Quote from: Bealman on March 28, 2026, 11:45:32 AMA great potted history! Thanks for posting.

I like the little 009 bit tucked in the end!

A few years ago the 009 got a new lease of life. Dad said he wished he'd got something to run them on as for 30+ years all it did was occasionally potter back & forth in the timber yard.

So I built him this...





It's progressed somewhat since the last picture. It's fully ballasted & has a complete farm, crossing gates etc..

Oh, and the blighter now has my Double Fairlie on permanent loan!

This is a great thread!,
Emjaybee thats a wonderful layout, but I confess my eye was drawn to the wonderful wall of ephemera!

I'm afraid I don't have any pictures of my first railway.  My Dad built it for me and it was N gauge, my little bedroom had room for it and my bed only.  Dad built it high enough that we could hang my clothes under it and put everything else under there.  It was a 3'x 3' double track loop,(in a 6'6"x6'6" room!).  My first trainset was a Lima 31 and 2 coaches, unfortunately gone now, I know they were pretty rubbish but I did love that locomotive.

What's just as remarkable was that my Dad built it despite hating trains (something to do with being stuck in a train at Crewe for hours and hours when he was a squaddie!).  It was my mum who got me into them as she used to holiday at an Uncle's who was a signalman at Pencoed crossing on the South Wales mainline and used to stay in his house in a room so close to the track you could almost touch the trains

Graham

Quote from: grumbeast on March 28, 2026, 02:43:03 PMThis is a great thread!,
Emjaybee thats a wonderful layout, but I confess my eye was drawn to the wonderful wall of ephemera!

I'm afraid I don't have any pictures of my first railway.  My Dad built it for me and it was N gauge, my little bedroom had room for it and my bed only.  Dad built it high enough that we could hang my clothes under it and put everything else under there.  It was a 3'x 3' double track loop,(in a 6'6"x6'6" room!).  My first trainset was a Lima 31 and 2 coaches, unfortunately gone now, I know they were pretty rubbish but I did love that locomotive.

What's just as remarkable was that my Dad built it despite hating trains (something to do with being stuck in a train at Crewe for hours and hours when he was a squaddie!).  It was my mum who got me into them as she used to holiday at an Uncle's who was a signalman at Pencoed crossing on the South Wales mainline and used to stay in his house in a room so close to the track you could almost touch the trains

Graham

Ah, yes. The ephemera represents decades of family trips, Dad's work dealings etc., etc..

Here's a better view.









The two crests that 'bookend' the collection are genuine decals. Discovered & liberated from the stores at Wolverton Works sometime in the '70s I think. They're mounted on genuine Crimson Lake LMS paint from the same source.

At some point in time I have to break it to the wife that they'll be coming our way. That will NOT be up for discussion.

All Uber cool.

I thought emjaybee's posts were great too, and that was an impressive OO Gauge railway.

He, and I am sure many others, will remember that the Tri-ang 0-4-0 of his first train set had a top speed of about a scale 200 mph. We had one, plus a diesel on the same chassis, and used to race them.

I do have some pics of my childhood layout somewhere, but given my current location I'm not able to look for them. Here, however are a couple of items from that layout from my albums, photo-bombing the B&CE.

Operating helicopter car (note that this model even pre-dates the Battlespace one):



Triang yard crane comes to the rescue of a broken Poole Farish Flying Scotsman:

Tried to make a layout in my early teens ('55ish) using a TTR set and a sheet of hardboard! Looking back this was probably the most complex way of starting in model railways.
The principle of running two locos on three rails was fine but the esthetics were horrid, only 0-4-0 tank locos and those Kato style track pieces but without any finesse. The double pick-up shoes must have been made of the softest steel as they would 'groove' within a few hours of use - perhaps deliberate to stop the rails wearing? Speed control seemed to be nothing or quite quick to avoid stalling and trying to match two locos was nigh impossible.
If you've tried to attach anything to hardboard the you'll know it's the least suitable material for a layout base. Attaching one section of track would invariably loosen a previous section!
Add to this my friend had a superb Hornby 00 set with detailed loco and coaches(possibly the green princess set) which made the TTR stock look very childish!
After that you wouldn't see me near MR stuff until my son wanted to try modelling, choosing Ashburton in 00 gauge about '83. From this I bought a few N items that eventually got used during covid lockdown about 2021.

Indeed, this is a great thread and something a bit different.

My first trainset was a Hornby clockwork set #21 which I obtained was I really was a child (5 or so). My set is long gone and probably well down in a rubbish heap somewhere in Cooma Australia, but here is the same set bought by me about 20 years ago in an attempt to relive my past. The locomotive number is 60985 which is a non existent number but which fits between the V2 and the B1 classes of locomotives.



Next train set was an electric O Gauge train made by Maurlyn, an Australian manufacturer. I must have been about 7 when I got it. It looks to me like a class 38 NSWGR locomotive which I now have an N scale version of and which I showed on my Deadwood thread 6 months ago. Shown is a photo from the web as my set too is probably also buried under layers of rubbish in Cooma Tip. This is unfortunate as this set has become a collector's item.



Next train that I obtained when I was about 8 was a Trix Twin passenger set OO gauge which featured a rather crude representation of a Hunt Class 4-4-0 locomotive, 'Pytchley' with two overly short maroon coaches. This is the TTR make referred to by @Greygreaser in the previous post. The loco behind Pytchley is my fourth locomotive and is an even cruder representation of #30951 which in real life was a powerful 0-8-0 shunter, but which is represented by Trix as 0-4-0.



Next up was the acquisition of the Trix Britannia which was the first of a string of realistic Trix models. I'm now 11. This model was introduced in 1959 along with a few other similarly realistic locos such as the Class 5 behind it in the photo. At this point, my dad became interested and started to buy things and construct a scenic layout in the basement i.e. he was taking over. The Britannia was the last loco from my childhood that I could really claim as mine.

For some strange reason, Trix decided to go with a 3.8 mm/foot rather than the 4mm/foot of proper 00 gauge. Consequently the Trix locomotives and coaches appear significantly smaller than the Hornby Dublo and Triang offerings at the time. Note that H0 is 3.5 mm/foot so Trix chose a scale halfway between 00 and HO. The Trix locos and rolling stock had become fine looking models.



Webbo

I don't want to completely hijack this thread, but Webbo's post brings me neatly to the last photo I was thinking of sharing.

This shows my father enjoying a smoke at the controls of a layout belonging to one of my uncles. I believe it is a TTR Trix layout, hence the connection to Webbo's post. The photo would have been taken in the mid to late 1950s.

This particular uncle had a large house, and later had a large Hornby Dublo 2-rail layout. He lived in England and we lived in Guernsey, and he was much older than my father and they weren't particularly close. We stayed with him and his wife for a week when I was eight, and after pestering all week I was finally allowed to have a quick look at part of the layout on the last day.
Some of the stock was shown many years later on an episode of "Cash in the Attic" on UK TV when his daughter was selling off surplus possessions.

It is certainly a TTR layout. I recognise the 0-4-0 locomotive as well as the weltrol boiler wagon right behind it and the raised 3-rail bakelite track.

Webbo

I repeat: this thread is incredible!

 

My godparents boys were all much older than me and when the last one left home in 1979, I was presented with a large cardboard box with Triang OO track, an old controller, lots of wagons, and the ubiquitous Dock Authority shunter, in black livery. I was about 10 at the time. Over time, and shortly after starting grammar school, the shunter was joined by a Triang Hymek and a Hornby 37 (37130), and some blue grey mk1s.
As my education progressed, Dad rewarded my report card scores with a Lima Cornish Riviera train pack, with a maroon Western (D1016) and chocolate & cream coaches, and later the InterCity train pack, with a blue Deltic (55006) and more blue & grey coaches.
It all developed from there on variations of an oval with sidings on an 8x4 sheet of chipboard from the local timber merchant.
Sadly, no photos survive, and all the stock is long gone, although by the time it was sold off (mostly by my ex), there were 4 Westerns, 2 Hymeks, 3 Warships, 2 Deltics, 2 40s, 3 Peaks, a 25, a 33 and a 58...

Quote from: emjaybee on March 28, 2026, 10:54:05 AMOkay, the flashbacks are happening.

My early model railway experience was the obligatory 'O' tinplate. We had enough track for a oval & a siding. I can remember the builders doing our family extension winding up the loco for me & setting it off. That was 1973.

Then came my first trainset.

My first set too, but about 5 years earlier, with birthday presents over the next few years, some GWR carriages, a hall loco, plus a few other items created my first scenic layout 6ft by 3 ft.. loosely based on the station  my grandfather worked at.. very loosely, in oo gauge that station is 32ft long!!!.
Sadly no photos..

Also Sadly when I went away to work my nephew's and nieces destroyed it,..
I still have the remains of the rolling stock..

Soon after I got my first N gauge rolling stock, but that was left at my parents while I moved again and disappeared..


I now have 2 N gauge layouts and an HOe layout under construction, having worked on club layouts in various places during my previous peripatetic life

I have been searching Sunnybank for a photograph taken in 1962 but to no avail.

Why the photograph, well it was of a three rail Duchess of Montrose hauling a 16t coal wagon around an oval of track, my second train set.

You may ask what's so special about that, well it was what was in the wagon, certainly not coal.

Sat in the wagon was a day old poult or chick if you prefer. This chick was part of a small consignment due to catch an early morning train.

My Dad at the time worked for a small hatchery in Luddenden Foot sat between the River Calder and the Rochdale Canal he had brought this box of chicks home on the bus, they were booked on a train from Mytholmroyd in the morning and my dad was to put them on the train on his way to work.

Interestingly Mytholmroyd was home to Thornbers chicks whom distributed chicks all over the country, they even had their own dedicated loading bay at the station.

Mind you it was some 12 years away from entering the world of N gauge.

No chicks were harmed during the writing of this post.

Quote from: Bealman on March 29, 2026, 06:28:40 AMI do have some pics of my childhood layout somewhere, but given my current location I'm not able to look for them. Here, however are a couple of items from that layout from my albums, photo-bombing the B&CE.

Operating helicopter car (note that this model even pre-dates the Battlespace one):



Triang yard crane comes to the rescue of a broken Poole Farish Flying Scotsman:

Ah Tri-Ang "Battle Space", Who wouldn't love a turbo-car in N