[zmil]

Hi All

Influence is a on going aspect of our lives We are products of the information age
Media of all description has influence on our decisions in life and modeling

But what was your beginnings to the hobby

Someone said in a previous post that people often model or collect what they first were given as a present.

Following on from the post on Catalogs

I must admit , I really enjoy looking at catalogs

It is what started me in this hobby

My uncle gave me a 1962 Fleischmann catalog which I read about 1000 times

I had to choose between a Passenger Set and a Freight Set, I chose Freight
My New trains came with a brand new catalog , I still have it to this day (and the original trains)
The catalog is in good condition however the pages have yellowed a bit from much reading and dreaming!

I have since collected every Fleischmann HO catalog (apart from the 1952)

Obsessed? probably!

Regards Zmil

 

[Brian Considine]

For me it was just the "circle of track" train set when I was very young & it just progressed from there (apart from the initial period I discovered girls !).

 

[ebaykal]

For me it was a birthday present from my Pa. An "American Flyer" ( Gilbert & Co.) S Scale startset. Year 1959.
American Flyer does not exist anymore, believe it was swallowed up by Lionel. It trigered in me of what I am today.
I still have that set with all of its accessories and is still running.

Baykal

 

[neil_s_wood]

For me it was getting a Hornby HST train set at some point in the seventies. I played with that quite a bit and eventually lost interest as you do when I was a teenager. I got back into it a few years ago when I started living a more settled existence. I like models of all types, especially working ones. I like the technology aspect of DCC however this was a bonus as I didn't find out about that until after getting back into model rail.

 

[upnick]

For me i started with a circle of track and a little 0-6-0 in OO which came to and end a break general modelling all through my teenage years and into adulthood, a change in direction around four years ago lead me to where i am now, more locos than track .......

 

[Geoff]

For me it was my Dad who in his younger days worked for the GWR and bought me my first Triang (Hornby?) train set at an early age! Not looked back since!

 

[Doug]

I was thinking about this subject the other day when I pulled out an old 1978 Hornby catalogue. It is a well thumbed edition that I bought at L.A. Richards down on Wimbledon Broadway. Unfortunately the show is no longer there. I bought the Hornby Catalogue and the Hornby Track Plans 4th edition and these to items inspired me to get into model railways.

The photo below on page 6 of the catalogue shows a shop window that could have been taken in my local model shop. They were not very nice in there and I got chased out quite a few times. I don't think that I bought much there though. Airfix model kits were cheaper in the department store Elys in the high street.

I always thought that the kid in the photo looked a bit smug. I was envious though as I didn't actually get a railway set then or ever as a child. The first train I bought was from a model shop in Paris when I was working there in 1994. I bought it on the day my wife confirmed that she was pregnant. it was a brand new Jouef 231 K model.

Also, looking at that photo, the Duchess of Sutherland has always seemed to represent to me something that I couldn't ever get. Well I bought one last year and I had mixed feelings about it. Glad that I have it, but let down in the respect that it was so easy to buy.

Only now am I seriously playing with trains. A long wait, but I don't mind - at least I've confirmed what I like.

 

[Robert Stokes]

For me it probably indirectly had something to do with the fact that my father was a railway signalman. It meant we travelled everywhere by train and so I saw a lot of them. This was back in the steam days of the 1950s. I started with a Triang Princess set that I had saved up for at the age of 11. It helped that I had a good friend that was into model railways as well. In those days it had to be assembled on the carpet each time, with no scenery, but it was real enough for me. With some breaks, the hobby has been with me throughout my life.

 

[34C]

So many factors. Living near the East Coast main line, where the great shiny green monsters put on such a show. Fairly frequent visits to St Albans and Watford meant that the impressive but filthy LMR operation was also regularly seen (when young I actually thought their locos were painted dull brown!). Several model railways among family and friends; and the large and impressive Havil layout, by the De Havilland club. A choice of model shops, one particularly friendly and helpful, where demonstration came as part of any purchase.

 

[bike2steam]

An uncle bought me a s/h Hornby 0 gauge tin plate train set when I was 5 (1956), and would take me round his place of work , when we visited his family on some Sundays, he was a driver at Stratford sheds.
Paul M.

 

[7113]

What influenced my start in this hobby?

Well I suppose having trains running past the bottom of my parents garden, this being the end of Kent coast steam.

A love of all things with wheels (not just trains).

Two cousins with a full room of railway (all Tri-ang).

And, I suppose the trusty clockwork set for my fifth birthday (1963 - Tri-ang).

Then there were the toy shops at Christmas, one locally (Henry's?) gave over it's whole cellar to trains for this period.

Trainspotting holidays with friends in the early seventies (explains the love of blue diesels!)

I could go on - but I won't!

Mind you it would be interesting to know where that shop in the Hornby catalogue was, and if it's still there.

Regards

 

[harkins77]

Not meaning to sound judgemental but it was my father not letting me play with his Thomas the Tank Engine set he got for one of his birthdays gave me the will to do one of my own when I moved out. Not only that I was already into trains before his birthday anyway so I guess it was a mix of the 2 reasons really.

 

[dwb]

Inspiration? I don't remember when I first "played trains". It all started with my dad's clockwork Hornby O Gauge tin plate, the engine was an LNER apple green 0-4-0. After a few years we graduated to Triang trainset RS23. So for me, model railways have always been "fun" and a great source of pleasure and enjoyment even if they were put aside for cars, girls and then raising a family.

David

 

[alastairq]

Initially, as a 2-3year old, I hada Hornby clockwork O gauge box of bits....which also included a donated Basset-Lowke pair of wagons, a bogie well wagon, and their bogie brick wagon. I cannot recall what loco I had, but it was a tank, with two maroon suburban coaches and some wagons....I loved the tinplate level crossing most of all....mainly due I think to the way the wheels clacked across those odd double slots in the rail ends.

After that age I had a bit of a nomadic childhood which included a spell in a NCH home....until fostered to a familu who had older kids...one of whom was into modifying Airfix kits..[produced all the various marks of Spitfire, for example].....Using pocket money earnt, I started buying the then-new Playcraft models......goods wagons, etc......and for a loco, I had given [by request] a Triang Transcontinental dummy F7 diesel.....couldn't persuade anyone to buy me a Playcraft loco.....had a few yards or Wrenn track as well, and made my own point, gluing odd bits of rail down to a plank of wood!!

eventually upset folk by swapping this lot for a collection of Brittains artillery, and soldiers to match.

come 11 years old, around 1962-ish, I had started asking for Railway Modeller instead of the Eagle comic.....and discovered TT and Tri-ang...but....I was NOT content with the ordianry...an article by [rev?] David Lloyd,''building a shelf layout in OOn3'' [wish I still had that article].......set the grey matter thinking..........living in a constant state of transit at the time, making a shelf layout [to fit a bookcase I had made in carpentry class]...seemed so ideal.

so, for Xmas I asked for a Triang TT 0-6-0 tank [jinty]...an Airfix Pug kit...[some glue] and a junior hacksaw!

by Boxing day I had cut the Jinty body up with the hacksaw, likewise the Airfix Pug kit, married the two together as per the article...and chopped around a couple of TT wagons I already had....and thus initiated the most unholy of family rows!

[mother simply just did NOT understand these things.....]

The layout got built...I still have a little covered footbridge by I think, Faller...which spanned the stream and waterfall as per David Lloyd's layout....even used large chunks of cork bark for rock faces.

later on I created even more family rows as a birthday present of a Triang OO GWR clerestory coach got chopped up to make a pair of narrow gauge coaches on TT bogies.....

so I guess, from an early age I careered down the path of a bodger and basher??

 

[Ed Allen]

I was bought a Triang set about 1957. It was a Jinty, a couple of wagons and a brake van on an oval of grey track.
I already had the Great Central and the Midland in view of my house. I still run the Jinty.
I was wise enough, in 1969, to marry a lass whose dad had 'O' gauge round the garden. The next few years I got white metal kits for Xmas and B'days...George the Fith, Precursor tank, Prince of Wales, Cardean, Midland compound, 999 class and Flatiron tank, Unrebuilt Scot and G2A which is the only one still running and compares well to my new RTR one.
I had an uncle who was a fitter for the GC and my wife had two great grandads who were drivers on the Cheshire Lines, a grandad who was a clerk at Stockport Tiviot Dale and a second cousin who was a driver and used to hoot 'Ilkley Moor baht'at' on his class 40 as he passed the back of our present house.
Next year, 40 years of happiness, one for me and 39 for her !

Ed

 

[neil_s_wood]

QUOTE (Doug @ 17 Sep 2008, 19:19) <{POST_SNAPBACK}>

Thanks for showing that picture Doug, there's a picture of the train set I first got in there. The HST one that is. That's not me with the Duchess.

 

[pedromorgan]

i dont really know what started it for me. my borther and my father built a layout together before i was born. it was broken up before i was born but i remember playing with some of the wagons on the kitchine floor when we had a shop on dover court road in bristol.

in terms of getting into propper modelling i really have 2 people to thank for that. the first was a chap called rod pickering who introduced me to american modelling when hornby and lima were turning out the guff of the early 90's.

the second was a chap called alan butcher. he built some buildings for pendon and his models were always perfect. it gave me something to aspire to.

both have sadly died. but their memory most definatly lives on.

Peter

 

[alastairq]

I remember Rod.....did you ever get involved with the NMRA British Region?

 

[pedromorgan]

yep (it was all his fault!!) i was a member for about 5 years. when i went to university i had to tighten the purse strings and it was one of the things that went.

he had this amazing sence of humor. he used to come to the club with highly detailed american stock that was detailed by a chap called Mike Scott. i dont think i ever met him (i think he lived up in scotland) but i still have all the models and they are exquisite. he would sell them to me for sums i could make from my paper round. i only got £30 per month. but i always had some new stock to keep my intrest.

Peter

 

[alastairq]

Mike Scott is from the NE.....and I bumped into him just about a month ago at the Thirsk model railway show.....he obviously didn't recognise me after some 10 years or more...and I didn't pursue the issue, but he was still at it with his switching layouts based on the John Allen Timesaver design.....this time with DCC!

During the early 90's I was fairly active within the Calder Northern group that used to meet , usually, in Knaresborough....erecting whatever modules were brought along, to allow some running as well as nattering and avoiding temptation.