How many of the subscribers to this forum, and web page, remember the old “Big Train Operator Magazine” ?
Are any of the old gang from back in the 1980’s still running trains ?
My pike, the IPP&W was featured way back in 1988, or so, in an article written by Ray Irving. He is a friend who is still with us, but has switched to N scale.
Does anyone know if any of the old crowd from back then, are still alive and enjoying the hobby ? Lets hear from them, or hear of their model railroads.1988 I was blowing up my GI joe figures with fire crackers and rooster was playing with baby dolls. oh wait I think he still does.
Whippersnapper.
In '88 my youngest was 12 and I was working 60 hours a week running a Radio Shack Computer Center. My hobby at the time was Ham Radio, which has been on hold for just about as long as I have been into LS trains (about 10 years).
Fred, I did a search for Big Train Operator Mag and found it, not sure if that’s the same group you are referrring too? But they still seem to be thriving.
About 1988, not having room indoors for my On3 railroad, I began my first ground level outdoor railroad (almost as a lark) with a Bachmann Big Hauler, LGB brass track and a track powered (gasp) roundy round loop. Also got my first Delton C-16 about that time or maybe 1989.
In 1988, my ship was shadowing Iranian frigates in the Persian Gulf, and dodging their gunboats. Fun stuff, kept me entertained and out of the bars at night.
The current Big Train Operators is kind of a descendant of the original BTO club. When it was started, it was essentially the large scale national organization, started in the early/mid 70s when LGB was the only game in town. Some time in the late 80s, the group voted to become “only” LGB, and those who were involved with the club for the love of the hobby (as opposed to the brand) migrated elsewhere, mostly to the local garden railroad societies that had began springing up. If I recall, it became an “official” component of LGB or something similar, then reorganized as an independent group again once LGB went into bankruptcy. I’m not 100% certain.
We joined in the mid 70s shortly after getting our first LGB set, and remained active until the late 80s when their allegiance to LGB put the kabosh on other manufacturers displaying at the conventions. Kind of a bummer, because the early BTO group was very much a family, and as much fun as the NGRCs are, it’s always different people, so you don’t have that personal connection anymore.
Later,
K
I wasn’t born until 1990 and didn’t even get my Lionel Thomas set until 1993. To paraphrase Mel Gibson from Lethal Weapon, I’m too young for this hobby?! 
Sheesh Padre, back then I was building a HOm RhB empire - for those not soooo familiar with proper scale/gauge designations that would be 1:87 scale running on 12mm track gauge representing Meter Gauge - and barely glancing at that toy train stuff from LGB.
When I switched to IIm (1:22.5) back in 1999/2000 it was like déjà vu in many instances; from track to rolling stock to accessories etc. etc.: there has to be a better way! Slowly, surely and with determination our layout is getting there. Goal: a model railway in the garden!
PS Most of the articles and pictures of LS layouts from 15, 20, 25 or 30 years ago give me a very “nostalgic” feeling, they are more or less on the same standard as the European layouts in the smaller scales - with very few exceptions - from back in the late 40s, 50s and 60s. Yikes!
yes. 95 I think I joined. Remember the first online forum?
Have Fun: Jeff
the '80ies?
till '84 i threw some track in the mud once a month or so and played with my LGBs - powered with an old car battery, that got recharged, when the motor for the well ran.
in '85, when we had built the 4.5 miles of powerline to connect our village to the powergrid, i started what i think was the first LS indoors layout in the country. (my first layout in south america)
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Shawn said:In 1978 I was blowing up my Evil Knievel stuff and getting into Star Wars. Who's Gi Joe? ;)
1988 I was blowing up my GI joe figures with fire crackers and rooster was playing with baby dolls. oh wait I think he still does.
I was finishing my Master’s in 88.
Have/had issues of Garden Railways back to the start in 1984 or so, SM32 days. Did not have any ties to BTO.
What I would LOVE to find is an LGB item in a box with the stamp from “Kern’s Clock Shop” on 5th Ave in Cols, Ohio.
That is real nostalgia for me.
And yes, HJ, there is a bit of a warm feeling on old LGB/Marklin/Bemo/etc layouts of that era. Funny, I moved from Bemo (albiet H0e) to IIm/1:22,5 also. Were you ever on the Bemo E group?
Hi Garrett,
Nope didn’t join the BEMO group, but apart from our own RhB Forum, I hang out on two German language RhB fora. With me it has always been railway rather than mfg centered.
Jon Radder said:Jon, I do manage to run both Ham radio and railroad hobbies most of the time although admitting that the railroads mostly win. lol
In '88 my youngest was 12 and I was working 60 hours a week running a Radio Shack Computer Center. My hobby at the time was Ham Radio, which has been on hold for just about as long as I have been into LS trains (about 10 years).
In that year my youngest (of three) was 18, my hours were long as I was a manager of a branch of a national UK company in the home furnishing field and also a local Fire Chief (similar to the US voluntary system).
I use Echolink each day to talk to railnuts in Wisconsin - hence my interest in The Milwaukee Road, Wisconsin Central and Wisconsin Southern. As my RR is a fictitious short line - mainly freight, with particular emphasis on coal, other interests are more eastward in WVa and VA.
Let’s see in '88 I was out of college and bouncing from job to job…dating three women and trying to get back into RC cars and get my career on track…pretty much failing on all counts. Lost the primary job and moved north to the Buffalo area. Got a job and got engaged to one of the women. We needed extra cash to help pay for the wedding and I took a job at Niagara Hobby & Craft Mart. Which really had the effect of fueling my hobbies more than paying for the wedding in 1990. This is when I was first exposed to Large Scale trains in general. LGB, REA & Bachman. I’d see some other stuff at shows that I worked at for Niagara Hobby like Delton & Ro Trains. Now & then I’d see the brass museum pieces and dream. Since Niagara Hobby had a good selection of magazines I started to read up on this large stuff. Bought my first LGB starter set in the early 90’s and started to grab all the magazines I could. Older copies of all the magazines including the BTO’s that the shop would get in I’d get before they threw them out. The first wife & I moved back south after a few years adn I eventually ahd enough money to actually join the BTO club but at that point it was all LGB and while that was what the bulk of my purchases were at the time it was not truly and totally the direction I wanted to go in.
I was working at Niagara when the BTO convention came to Buffalo but was off doing family things that weekend and it was before my interest peaked in trains. I remember going to the convention hotel to help set up a display for Niagara Hobby who choose to run a shuttle bus to and from the hotel to the store instead of haul merchandise to the hotel.
I also remember the LGB tour group coming thru the store at some point. That was an interesting group! Mostly Germans on tour of the US! I remember one gentleman trying to sell rail clamps at the time and his cost was exhorbitant…something like $3 per clamp? When we were selling LGB track for $4 a foot and REA track for $3 that seemed steep. Then we heard of A-line stainless track at $8 a foot and passed due to cost. times certainly have changed! the shop that brought the convention to Buffalo went belly up shortly afterwards and got embroiled in a lawsuit about where all the “special run” of LGB cars went? LOL! I think there is a “shop” someplace still clearing them out?
Thanks for the trip down memory lane! Glad I can still remember all that!
Chas
Hans-Joerg Mueller said:
Hi Garrett,Nope didn’t join the BEMO group, but apart from our own RhB Forum, I hang out on two German language RhB fora. With me it has always been railway rather than mfg centered.
True, but there were a lot more Suisse guys and modelling discussion on there than us German H0ers tho.
And I have a mix of several brands of H0e for that reason from East, West and unified Germany, Austria, and now China: Tillig, Bemo, Zeuke, Liliput, technomodell, Roco…
Yeah, I was a member of BTO and all that early LGB stuff.
I’ve got most of the magazines and they are going on Ebay.
Been playing with LGB since 1986.
Let’s see 1988? That would make the IPP&WRR 6 years old. And that would make this picture of Fryer Fred and Gordon, 5 years old. Yes, I remember the BTO.
(http://www.lscdata.com/users/jgolding/Smaller%20Gord-n-Fred_1983.JPG)
