What Got You Into Railway Modelling?

[Mountain Goat]

For me, I can't really remember a time without trains except claustrophobic memories of being in my navy blue pram when I was a few months old where I used to get frustrated as I couldn't see out. (My mum said I was in a pushchair after about year and a half. I do remember watching a Western diesel come into Burry Port station as we boarded the train and my mum says she had the pram (Why we went in the guards van).
So from my earliest memories onwards I recall trains for most of them.
I first had red plastic track with push along trains. Then when I was about five or six my dads cousin brought over trains... I remember just before this being asked if I wanted N gauge or 00 gauge. I didn't really know what to choose as I just liked trains! I ended up with a lovely GWR Triang-Hornby pannier tank with two Triang coaches and a 5 plank Ocean wagon and a yellow cement wagon and a brake van (GWR). I had Triang system 6 track which included three points (Two right hand which had see through mechanisms and a left hand which was similar but had a non see through black mechanism. I had eight R605 curves, a R606, a couple of R600 and R601 straights and a beautifully made and durqble AGW controller which had a lovely toggle switch. I also had a red power clip. I can't give any of the smaller details as I was only about five or six when I was given them.

[Walkingthedog]

Got a train set for Christmas when I was 9.

[Mountain Goat]

Nice. Do you remember the set?

[Walkingthedog]

This one.

[footplate1947]

Those were the first 2 coaches I got to go with mine. The old blood and custard. But I only had a Jinty to pull them. ..John

[Walkingthedog]

I did love that set.

[RogerB]

I started with one of these clockwork sets - which was absolutely fantastic until my sister tried it without the track down two flights of stairs.

This is not it by the way - just an image I found on eBay. R-

[yelrow]

I still have my clockwork stuff, buildings, signal, buffers, all with boxes. Track a tad worse for wear, but still runs. Also, have my original 3 rail freight set. with box.

[bulleidboy]

I think I was about four or five when my first train set(?) arrived - this would have been about 1950/51. It was a Hornby Dublo N2 Tank with some wagons. My parents and a gentleman from the flat upstairs spent sometime building a High Street scene on a board with a level crossing at one end. I remember being told that the night before I got the train (Christmas??), they had been putting the finishing touches to the street - all the telegraph poles had fuse wire linking the poles, and the upstairs gentleman bent over and his small pocket knife came out of his jacket pocket, went into the telegraph wires and spun round in the wire, creating a single wire - they spent hours untangling it! In about 1954 we moved from the flat in Muswell Hill to a house in Friern Barnet. I had a board in the bedroom with a two track circuit - one high level. A Hornby Dublo Duchess of Montrose joined the fleet along with a couple of blood and custard coaches, together with the original Hornby Dublo Royal Mail coach which dropped off and picked up mail bags (I think they were made of lead?) - all coaches in tin plate in those days. I had one maroon suburban coach which had polished tin plate as windows - no glazing in those early days. We moved again in 1964 from North London to Cheam in Surrey, by which time I had been at work for a couple of years, and my mother (bless her) gave the model railway to a children's home. In 1974 my first son was born, so I created a circuit on a board - it had an LNER 0-6-0 tank (R252), and I treated myself to Sir Dinadan (R154) - both loco's are in the cupboard with my other loco's.

[Mountain Goat]

Thanks for the lovely history and pictures etc. It is nice to see.