence of my Dad, who was a huge railway enthusiast, both of real trains as well as models. He not only modelled in HO and 00, but was also a volunteer at a small diesel heritage railway in southwestern Ontario (www.pstr.on.ca), as well as 2-3 other heritage railways.

 

I later inherited his 00 and HO collection and started using it around 2004. By then, I also had two young boys and we started building layouts and visiting heritage railways. Basically, inheriting his collection & having two young sons, rekindled my interest. For me, this hobby is loaded with nostalgia and childhood memories.

 

Rob

[34theletterbetweenB&D]

Spent my very early life living in an old (long demolished) house in Hatfield practically under the road bridge near Hatfield loco (34C, thus the moniker). My parents have a Kodachrome slide of the infant in pram covered in smuts, probably the exhalations of an N2 or N7... My first definite memory is of an A4 in full cry, chime whistle going as she came through on the Up fast. We then moved to a house still within audible range of the ECML, and I went to a Nursery school which featured regular walks by the ECML, and the whole of my father's side of the family had HO layouts, and his then employer's(De Havilland) model railway club had a large and very good OO layout (still operating well more than 50 years on). Dad built the controllers when my own OO set was acquired, and with him and my brother layouts were built and rebuilt indoors and outdoors. Hornby, Peco, et al should be paying my Dad a pension...

[oldknotty]

I used to be member of the IPMS group here and did a lot of Military modeling , found an old Airfix kit of the railway stuff and built it , fell in love with trains . Then i graduated to American n gauge and started a layout in the basement . One day i went to a local railroad show and lo and behold a guy had a ton of British Graham Farish stuff so i brought the lot and got hooked on UK railways . Well one thing led to another and here i am several years down the road with my fourth layout trying to recreate my home town in S.O.T in OO scale and a bit of the Churnett valley railway . never had so much fun nor met so many nice folks in a hobby loving it all :-) Only thing to make it better would be to get back to the UK and meet some of you guys in person :-)

[The Q]

Well lots of family connections with the railway but the Idea of actually modelling it....

Christopher Trace of Blue Peter, they promised the model rail would return after he left but it never did...

I'll never forgive them...

and for hiding Petras statue round the back somewhere it should have stayed in it's place of honour at the front of the building, make the executive walk to their cars!!

 

Rant over

 

The Q

[James]

Christopher Trace of Blue Peter, they promised the model rail would return after he left but it never did...

He left in the sixties I think - they certainly had a model railway on it when i watched as a child!

[GreenDiesel]

Railways & railway modelling is all about nostalgia & childhood memories for me.

 

I basically got my railway interest from my Dad (who died in 1999). He was quite a railway/model railway enthusiast and I have memories of operating my Dad's HO / 00 layout with him when I was a boy in the 1960s, watching real trains & going to train shows, etc.

 

Ironically, I was only interested in trains as boy when my Dad was alive. It wasn't until 2002-04, after my wife & I had two sons, that my railway interest started up again. I took my boys to various heritage railways, model shows, etc., and my interest in trains was rekindled. It took having two sons to do this!

 

I'm still using a couple of the locos today that I ran with my Dad in the mid-60s. The main one is my Hornby Dublo 4MT -- it's a little play-worn now but still runs well and looks great!

 

Rob

[lordhinton]

i went rugby station with my dad and told him i like the pendolinos, around a week later i had a set, month later had half of the loft converted, 3 months later half gave up in the loft and built a layout in my room (current)

 

dan