What was your first locomotive?

BNSF FAN Nov 22, 2020

  1. traingeekboy

    traingeekboy TrainBoard Member

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    My first loco came in an Atlas set. Underneath it said Varney, but it had a plastic shell. Basically the same loco as seen here. I still have the box car, reefer, and caboose. I think those are old Varney as well.
     
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  2. Doug Gosha

    Doug Gosha TrainBoard Member

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    I still have the Varney ore car my late older brother had in the early sixties and I bought some other Varney cars a few years ago, too. HO history.

    Doug
     
  3. GP30

    GP30 TrainBoard Member

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    My first locomotive was part of a plastic battery-powered toy I got for Christmas when I was around 5 years old. I don’t remember it, but there is a picture if me playing with it (this would be around 1990).

    A couple years later, I got a LifeLike HO scale set on a 4x8 table, and thats what I’ve had ever since. I don’t have any of the original pieces from that starter set, but considering the quality, I have no regrets moving on from them.

    I did get a Lionel set when I was 12, I absolutely still have that one now. My son got his own Lionel set for Christmas 2019 when he was 6, I think we’ll get him an HO set next Christmas. I think he’ll be able to handle that at 8 years old.


    Sent from my iPhone using Tapatalk
     
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  4. mtaylor

    mtaylor Staff Member TrainBoard Supporter

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    My first locomotive was the HO Scale Tyco Royal Blue. As a child, I loved this loco though it did not last for very long. Side note, I later purchased another model of this on Ebay around 2010 just because, it also died quickly.....the question is, will I buy one again for nostalgia???? :)

     
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  5. Kurt Moose

    Kurt Moose TrainBoard Member

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    Yes, yes you will!;)

    I bought a Great Northern Athearn HO GP just for this reason, and have it on my mantle for sentimental value. Every time I look at it, brings back memories.....:love:
     
  6. Doug Gosha

    Doug Gosha TrainBoard Member

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    My late older brother had the Tyco Santa Fe dark blue and yellow (freight) F unit of the early sixties. It was lost, over the years, except for the weight.

    I was in a hobby shop in the suburb of Itasca (Chicago), in 2009, and there one was! I walked out the door with it (after paying for it, of course). :D

    The later Tyco steamers with the tender (Power Torque) drive were kind of junky. I have one that's a smoker and that's cool as it has a pump to make the smoke puff but...

    Doug
     
    Last edited: Feb 4, 2021
  7. mtaylor

    mtaylor Staff Member TrainBoard Supporter

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    Yes, it was absolute garbage, but it was still fantastic while it lasted. My second Loco was Tyco E7 in Burlington Northern with Tyco's same Torque Dive and also garbage. Tyco was good for getting me into the hobby but the quality was not good.

    I did like the cars, building kits and some accessories. After that 2nd Tyco Loco, my dad and I went to World of Toys & Hobbies in North Town Mall in Blaine, MN and the salesperson directed us to the Atlas FP7.

    All that said, the Tyco Royal Blue is special because it was the beginning, even if it was and is junk lol.

    Sent from my SM-G988U using Tapatalk
     
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  8. train1

    train1 TrainBoard Supporter

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    In the very early 1970's I received my first train set - made by MINITRIX ( made in Germany). It was a CN F7 striped - the detail was pretty good. Still runs and still in the collection
     
  9. GeorgeV

    GeorgeV TrainBoard Member

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    I still have the Varney Docksider that was in the train set I received at about the age of 6 or 7 in the late 1950's. It still runs, sort of. It's missing a corner of the cab roof and a pilot step taking a dive or two to the floor, it has wipers on the insulated drivers made from spring wire from some unknown source after the originals totally wore down, and one rear drive wheel is slightly out of quarter. It loosened after 10 or 12 years of hard use. Some CA, (or maybe contact cement?) after trial and error quartering fixed it in place but left it with bit of a hitch in running. When I first got the train set I would lay on the floor next to the circle of track and watch it, along with the gondola, stock car, and caboose, for hours. Some months later my father built a 4' by 6' "train platform", as it was called, using a track plan from the Atlas book, and that's where my model railroading hobby got started.
     
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  10. Doug Gosha

    Doug Gosha TrainBoard Member

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    Great story. Something about model trains that makes kids want to lay on the floor. I did the same thing with our American flyer trains (which I still have) in the 1950s. Just so cool to watch the locomotive coming at you and then turning right in time!

    Doug
     
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  11. r_i_straw

    r_i_straw Mostly N Scale Staff Member

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    With something like T Trak you can just lay your head on the table.
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  12. Doorgunnerjgs

    Doorgunnerjgs TrainBoard Member

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    Lionel O gauge or American Flyer S gauge on the floor does it even better.
     
  13. Doug Gosha

    Doug Gosha TrainBoard Member

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    I love seeing kids totally enthralled by trains.

    Doug
     
  14. Shortround

    Shortround TrainBoard Member

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    Once back about 1995 I took an 'O' gauge setup up to my brothers country home and set it up for Christmas gathering. It was somewhat large with four sidings. It was a passenger and a freight hauler that you could take off and put on passengers and packages at the sidings.
    The adults and boys thought it was dumb. But, the little girls were fascinated about it and ran it most of the evening.
    I was their favorite uncle that night and one girl wanted to know were it was the next day. :):rolleyes:
     
  15. r_i_straw

    r_i_straw Mostly N Scale Staff Member

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    For about a 12 years, I held summer day camps at the local railroad museum for young model railroaders. They each built and decorated a T Trak module to take home along with a freight car that they got to pick out. I had quite a few girls sign up over the years. A few came back multiple years and I gave their parents plans to make corner modules for them to build complete layouts.
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  16. Hytec

    Hytec TrainBoard Member

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    Russell, that's wonderful what you have been doing. Thank you.

    We as parents and grandparents are so busy putting little girls in skirts, giving them dolls, assuming they'll become teachers, nurses, or secretaries, that we forget some of the greatest scientists and engineers have been women.
     
  17. Mike VE2TRV

    Mike VE2TRV TrainBoard Member

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    A couple of years ago I sent a lady co-worker and her son to a local model railroad club at its yearly open house. She was quite impressed by the work put into the club layout, but her son... running and jumping around, following the trains, so excited and mesmerized by the trains that his mother couldn't get him to turn around so she could take a picture of him with the trains behind him...:LOL:

    That's the magic!:cool:
     
  18. r_i_straw

    r_i_straw Mostly N Scale Staff Member

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    One of my favorite stories happened about 10 years ago. Our club NTRAK layout was set up for the November layout tour. A family with a quiet little boy with a folding step stool came in. He walked slowly around the entire layout deploying the step stool every few yards, silently examining every scene and watching as the trains paraded by. Finally after he made it all the way around, he set his step stool down, turned to his parents, then spread his arms out as if to encompass the entire layout and said, "I NEED one of these."
     
  19. Doug Gosha

    Doug Gosha TrainBoard Member

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    Back in the early 2000's, I helped with setting up and running a layout at the local historic center for their annual show. My friend, who had a giant standard gauge layout in a purpose-built garage (lower level) and train room (upper level) had most of the equipment but I brought along my American Flyer trains.

    There was a loop for standard gauge, one for O gauge, and one for S gauge and we had buttons placed around the layout for kids to operate different accessories.

    I constantly heard, "Come on, we have to get going." Please mom/dad, just five/ten more minutes." Invariably the kids won out and it was great. The five/ten minutes usually extended to a half-hour or more. To be honest, however, most of the parents were very patient and admired the trains, too.

    Doug
     
  20. SP-Wolf

    SP-Wolf TrainBoard Supporter

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    Our Granddaughter's first train -- Thomas
    She absolutely loves Choo Choo's

    (Sorry - for the sideways image - took on my cell phone. I can't figure out how to rotate it)

    [​IMG]

    Thanks,
    Wolf
     

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