First Purchases?

pcarrell
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We all started out somewhere in the hobby. 

My question to you is, what was your first model railroad related purchase (besides a magazine)?

As a side note, do you still have it, or any pictures of it?

Mine was an HO Tyco Spirit of '76 train set (pn. 7330) with a bicenntenial painted Alco Century 430.  It's long gone now though.




dugbonz
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Mine was a Marx three rail
Mine was a Marx three rail train set. It had  some sort of steam loco, two cars and a caboose with an oval of track. I logged a  lot of miles on that mainline. It's long gone too. It was almost 40 years ago.
--
Tom C. "It's the least I could do. And never let it be said I didn't do the least I could do." Groucho Marx


Bryan
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My first was a B'mann

My first was a B'mann 0-4-0 Santa-Fe with some boxcars and a box of Peco flextrack with 6  settrack t/o's... this was closely followed by a Atlas GP40 Burlington.

I still have 2 of the t/o's (recovered and usable), and my brother has both of the locos (condition unknown).

[Edit] I forget to mention; I started with 'N' scale from day one.


--

Bryan




absnut
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First Purchase

Mine was an Athearn HO F7 with the Hi-F drive back in the mid-50's.  For those whose memories don't reach back that far or who never heard of it, it was the one that ran on 4 rubber bands stetched over a drive shaft and around thick rubber axles.  We've come a long way.........

It's long gone, the victem of a couple little over-zealous ankle-biters in the early 60's!


--

Dick,

Usually, when all is said and done, there's a lot more said than done!




GUILE
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FIRST PURCHASE
Mine was an AMERICAN FLYER 080 switcher and some freight car's on a 4x6 board  for christmas when I was 13 GORDON


Komata
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First Purchases?

My first RR purchase?

(Don't laugh): While on holiday, and at aged 10, two green-painted OO/HO-scale Hornby passenger carriages and a three-foot length of HornbyOO/HO track.  The fact that  I didn't have anything to pull them along with was totally irrelevant - I had pocket money to spare and just 'had to have' the carriages and the track to 'run' them on (oh, the ignorance of childhood . . . )

(Although I had been given a very second hand Hornby 0-4-0 clockwork train set, I had never heard about electricity and model trains, and as for 'scale'?  That was what we had on the roses at home. . .) 

Of course the gloss soon wore off the gingerbread, and, surprisingly (understandingly?) the retailer actually accepted the items back two days later and gave me a full refund .  . .

And my first 'real' (as in: I think I know what I'm doing) MR purchase? 

Two Peco Varikit .009 locomotives running on Arnold 0-6-0 chassis' which I purchased in the (mistaken) belief that they were actually N-scale (well, they ran on N-scale track, they looked about the right size so how could they not be N?).  The things we learn - and yes, the bodies are still around - 'reduced to produce' (although the running gear died years ago and couldn't be revived), and still capable of causing reminisces when they are found while looking for something else. . .

Thanks for asking - it was a long time ago . . .

Komata

"TVR - serving the Northern Taranaki . . ."


--

Komata

"TVR - serving the Northern Taranaki . . . " ___________________________________________




taz-n-rr
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I haven't the faintest

I haven't the faintest idea, but my trains were N scale, it may have been some small Atlas set.  But as an alternative offering, my earliest memories are of my Dad setting up his American Flyer track down the hallway, and running the trains on that.  We were in the Army which may have something to do with no permanent layout.
 
As memories now dredge up, I think my first N loco was some F unit with a two axle front truck that was the only drive with the motor over it with the motor shaft vertical.  It had terrible traction, I was terrible at loco maintenance, and it eventually smoked the motor.
 
Charles




Jacko-Pat
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My first...........

 My first purchase was a Mantua 0-6-0 side tanker kit. I believe it was called the "Shifter" I worked over that loco with some fine drills and files. I even put a headlight in it. When it was finished and painted it ran very well and quite smooth. It had brass insert bearings in the zamac frame. That was in HO scale and a long time ago, to be more specific it was September of 1963. The song "I got you babe" by Sunny and Cher was in the top ten songs at the time.

Jacko 




pcarrell
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Memories......
Such great stories and memories!  It's a fun thing to take a jaunt down memory lane once in a while, huh?


hobo
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Here's My TYCO from the

Here's My TYCO from the 70's I worked on it with Dad when I was 10 It' long gone sold in a Garage Sale.

 




bsczar1
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1st Purchase
A Bachmann Challenger HO Scale set off ebay, which was quickly traded for a bunch of old N Scale flextrack and other stuff. Realizing I wanted some thing smaller after it arrived, I went to the LHS and saw a guy looking at the same set. I told him I had a new one, and would sell it for less than the store price so I could use the money to dive into N Scale. Turns out he was looking to get out of N Scale and go into HO with his grandson. Eyesight, putzy-ness and etc. was his problem with N, plus he wanted something less permament. I got the better end of the deal in my opinion.
--

Brian Czarnecki

"A man who has never gone to school may steal from a freight car, but if he has a university education, he may steal the whole railroad." Theodore Roosevelt




Jimmi
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Old Memories

My first was a Roundhouse HO 0-6-0 with sloped back tender.  Would have been about 1958.  They made that for many years, but the early version was all cast metal. That's long gone. 

Absnut, thanks for reminding me of the rubber band drive-train on those old F units.  Loved the way they loped along as the rubber bands slightly expanded and contracted.


--

The secret of success is sincerity. Once you can fake that, you've got it made.    Jean Giraudoux

Jim




aroc
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Not my first purchase but

Not my first purchase but it's what got me interested in the hobby to begin with.  Mid 70's I rec'd for Christmas an HO set.  It was a Chessy System yard switcher and about 5 cars.  I soon found out that "N" was a better way to go. 

Eric

Deer Lodge, MT


--
You are what you think.


buzzrexx
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A used Bachmann GP-35 (I

A used Bachmann GP-35 (I think) at a train show. It was a real trooper- here's an old picture of it hauling a grain train on my old layout that I had before I got married.

I was lucky to have started out in N scale, so I've been in it ever since. My Grandpa gave me a small layout that had been built by the neighbour who passed on. I got some rolling stock with it that I still have today. This caboose is one of them.




thirdrail
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Starting in model railroading
The first model train pruchased for me by my parents was a three rail American Flyer Reading Co. Atlantic with three tinplate cars around 1947.  When Flyer went to two rail, it was traded in for a New York Central Hudson and a passenger car set. In 1953, at age 12, I went into HO and my first purchase was a Mantua "Eight-Ball" Mogul kit. I converted to N scale in 1968. No photos though.
--

Put the MODELING back in model railroading.




FergusonTE
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My parents, neither of whom

My parents, neither of whom are train people, infected me with trains when I was very young and one example was my tin lunch box I had when I started school. It had a CN TurboTrain on one side, a CP freight on the other and another CN train wrapping around the edges. I think it's still in my parents' house somewhere. (Go to this link and search for Canadian Pacific.)

The first actual model trains I had were two HO sets that my brother and I got for Christmas one year, when I was maybe 12 and he was 10. We even had a train room in the house (big farmhouse) but when we got into our teens, it sort of fell by the wayside.

The next time I got into trains was in 1996, when I moved to an apartment in a city and to keep from going mad, I started building the Carolina Central on a hollow core door. But then we bought a house 6 months later and trains were put away until around 3 years ago. Now I'm infecting my boys and my (tolerant) daughter with trains. :)

-mike




NH2006
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I am a Tyco Tyke too, I

I am a Tyco Tyke too, I think this is a similar set from 1977, though mine had different cars....

 




Zandoz
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The first thing I remember

The first thing I remember purchasing was when I was a kid, saving my money and can labels to buy a Marx O27 set offered by Campbell Soup as a promotion.  Unfortunately that and all my old Lionel & Marx 3-rail stuff was destroyed in the late 70s...it was stored in a garage my dad had rented, and when the property the garage was on was sold, it was assumed that there was just junk in the garage, and it was bulldozed.




69Z28
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I was and American Flyer

I was and American Flyer Freak.  Over my pre-Teen years my dad brought me a large train collection. When boxed up it ran to 4 18"x24"x 48" boxes.

They got lost in one of our many moves.

Oh Well Frown

See ya

Ron 

    


--
Ya gots ta choose. Sometimes ya wins and sometimes ya lose.


Kashirigi
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I'm just a newbie. My first

I'm just a newbie. My first purchases were a Kato EF-66 and an E-231 series 5 car set when I was in Japan last year.

Now that I know what a deal it was, I should have bought 10 times as much and no track.


--
Japanese N-scale trains in a very tight space: http://yamanotesen.thruhere.net


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