Photos of first layouts from back in the day

[Erik W]

I found another use for the new desktop scanner they got me at work.  Here is a photo of my first layout.  


This is me in my PJs as an 11 year old in 1980.  This layout was a year old a that point.  My dad did the benchwork and wiring.  We both laid the track and I built all the structures and started the limited scenery on the right.  The layout never progressed much beyond this stage.  I was totally out of the hobby by around 1983 and didn't get back into it until 2004 when I started my current layout.  I consider my current layout my first.  But this one pictured was my real first.  When I was 10 I bought an N scale car with my saved allowance money (The brown Southern Atlas reefer pictured to the upper right).  I just pushed it back and forth on a table (no money for track) with Lincoln Logs as trees.   It was the only RR thing I had.  I bought another car when I could save up for one.  My dad realized at that point I was serious and helped me out the Christmas of 1979 with track and supplies.

So, how about you guys?  Any photos from back in the day?  How did you get started?

Erik

[asciibaron]

i wish i could find them, it would take a ton of heat off me around here.  you all would just be in awe.

no, really.

[Puddington]

Christmas 1968 - Triang on a shingle.......my dad and I....



1993 - Richmond, B.C. - The first of four Puddington Valley Divisions.....built on a corrugated board base no less......

[wm3798]

My first experience with model trains was this rig, the Christmas Garden that would occupy our basement from November to January each year.  It was HO, and featured such goodies as day/night lighting, a slot car track, a house afire complete with running water, and a parade marching down the main street featuring a marching band of Royal Fuseliers.  This went on from before I was born until we moved in 1979


My own first layout was one of those infamous Life-Foam rigs with the twice around loop.  Note that even then (mid '70's) I was going for the "down low" photo angles....


The first "real" layout I had was a 4 x 6 affair on a 1/2" sheet of plywood with no framing underneath.  It was great until all the water from the plaster caused one end of the board to curl up.  Note the Amtrak Metroliner on the right side.  It's not moving.  In classic Bachmann fashion, it didn't work.

Lee

[Dave V]

i wish i could find them, it would take a ton of heat off me around here.  you all would just be in awe.

no, really.

You shoulda seen that fish...  it was HUGE!  But the sucker got away... :-[

[wcfn100]

I know I've posted this one before.




At the Northtown Train show maybe '80-'81.  Everything was done by me except the woodwork and the custom painted Milw U3?B with matching caboose (thanks dad).

Man, going back I remember all the hard work I put in.  But don't know what was better, the work or the breaks.




Jason

[asciibaron]

i wish i could find them, it would take a ton of heat off me around here.  you all would just be in awe.

no, really.

You shoulda seen that fish...  it was HUGE!  But the sucker got away... :-[

found it - but seriously, my wife's computer's power supply blew up today - i'll scan it at work tomorrow.

[asciibaron]

screw it - i have a digicam...



the year is 1981, i'm 9 years old, and the grass mat central was my brother's layout.  he abandoned it when he went to military school  2 years earlier.  the church and cemetery we purchased from the local toy store - Bachmann Plasticville series i believe.  the state cars are long gone - i painted everything when i tore out the grass mat that winter.  i do have pictures of the "after' layout, including the HOn2 1/2 mine tram.  that layout looked the business, but the lighting sucked.

laugh it up.

[dieselfan1]

I know I've posted this one before.




At the Northtown Train show maybe '80-'81.  Everything was done by me except the woodwork and the custom painted Milw U3?B with matching caboose (thanks dad).

Man, going back I remember all the hard work I put in.  But don't know what was better, the work or the breaks.




Jason

Hey Jason, would that be Northtown Mall in Blaine, MN?
I grew up about two miles from there and I remember the train shows they used to have there. BTW I was there a couple weeks ago and I can't believe its still the same place it was in the 1970's and 80's. Nothing is the same. Also remember the huge model of the Titantic they had on display? It must have been 20 feet long.  The good old days.

[Philip H]

My first layout:



Look closely folks - thats a door that has been converted to the E Z & Qwik track plan from the Kalmbach book N Scale Primer (Which I still have).

This is in July of 1987, and I've managed to expand the layout, add a control panel, wire for three or four blocks, and get some scenery going . . .



The buildings and the Alco (in ICG colors no less) are long gone - but i may still have that car by the cardboard hut.

The extension to the left of the layout featured a two track scratch-built engine house . . .



The KCS SD40-2 is my first custom paint job (a Bachmann no less {which I also still have}).  The GP40 is painted for my fictional New Orleans & Ruston Railway and Navigation Company.  The NO&R was my excuse to acquire GE locos and run them, as, in the 1980's KCS wasn't.

[DKS]

Circa 1970. Newport and Rock Falls. Track plan was copied from a photo on the inside cover of some model railroading book, don't recall what one. Add an extension off one side for a yard, to the left at the far back.
 

[wm3798]

David,
It looks like you derived your track plan from the same photo I got mine from...  Figure 8 with an intertwined oval.  That would have been the Atlas N Scale track plan book.  Not sure whatever became of mine, but that's what I based my plan on.

Lee

[Erik W]

Good stuff guys!  It's fun seeing everyone's humble beginnings.  I think being a cash poor kid, though it sucked at the time, helped my creativity with model railroading.  One of my more memorable projects was building a water tower out of a toilet paper tube.  Wish I had a picture of that thing . . .

Did anyone else notice we all seem to have the same haircut?

Jason

Ahh, the kid/beer picture.  We have a few of those.  The best one being my older sister at age 3 running through the living room stark naked carrying a 6 pack of Bud.

Erik

[DKS]

David,
It looks like you derived your track plan from the same photo I got mine from...  Figure 8 with an intertwined oval.  That would have been the Atlas N Scale track plan book.  Not sure whatever became of mine, but that's what I based my plan on.

Lee

Nope, it's a folded dogbone. The plan wasn't published in the book I had--just the one photo.
 



   
1 coal mine
2 houses under construction
3 Rock Falls station
4 enginehouse
5 freight house

[wm3798]

But I bet it was the same picture... it was taken from an angle close to the "Rock Falls" station on your plan, so you couldn't really see what was going on other than the bridge of the figure 8 crossing the lower line.

A little later in my MR career, I built a layout very similar to your plan, only flopped the other way, with the shelf leading to a small yard.  Here are the only surviving pictures of that...



and here's a close up of the shelf extension.  You can see the plate girder bridge in the image above.



The little yard was beyond this scene to the right.  The lower line in the front was a short branch to a little urban switching area, complete with street trackage (that never ran right but looked swell...)

Lee