The Hobby of Model Railroading

Model Railroading is looking at life, created in miniature. Model Railroading began as far back as the first steam locomotive ever built, since someone had to build a model before he built the actual locomotive (Allen, 2001).  Existing today are some metal and wood models that were made in Europe around 1920 to emulate the railroads at this early time in history.   What most of us remember today are the electric trains from our youth.  Lionel and American Flyer trains were the most desired gift on children's Christmas list, in the 1950's.  However, the toy makers of Germany, Marklin and Bing, produced template modeling as early as the 1920's.  These electric trains were advertised with push-button controls developed by Ives (Allen, 2001).

In the 1950's, railroading, as it was called at that time, was well underway for old timers who had been building large-scale models of real live steam engines for several years.  However, this type of railroading was not for children or fathers trying to put the train under the Christmas tree on the night before Christmas. Railroading really did not acquire hobby status until after World War II and into the 1950's.  With the advent of Lionel's O27 Scale and A.C. Gilbert's American Flyer metal S gauge engines, cars and accessories, one could be buy an entire kit for less than $50.00.  Today, some of those same cars can cost $50.00 to $100.00 per car.

Young children normally received their first train as a gift at Christmas. After Christmas, parents put the train away until next Christmas.  But therein lies the contradiction, since some young railroaders wanted to have their trains to play with all year long.  This meant Dad had to buy some kind of platform that could hold this soon-to-be masterpiece, with the promise of taking it down a couple of weeks after the novelty wore off.  But the train layout just didn't go away that easily.

Once a child had been diagnosed with the train bug, that was the beginning of a great, fun-filled adventure that, for many, would last a lifetime.  Each year at Christmastime, you would ask Santa Claus for a new cattle loader or a pair of electric switches or whatever you saw in the Lionel or American Flyer magazine that you kept on your dresser or bed.  The dream of having a large layout bigger than the house you lived in stayed permanently in one's mind for many, many years after the train had been packed away.  Once addicted to the memories of the trains and hours of fun you had imaging all the dreams you could ponder, it was really hard to give up this dream of having the layout sometime in your life.  Today there are examples of what one can do with layouts at:


If an individual wants to create a layout in a very short order, there is even a web site that provides the "Fast Track to Layout Construction". This can be found at:

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copyright©2001 Jan M. Willard, Mt. Airy, Md.