Coldgunner Posted November 22, 2011 Share Posted November 22, 2011 I was just reminiscing about the layouts I had when I was younger. The first I believe was around 8x4 OO gauge, it had a single loop and a siding. It was little more than that because 95% of the year it was in storage and would come out during the holidays. The second was again a bare board, roughly 6x4, but was made up on the tri-ang "standard" track, with the grey base and the reversible curves. Again this was a simple layout but I think it had a passing loop too. The third one was an 8x4, this was set up on the floor of the conservatory, and later on on top of the pool table. This was a double loop with a siding. This was a bit special as I remember at the back the mainline looped back on itself to utilise a crossover section. The board became slightly warped adding a slight hill in the back corner. This layout was dismantled and the board shortened to make the next layout. The fourth layout was a bit more interesting. We'd painted the entire board a medium to dark green (grassy colour) and again had two loops. The internal loop was slightly shorter than the the outside. We painted roads onto the board with the eventual intention of adding a town (which never developed). Unfortunately this was my last layout and I soon got into Star Wars toys (1997). The board and track were sadly disposed of. All of the layouts were powered by my a tri-ang RP-13 unit which gave years of good service. The only DC adaptor I've had since then that truly beats it is my HM2000. Curiously, after the RP-13 broke I wired up a scalextric controller with the accelerator, but in reverse polarity. This had two problems: A: The filament inside glowed too warm and would overheat B: Trains for some reason went max speed when the trigger was released and would only stop when the trigger was depressed, like an electronic brake. ...oh to be 10 years old again! Anyone else got similar memories of layouts of long ago? Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Dolpher Posted November 23, 2011 Share Posted November 23, 2011 As a child I remember being mesmerised by the layout in the window of Bec Models in Tooting Bec. As a reward for going to church every Sunday I was allowed to put 1d (?) in the slot in the widow frame to make the trains run for a minute or two. Magic. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold The Stationmaster Posted November 23, 2011 RMweb Gold Share Posted November 23, 2011 When I was very young my dad built me a permanent layout in my bedroom - Peco Individulay track on hardboard on timber framing and 3-rail of course as my sole loco was an HD 'Duchess of Atholl' (in maroon, with LMS on the tender, at that time) and a few wagons, no coaches, and a transformer controller built by a radio engineer he knew (probably in exchange for some domestic woodwork - dad was a skilled carpenter and cabinet maker). My second loco - a good 6 or more years later - was an N2 and I also received 2 Gresley coaches in blood & custard and my third loco was 'Bristol Castle' - for Christmas in the year it was released. The really big step forward came with an extension using fibre based 'flexible' track which took the line up & over onto a bookcase along the side of my bedroom crossing a miniature Forth Bridge built out of balsa wood - it latter went into my layout in the attic and it still survives although in a rather poor state with bits missing after two house moves and time in storage. I still have a couple of sections of the original layout which I've kept for sentimental reasons (plus the locos and rolling stock of course). This slow acquisition of locos and stock might perhaps explain why I'm absolutely convinced that today we are blessed with the most incredible variety of locos and rolling stock and my difficulty in understanding why on earth people don't seem to be prepared to wait 5 minutes (let alone a year) for the next promised release. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
10800 Posted November 23, 2011 Share Posted November 23, 2011 Christmas 1958, age 4 1/2 Triang green Princess Elizabeth on an oval of 'Standard' track. A few years later it had grown to this (the first is not contemporary with the other two - it's got 'scenery'). Still all Triang stock, but some 'new' Series 3 track mixed in, and a right hotch-potch of kit buildings etc built by my Dad. Some Faller houses, a cardboard station kit, Airfix colour light signal gantry, and what on earth is that dock crane doing? Clearly I knew nothing about train formations! But play value? Priceless. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium NGT6 1315 Posted November 23, 2011 RMweb Premium Share Posted November 23, 2011 My childhood layout was created around the mid-80s from a roughly 8.2x5.9 ft baseboard which originally belonged to one of my uncles and had been stored away for the better part of two decades. At that time, it was most convenient for us to continue using the vast amount of Märklin tracks and rolling stock which my dad in turn had kept from his youth. As it was, my initial rolling stock inventory was rather dated already, though the following years would then see quite a number of fleet expansions with then-contemporary models. The layout itself was a roundy roundy with three circuits within each other, and a largish mainline station. There also was a depot of sorts with three sidings connected through a three-way set of points. Though while DCC did already exist at that time, the layout was conventionally controlled, this of course leading to all sorts of embarrassing situations with locos chasing each other on the same circuit, or trains having a rather rough encounter on a double slip... But in any case, this layout gave me countless hours of enjoyment - till I, too, was admittedly grabbed by the personal computer surge of the early 90s. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
cromptonnut Posted November 23, 2011 Share Posted November 23, 2011 Christmas 1978, aged 6, (you can tell by the Saturday Night Fever album) straight out of a Cyril Freezer trackplan book, built by my grandad for me although it was the 'main present from everyone' that year. Living about 20 miles from the Peco factory at the time I guess made it all quite straightforward. The station and factory were built by him from chipboard and offcuts - and quite how that car transporter got over the humpbacked bridge I'll never know... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
10800 Posted November 23, 2011 Share Posted November 23, 2011 I didn't realise you were a cat. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
cromptonnut Posted November 23, 2011 Share Posted November 23, 2011 That was Smokey, who has long since gone to meet her maker, but she was most fascinated by these little plastic things whizzing round, and on more than one occasion decided to bat the pannier tank with her paw as it approached and send it flying into the oil depot. There is another picture somewhere of me operating the layout with a big ear to ear grin on christmas morning but I'll spare you all the sight of me in my red checked pyjamas. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Catkins Posted November 23, 2011 Share Posted November 23, 2011 There seems to be two common points here - Christmas and Train Sets - and who am i to stand in the way of convention? My first layout took a little while to come together, the train set at Christmas, and the board in the new year (we were away at christmas.) The train set consisted of an oval of track, the Hornby pug "Desmond", a Smiths Crisps van, a tank wagon and a 5 plank wagon, power provided by a simple controller and two 6v batteries - the ones with the springs on top. From that oval - My dad, elder brother and I got more track and stock (my dad got his out of storage) and the board became an 8foot x 4foot, painted green and filled with track, it then grew again in to an 8 foot x 16 foot with an operating well, that had a station on one side, and some loops on the other side, with a town on one end, and a 'hill' as a corner filler. I've still got Desmond somewhere - Just a pity that I don't have anywhere to let him have a run Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
BlackRat Posted November 23, 2011 Share Posted November 23, 2011 A long, long time ago, in a Galaxy far, far away........................ ps, if the truth be known, I have had as much fun playing with the children's Brio set as much as anything else, if not more! Perhaps there's a moral there Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
coachmann Posted November 23, 2011 Share Posted November 23, 2011 1950-ish...... First train set came about after playing marbles at school and swopping my two best dobberts for a Trix loco body stuck onto a Hornby Dublo flat wagon with plasticine. Track was a 6ft ong wooden bed runner with 00 gauge grooves in it (I'd have been stumped if the grooves had been P4). Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coldgunner Posted November 23, 2011 Author Share Posted November 23, 2011 Blimey, your must be one of the only people who's first train was a kitbash in itself... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
coachmann Posted November 23, 2011 Share Posted November 23, 2011 Blimey, your must be one of the only people who's first train was a kitbash in itself... Aye, me mum were all of a myther at bed time if I were still using' track. House were that damp there were a rainbow in't hall. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
10800 Posted November 23, 2011 Share Posted November 23, 2011 House were that damp there were a rainbow in't hall. And being in't North it were in black and white Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coldgunner Posted November 23, 2011 Author Share Posted November 23, 2011 Black and White? you had it good, we had to make do with wireless! I wish I still had a picture of my layout somewhere (I may have a picture). As those pics are pre-digital they'll be stored amongst thousands of photos. I really miss having the space for massive baseboards. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
coachmann Posted November 23, 2011 Share Posted November 23, 2011 Wireless? I'de have given anything for a wireless. We used to be entertained by cockroaches tap dancing on the hearth. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Coldgunner Posted November 23, 2011 Author Share Posted November 23, 2011 A hearth? I'd give me right leg for one of those. We had to stand in the fire holding the dead cockroach while our father stabbed us to death! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold DaveF Posted November 23, 2011 RMweb Gold Share Posted November 23, 2011 My first proper layout was "based on" Tetbury and Cwmmawr stations which was Dad's in the shed, given to me after he moved into the loft to build East Leake, about 1958. 1 2 "Tetbury" 3 "Cwmmawr" Track was Wrenn, locos mainly by Dad with my "help" from cocoa tins and Triang chassis, one is on an Essar mech. David Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Catkins Posted November 23, 2011 Share Posted November 23, 2011 Coachman and Coldgunner, a new comedy double act!! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Premium Physicsman Posted November 26, 2011 RMweb Premium Share Posted November 26, 2011 My first proper layout was "based on" Tetbury and Cwmmawr stations which was Dad's in the shed, given to me after he moved into the loft to build East Leake, about 1958. 1 2 "Tetbury" 3 "Cwmmawr" Track was Wrenn, locos mainly by Dad with my "help" from cocoa tins and Triang chassis, one is on an Essar mech. David Blooming heck Dave!! Pretty refined for a first layout! My first "layout" was the ten feet (or so) of track supplied with one of the 1960s Triang "Freightmaster" sets. The picture on the box was incredibly evocative, and the fact that my Class 31 whizzed around an oval loop at a scale speed of 200mph, gathering fibres from the carpet (baseboard? At the age of 7, what was a baseboard back then?) was neither here nor there. Sheer bliss! Jeff. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Tim V Posted November 26, 2011 Share Posted November 26, 2011 Blimey, I've seen layouts at exhibitions these days that aren't as good as that Tetbury...... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Poggy1165 Posted November 26, 2011 Share Posted November 26, 2011 When I was very young our house wasn't big enough for a layout so we used to set up on grandma's table after Sunday tea. Hornby-Dublo three rail. If there was plenty of time we'd do a double track, otherwise single track. With my grandad on hand (who started his career as a cleaner on the GCR not that long after it stopped being the MS&LR) there was always expert advice available. 'Put sand on t'rail!' was the inevitable cry when an over enthusiastic use of the regulator on starting set driving wheels spinning. Great fun! I remember we even had working yard lights (Trix?) and in the winter months often ran the layout with them as the only illumination. A few years later we moved to a bigger house and I was awarded the 'front room' for the railway, which was promptly set up on a 6' x 4' board, though there was really room for 8' x 4' or even 10' x 6'. Somehow we got onto this a double track main line with a reversing loop, a turntable and a three road good yard. As I recall the engines were: BR 2-6-4t, ex LNER N2 0-6-0t, Silver King (A4) Duchess of Montrose, Bristol Castle and a diesel of the D8000 class. A mixed bunch, and certainly not a balanced stud. Of these only the 2-6-4t looked familiar to me as we had similar Stanier and Fairburn engines up the 'Hyde Road Branch' (Fallowfield Loop) all the time. Nevertheless this was one of the most satisfactory and reliable model railways I have ever owned. Unfortunately my father (who liked to keep up with trends) decided 2 rail was the way forward. So we moved onto a smaller (in terms of trackwork) layout with the truly awful Wrenn trackwork. It took a while to build up the number of engines again and somehow I never got another A4. This layout was highly unreliable, but things improved when we graduated to an 8' x 4' board (luxury!) and changed to a mix of PECO and Hornby-Dublo track. Then in 1964/5 a mental abberation led me to sell the lot and move into 009. Childhood ended there. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Brian Harrap Posted November 26, 2011 Share Posted November 26, 2011 For my first hand built track I used Plasticine chairs. Didn't work very well. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
coachmann Posted November 26, 2011 Share Posted November 26, 2011 For my first hand built track I used Plasticine chairs. Didn't work very well. Thats the beauty of RMweb. Had it been around at the time someone would have put you onto bubbly gum... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Ruffnut Thorston Posted November 27, 2011 Share Posted November 27, 2011 Blooming heck Dave!! Pretty refined for a first layout! My first "layout" was the ten feet (or so) of track supplied with one of the 1960s Triang "Freightmaster" sets. The picture on the box was incredibly evocative, and the fact that my Class 31 whizzed around an oval loop at a scale speed of 200mph, gathering fibres from the carpet (baseboard? At the age of 7, what was a baseboard back then?) was neither here nor there. Sheer bliss! Jeff. Hi Jeff. That would have been a bit like this set then... A "first edition" RS.51 Freightmaster set from C1964. (THOR Railways collection photos.) Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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