What do your trains mean to you?

Innocence and fun.  Plus my Father's plant and family relatives lived along the Glidden and Flatonia Subs of the Friendly, that is, the SP.

At 6 I got my first train, a Marx.  With a 666 SP engine!  Remember the Pepe LePew smell of Marx smoke.  The growl of the engine.  I still have that set.  And the Wicked green bottle of smoke fluid.

Plus at 7 I road THE SUNSET from Houston to Schulenburg.

Lots of fun.  And I still follow the old SP now UP from H-town to Schulenburg when I can.

The layout above is nice.

Oh, I'm glad you brought up the smell of the Marx smoke. I am unfamiliar with that, but don't we all love the smells of our trains: the smoke from Lionel smoke pellets, and the smell of the Ozone from post-war engines that have been running a while.  Lately, I've been enamored with MTH proto-smoke with Christmas (pine) aroma.

I got my first train (American Flyer three rail) in 1946, I was two. I don't remember much about it other than there was a steam engine with a white box car. My Dad and his friend burnt up the transformer so I never got to run it. My love of trains really started in 1948, yes Christmas day with a Lionel freight set including a 2026 steam engine. From then on all I wanted was more cars, track, switches, bigger transformer and crossing gates. I got them one at a time for Christmas or birthdays. The O27 switches I got one day when my Pop took me to this great train store in Los Angeles and just bought them for me. Not a birthday or Christmas no real reason so it was a wonderful thing. They didn't have much money so it was special in a lot of ways. The store had a layout with Gargraves track and I thought that was amazing stuff. That's all I wanted that Christmas, Gargraves track. He came through. Also they had a 0-4-0 Lionel switcher on the layout. I didn't get that tell I was almost a teen. I thought the working coupler in front was the most wonderful thing. All my layouts have had Gargraves track. They even used a picture of my last layout in their adds. I have had trains in my life all my life and always will. Lucky I married a wife that had a Dad that worked for Southern Pacific. I'm also lucky to live three blocks from a narrow gauge steam train that did it's first passenger run in years last night. I work with them all the time. After all it's in my blood. Don

what do my trains mean to me?

entertainment for the public, as I run in a public club environment.

the ability to have fun playing, as I became an responsibly adult and had no time to play raising two kids by the time I was 21.

the ability to create trains that are fun to watch.

to learn skills that I had forgotten like soldering, wiring, design and other stuff.

For me, these trains are a way for me to make memories with my sons and connect with them.  How long will they be interested? I have no idea,  but we're off to a great start. 

Thanks, Don, for your wonderful description of your experience with your trains throughout your life. I especially relate to what you said about your Dad purchasing switch tracks for you even though it wasn't your burthday or other special occasion. My Dad did that for me when, on the spur on the moment, he took me to a local hardware store that sold Lionel trains and bought me a 626 Blue 44 ton center cab diesel switcher around 1961. It's still in great shape with strong Magnetraction. I keep all my Lionel engines with Magnetraction on tubular track to keep the Magnetraction strong. It is also very important for me to keep all my childhood trains in excellent operating condition.  I pay the best local O Gauge train repairmen to guarantee this! LOL

Pure escape and fun. It is a hobby that transcends time and generations. For me, also, a sense of nostalgia!

Well, there's the nostalgia factor, of course, and I've written at length about that in other posts. 

But speaking solely for the present, I see my trains as a kind of time machine, allowing me to create a window of sorts into another world, one in which railroading was all-pervasive.  I was born into the very tail end of that era, and with my own trains, I try to experience it as it was when it was in full power.

bigdodgetrain posted:

what do my trains mean to me?

entertainment for the public, as I run in a public club environment.

the ability to have fun playing, as I became an responsibly adult and had no time to play raising two kids by the time I was 21.

the ability to create trains that are fun to watch.

to learn skills that I had forgotten like soldering, wiring, design and other stuff.

Well-stated, and it sounds like you are a great ambassador for our hobby entertaining the public as a member of a train club that does public displays.

Wow! There is a very positive and profound spiritual dimension to this dialogue.

Deuce posted:

For me, these trains are a way for me to make memories with my sons and connect with them.  How long will they be interested? I have no idea,  but we're off to a great start. 

There is nothing more important than what you have stated!

Wonderful thread !!

I cannot imagine how I would have gotten through life's rough patches without the trains. It might sound ridiculous to someone not a train person. Train people understand. Life's ups and downs are rough. When things were difficult, I looked at the trains and I could create my own dreamworld where everything was fine.

Scrapiron Scher

I must tell this story. My Dad (God love him) could not change a tire or hit a nail. He finally got me a Lionel crossing gate for Christmas. His best friend and he tried half the night to get the gate to work right. They just couldn't he told me on the morning of Christmas. I saw the problem right away. They had the gate across the track. Not across a make believe road. It would come down and the train would hit it every time. Somewhere in heaven I hope he's not working for a railroad. Don

Scrapiron Scher posted:

Wonderful thread !!

I cannot imagine how I would have gotten through life's rough patches without the trains. It might sound ridiculous to someone not a train person. Train people understand. Life's ups and downs are rough. When things were difficult, I looked at the trains and I could create my own dreamworld where everything was fine.

Scrapiron Scher

Eliot, I had the exact same experience. Trains got me through difficult, stressful times.,Most people who are not into trains will not understand us, and may even think we are crazy.  The right attitude to have is: "Some people say I'm crazy, but I don't give a hoot."

Also, the truth is, we're not crazy, they are!

scale rail posted:

I must tell this story. My Dad (God love him) could not change a tire or hit a nail. He finally got me a Lionel crossing gate for Christmas. His best friend and he tried half the night to get the gate to work right. They just couldn't he told me on the morning of Christmas. I saw the problem right away. They had the gate across the track. Not across a make believe road. It would come down and the train would hit it every time. Somewhere in heaven I hope he's not working for a railroad. Don

Don, you and your Dad were a great team because you had the mechanical aptitude that he lacked. Great story.

I have always been around trains.Being  where I grew up and live.I could hear the seaboard coast line rail road from my house.And the first school I went to was right next to the train track.So I got to see the fast freight fly by.I had tyco train sets and other h.o. trains.Mth came along and allowed me to get into o gauge trains.And their way easy on my eyes.Also seeing late model steamers (Steam locomotives of the 1930 40s)pulling a long mixed freight.

 I was born with a train from Grandpa waiting. I wasn't alone in the family in that respect either. Trains were as much a part of family gatherings as the tree, eggs, fireworks, candy, or turkey was. Monpoly, Scrabble, trains.... Poker, Euchre, Trains.   Weddings, birthdays, trains... get it?

  It also means learning skills and taking pride. From the assembly pride of a preschooler to the assembly pride of an old guy learning a new trick. It taught me general physics, electrical, maintenance, and organizing. Switching excercises are puzzles; mind excercise, etc.  I.e., it was one of the better sources for learning to deal with problem solving as a whole.

They also taught loss when I was careless. 

There is some cultural nostalgia of shopping as a boy, but TV ads for Lionel were not prevalent or popular enough among local kids to have much nostagic feelings outside of our family.

   On top of that, they were great therapy when my health turned. And again a second time when it got even tougher. I knew the hobby as a daily thing was inevitable, but never guessed how much I would appreciate it in the way I have grown to.

  It doesnt happen fast or pretty, but these little O scale dreams are the ones I can still handle .

I grew up in the northeast Bronx in the 50s & 60s. We lived in an apartment building.

My 1st memory is being on my maternal grandfather's shoulder watching the EL trains of the Pelham Bay line.

My father's family lived along the 4 track New Haven main line in Larchmont, now separated from their house by 95....I remember trains whizzing by in McGinnis colors....and those silver and shiny washboard commuter trains......

The 1st thing the trains mean to me is sacrifice.....my parents had to sacrifice to get me a New Haven diesel freight set when I was 5 at Christmas 58. Still have, and it still runs as well as the day I got it!

I took out the train every year around the holidays until about 72-73, then the demands of school overtook them. By 1980, living in Baltimore doing an Internal Medicine residency at University of MD, I saw an add for a Greenberg show at Towson State...I went, and every childhood memory was rekindled.  I have been doing this continuously since then. With a young family and a job with 90-100 hour weeks, the trains gave me something to relax with at unplanned off hours( I take care of very sick people.....it was/is good to do something where the worst that can happen is a train derails)....but it was a solo hobby....

Circa 2000 and Myron's vision to start the OGR Forum and have the good fortune to have Rich Melvin moderate it.....it became a social hobby....all of a sudden, all of us who were speaking online realized we knew each other by sight, because we all would make the semi-annual pilgrimage to York....then the hobby really became a blast........my kids were growing and moving on, and I had more time for myself.

In 2009-10, I had the good fortune to become a charter member of a modular group which has grown and prospered, adding to the fun.

As I look at retirement in the the next few years (I turn 65 next year), I cannot see the trains leaving the mix....

Peter

Not totally sure, but in general I seem to like old things and particularly enjoy them for their construction and complexity. It is satisfying to put one back together that is a basket case.  It also seems to allow me to realize and understand a time that I never saw, I grew up in the 70's.  I appreciate where we came from I guess.