A Triang/Hornby Car Carrier Trainset for Christmas around 1967/68, when I was five or 6. That's long gone.

Then various attempts in N Gauge after I got married, my wife, bless her, found my track plan doodlings and insisted I buy a train set.

My first loco was a large logo Farish 47, County of Hertfordshire which I still have although its a non runner. I still have all the rolling stock I bought on the 80's and it is slowly being given to my Grandson to run on the Kato track he has.

Things then went dormant until we moved to the States and the kids had grown.

I'm now on my 4th layout, it's in a 36' x 28' garage, Peco Code 55 track, and DCC. You never know but I might actually finish this one 

John P

I blame my parents    I think my father wanted a boy. I got a toy standard tank engine aged 3 and then progressed to Lone Star Locos. Then we moved to Hayling Island with it's Terrier tank engines -  it was all downhill after that!

Back in the '70s, my dad put an oval of track on a board (I can't remember whether there were any sidings) and a US loco and carriages. A tank engine appeared a while later. I also spent time playing with a friend's larger layout.

I made a number of visits to preservation lines with dad - often over to Dinting (the Bahamas Society).

One Christmas, I received a set with more track, a US pacific loco and various trucks. The loco was fitted with a smoke generator too.

Another Christmas I got an 8'x4' baseboard, track, viaducts, and turntable for one of the Hornby trackplans (a folded figure of eight).

The trackplan changed numerous times over the following years, I gained a number of locos and rolling stock. The US pacific became Duchess of Sutherland (thanks to a friend with a failed loco that I could take the body, tender and front bogie from. The rest of the chassis being the same).

I gained a Zero-1 and spent time with another friend who also had one, making sure that all our locos had differing numbers.

I also spent time at the local park, helping out with the dual gauge 3-1/2" / 5" track there and driving some of the locos. Dad and I built the chassis of a 5" gauge Simplex (an 0-6-0 Tank engine, not the narrow-gauge petrol loco). We ran it on compressed air, but never built the boiler, not trusting out Silver -soldering skills. A boiler is unfortunately about £2500 to buy these days.

Then, in my teens, I sold my layout to pay for an upgrade from a Sinclair ZX Spectrum to a Sinclair QL.

Years later I started buying second-hand N-gauge locos, rolling stock and some Setrack. I even bought wood for a baseboard, but didn't get round to building it.

After my mother-in-law died in 2006, we needed a shed to store some of her stuff and I planned ahead, made it a large shed (12' x 10'), insulated and with power.

Much later, after the larger stuff in the shed (a 3-piece leather suite in particular) had been cleared I built new boards and laid an L-shaped layout the full length of one side of the shed, 3' wide and with another 4' x 3' at the end. More recently I have built more boards and run a 3' width down the other side of the shed. Most of the track is now laid, including a fair bit of the z-gauge track for the separate narrow gauge line.

So far I am only using DC, but the intention is to DCC it all soon.

This thread has stimulated my memory cell! 

Actually I now remember this big tin tank engine thing with 4 rubber wheels that I'd sit on the roof of the cab and scoot around on. It had some sort of rubber bellows mechanism inside that would produce a realistic chuffing sound when it moved.

I'd forgotten about that! It was probably my first locomotive. 

I also had a heap of Lone Star push along stuff, then in about 1963, I got a Triang Brittania Pullman train set with what was then new Super 4 track. Horrible track which was way overscale to take the clip-on accessories, steel rail, which rusted when you tried to ballast it!

This was expanded with a Transcontinental freight set (yellow 0-4-0 shunter and three American freight cars), which my father got for me with coupons from the Embassy fags he was smoking at the time.

This was followed by the Car-a-Belle set, but only cos I wanted the jinty!!

Q What got you going into the world of model railway
A A casual visit to Ally Pally show

Q When did you start
A 2 years ago

Q Did you finish your first layout if so do you still have it
A Not yet, yes.

Q What was your layout and how big was it and was it in n gauge
A DC, 2.4m x 0.86m, yes

Q What was your first rolling stock you got and do you still have it
A Terrier loco, yes