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 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.



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 and @The Q 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 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.