Hi All,
I was wondering this over the weekend and it made me curious. It both impresses me and completely baffles me about how knowledgeable some of you guys are when it comes to trains, railways, history etc... of railways in the real world. I feel like I'm a late-starter! I had an idea for a small and simple train running on a shelf in my man cave a few years ago and since then the hobby as become a bit of an obsession! This in turn has sparked my interested in "real-world" railways. I find myself checking maps, reading history and actively looking for books in charity shops and the local library.... again this started with modelling but has since become more and more about the real world.
This is my current read from the library and it's fascinating for me;
(https://www.ngaugeforum.co.uk/SMFN/gallery/115/6379-081121102517.png) (https://www.ngaugeforum.co.uk/SMFN/index.php?action=gallery;sa=view&id=115978)
So it lead my curiosity to the question in the title of this post; what got you started; did an interest in railways lead to you wanting to recreate then in model form or did an interest in modelling lead you into an interest in railways? Or are you into modelling but couldn't care much for the real thing....
No real foundation for my question other than a curiosity to see how others found there way here (and where it has led them). I'm interested to hear people's thoughts.
Happy Monday everyone :beers:
Being raised in Wolverton on what is now the WCML and my father working in the Railway Works it's no wonder from a very early age I became interested in railways. That was in the 1950s and, by the time I was 8 or so, I had a Tri-ang train set. Having quarter fare travel and 6 free passes per annum led me to travelling to widen my trainspotting interest. Then along came motorbikes and lasses (not necessarily in that order) then the inevitable job, house etc.
As soon as I had a free room in the house I did commence my forays into N gauge in the 1970s and it's never ceased. My actual interest in the real thing ceased at the end of the 1960s and now it's just something to get me from A to B............................eventually.
I'd promised my wife I'd retire when I was 70. I only had a year left, and was really worried about what I'd do once I gave up work. For some reason, I decided to try out model trains. I bought a small OO shunter set, and was a bit dismayed about how much room it took up, so decided I'd have to go to N gauge. I used to spend a lot of time as a kid at Temple Meads and sneaking around the huge yards at St Philips Marsh, so steam engines painted green seem to dominate my choices.
From an analytical point of view, it's an amazingingly complex hobby. I've had to learn/improve my carpentry. I've learnt how to model scenery and scratch build a few things. I learnt how to solder, still not very good at it. Hand painting n gauge figures! My background is in software engineering, so I (foolishly) decided that electronics and control were something I could do from scratch. I've managed to take a non runner apart and get it running again. My kids keep asking me when my layout will be finished, and I tell them perhaps another five years if I'm lucky.
There's been so much to learn, and there still seems plenty left. And now, of course, a lot of the stuff I've already done I feel I could do better, so perhaps I should start again :D
- Andy
For me it's collecting the models and indulging in model-making which are the attraction. I like full size railways but I'm not really an enthusiast to the extent of wanting to study in depth and gain expert knowledge etc. I would probably have just as easily developed an interest in model cars/boats/planes etc. but my Dad bought and set up a Triang layout when I was a youngster in the 60s, with all the Airfix railway kits etc. so that's what started me off.
Definitely playing with trains/later modelling first.
Living in a port town, albeit one with a strong railway connection, I was far more interested in ships as a youngster.
Started toy/model trains aged about 3 with Lone Star push-along.
I didn't become interested in railways until probably a teenager; and same as NPN, having free passes/privilege reduced rate fairs, I soon made up for it.
It then became a career choice; a Merchant Navy Officer, with an interest in trains; or a Railwayman with an interest in ships.
I went to sea........
My interest in 'real' railways has declined quite a bit in recent years, but try to follow major changes, including the preservation scene.
Martyn
Train spotting came first as my parents house backed onto the mainline out of Euston. Later 2nd Hand hand me downs-clockwork O gauge followed by Tri-Ang Princess on series 3 grey track with a battery pack(1950s).
Martin
Railways first, Granddad was a ganger on the railway line, visible from our house.
However Airfix kits came first for modelling as they were affordable with several weeks pocket money..
The Model railway came later when my parents bought me the 1960s equivalent of the Smokey Joe set..
Models first, then model trains.
As a lad I built Airfix (1/72) and in my teens built a OO (Palitoy Mainline) layout set vaguely in BR Steam days.
Dropped out of either hobby for many years, then in my 40's started building models again (1/48 and 1/35) but something nagged at me and eventually I realised it was "N". The rest, as they say, is history....
Definitely train spotting came first for me which started when aged about 6 or 7 in 1960/61.
Steam was obviously still very much to the fore then and indeed my interest waned from about 1968.
I had a largish Hornby 3 rail railway from aged about 9-13 or so.
From about age 15/16 I moved onto the usual other things and my interest in railways was dormant until aged about 30 when I started to collect railway books and take an interest in heritage railways.
I wasn't interested in modelling until probably 12 years ago when I started off on the N gauge road.
I am today quite interested in the big railway and am quite happy to go out to the lineside or a station to watch a few trains.
For me it was the real thing. My Dad was a fireman working out of Stirling South shed when I first became interested. He had started as a cleaner in January 1948 age 16. He had tried to start before Christmas but they told him to come back next week - I wonder why? My bedroom window was only ten yards from the Alloa line tracks and across the way was Stirling North signal box. I was fascinated by all the rods and wires and how all the signals worked. What really clinched it was when he would flag down a shunt to get us a lift down to the shed to collect his pay on a Friday and look at the rosters to see what was doing over the weekend. Standing next to the six feet driving wheels of a Black Five when I was five years old was a real wow - My Dad runs about all day on these monsters!
The modelling definitely came later and has always been there on and off for all the reasons others have mentioned even while I myself worked for BR. I started early in N Gauge and now that I have retired I have plenty of time to indulge my hobby and my interest in everything that runs on rails from historic to current times. I am a bit more like Nbodger than most of you being approximately 30 years into what I thought would be a five year project! However, I am happy with what I've got and tend to refine things rather than build anew over and over.
For me I was in to crafting/art as a youngster and my big brothers train set on a bare board irritated my sensibilities so I started adding scenery to it, then I got my own loco and stock to run on it and I eventually started to take over the layout when I was about 6 or 7 when my elder brother (10 years my senior)) discovered girls and beer/pubs. :) The hobby has stuck with me for 60+ years now, I have experimented with t-gauge, z gauge, n gauge, 009, 00, 0 and 0n30 but I have settled now with n gauge both
BR Western region and US Union Pacific .
Both I guess, I don't really remember which came first. Always loved trains, model railways started as soon as my parents could afford a trainset for xmas for me. Train spotting started as soon as I was allowed to get the train to Cardiff myself (though i do remember a holiday to York when I was very young so I could go to the NRM)
I remember being quite young and my dad making me wave at the trains, whilst we stood on a footbridge. The drivers always blew the horns and waved! My dad also had a brilliant model railway set up in the loft of our first house together, which is what gave me an interest.
My Late Grandfather ran railway station kiosks like these https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/450430400207555710/ (https://www.pinterest.co.uk/pin/450430400207555710/) and https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/2531715 (https://www.geograph.org.uk/photo/2531715) between 1952 and 1991. I grew up with him, my Great Gran. And family watching trains in the 70s / 80s perched on a stool watching life at Crewe before being let out at 17 to travel to London, Preston, Lancaster, Warrington my old stomping ground, Liverpool. Happy days even c 1984 attending manchester victoria whilst he collected papers that were not delivered watching 25s , 40s at red bank. I was later to become a railwayman but had a serious back op aged 4 and he purchased my first train set. Which i still have before going to n gauge at 22
Some great memories here :NGaugersRule:
I guess they were simultaneous; both parents worked on the railways, and my dad had a large N gauge layout in the garage, so there was exposure to trains as early as I remember. I got a OO gauge layout for my 3rd birthday, then took over the garage when I was a bit older. Drifted away in my teenage years, returned, to N gauge, when I had my own place 10 years ago.
I'm still very interested in the real railway, but I don't make a habit of reading forums, or magazines or anything, so I guess the models still have the edge!
Contrary to a lot of members of the forum, I had no real interest in real or model trains throughout most of my life. I did build a lot of the Airfix airplane kits when I was a youngster but never progressed any further. Move on 50 years and it was not until I had lived in Ireland for 15 years or so and ceased to be a 'Chief' and became an 'Indian', that I started to look at model railways. I think the main reason was that I ended up working permanent nights as an 'Indian' and, fortunately (?), had very little to do so it was something to read about to pass the time. I liked the idea of n gauge and, having found the forum, decided that that was what I would like to do. My first layout was a 4' x 2' coffee table, so Louisa thought it was a good hobby to have. :). Things have just progressed from there.
Best I can tell, it was the "hobby", as there was no particular family connection to trains and I never lived anywhere near a railway line; but I did get an OO gauge clockwork trainset when I was about 3 or 4 (there's a photo of me grinning my face off in front of it) and a year or two later a "proper" train set, which my father "built" for me and which led to a vague aspiration to build something better, which never got very far, but did lead to a stint of trainspotting before the inevitable diversion into other things. Though I did maintain a sort of passive interest in trains and fascination with the associated infrastructure (living in Berlin in the 1990s, lots of interesting projects going on, often with public visits, spent a lot of time poking around brand new tunnels and the like). Then I ended up in Japan, and wandered by accident one day into a 2nd hand model shop stuffed with cheap Japanese N gauge, acquired the end car of a train which ran on my local line as I thought it would make an interesing shelf decoration, and the rest, as they say, is history.
The interest is older, some 68yrs ago taking the train to my Grandma's with mam, me still in a pushchair. I apparently asked a thousand questions. She had worked for the LNER before, during and after WWII.
The first trainset came a few months later, second hand Tinplate O pre-war Hornby with two 0-4-0 clockwork locos, on LNER 👍 the other LMS 🤬. Not that I'm at all biased. Then a Dublo set, with Duchess of Montrose, bless him dad could have got the A4 set.😂
A bit like @Newportnobby (https://www.ngaugeforum.co.uk/SMFN/index.php?action=profile;u=264) i was born in a house in Darlington overlooking the ECML. Never got into train spotting but loved watching the Links going past at full chat. I come from a railway family. Grandad worked at North Road shops, Dad was a Carriage and Wagon Foreman and my brother worked in S&T. My summer job was a messenger boy for the Traffic Agent visiting all the local signal boxes. Still love visiting the preserved railways but doing more modelling now. Got a Triang 00 layout built by my brother when I was in junior school but got into bikes and other teenage pastimes so lost interest. Impending retirement 5 years ago rekindled my interest.
From a very early age I was taken on the train to visit relatives in and around Manchester. Apparently, when I was a baby, I hated the sight and sound of steam engines and screamed my head off but as I got older I became fascinated by them. By the age of about 7 or 8 I was regularly trainspotting on my local line and around the same time I got my first Triang 00 set. I graduated from playing on the lounge floor to a more permanent layout when my uncle had a 6' x 4' baseboard made for me and I was allowed to set it up in my bedroom. My interest in railways went from strength to strength and as I got older I travelled further afield which no doubt gave me ideas that I wanted to recreate in model form. Slowly I attempted to convert my train-set into a proper layout by adding scenery and trying to operate it in a more realistic manner as I gained experience of the real thing.
My interest in railways, both real and model, continued into my teens but then along came girls. I was so attracted to one particular young lady that in a mad display of passion I sold off much of my model railway stuff in order to finance a trip to Liverpool so that she could see the "Sound of Music". What a mistake that was!!
The layout never did recover and when I started work I disposed of what was left. My interest in railways also declined as girls and drinking took a firmer hold so much so that the end of steam in 1968 went unnoticed.
I got married in 1974 and we got our own place. I was working shift and on my days off I was often at a loose end when the wife was at work so I decided to rekindle my interest in model railways. This time, because of lack of space, I went for British N Gauge and I built a number of small layouts over the next 15 years or so. During this time my interest in real railways also re-surfaced and I started travelling around the country on my days off, not spotting but mostly taking photographs. I thought the 1980's and early 90's was a really interesting time on British railways but as privatisation loomed my interest started to dwindle again.
This coincided with the start of regular holidays in Switzerland and Austria and I soon started to take an interest in their railways. In many respects it was as if the railways I remembered from my youth had been electrified. There were lots of different loco types and plenty of freight trains. The small country stations still had their own goods yards and the equivalent of the pick-up goods train still trundled between them. I was hooked and once again an interest in the real thing led me to start modelling Swiss railways. That was over 30 years ago and although Swiss railways have changed almost beyond recognition in that time I still find them interesting and worth modelling.
I no longer have an interest in British railway modelling but I do try to keep in touch with the real thing by subscribing to the "Railway Magazine" although the articles I find most interesting tend to be those from my early trainspotting days.
(https://www.ngaugeforum.co.uk/SMFN/gallery/116/193-091121211142.jpeg)
This photo was taken by the late Ben Brooksbank on 22nd August 1964 at Frodsham station in Cheshire. It has appeared in several books and is my one claim to fame as I am the figure sitting on the bench in the far background. The one standing is my best mate who was probably eyeing up "the crumpet" on the North Wales bound train. This is around the time that my interest in railways, both real and model, started to wane although it did return again some 15 years later.
A little like @ntpntpntp (https://www.ngaugeforum.co.uk/SMFN/index.php?action=profile;u=5885) and @The Q (https://www.ngaugeforum.co.uk/SMFN/index.php?action=profile;u=6067) it was the model making starting with the Airfix kits, I remember the little WWII diorama they did, then I moved on to things like the Tamiya motorcycle models, there was always aircraft in there too which hung from my bedroom ceiling.
I guess it is why I no longer have the Japanese layout, I had gone as far as I wanted with it, learned a lot about modelling and building a layout so it was time to move on. But also like @ntpntpntp (https://www.ngaugeforum.co.uk/SMFN/index.php?action=profile;u=5885) I had no wish (read time) to be an expert in any of the railways I modelled, I just want to enjoy it.
Eventually the American layout will get re-started again and I will start learning all over again about modelling.