Your first model train.

[nachoman]

I'm guessing most of us got our first model trains this time of year, so I thought it would be fun to start a thread about our very first model trains, and the ultimate fate of those trains.

I know I had some push-toy trains as a toddler, but my first model train was an HO Life-Like work caboose in Santa Fe blue with working spotlight given to me by my grandparents on Christmas eve when I was probably 6. The next day, Santa gave me my first locomotive, a Soo Line F-7 which I am sure I destroyed within a few months I ran both of them on my brother's 4x8 HO layout in the basement.

The first model train I bought with my own money was a few years later when I bought one of those Life-Like F7 and caboose combos (Burlington Northern) at an after Christmas sale at a craft store. I probably used birthday money, and I think with the after Christmas sale it was something like 7.99.

Both F-7s are long gone. The cabooses, however, live on! The "caboose" part of the work caboose was kitbashed into an HOn3 caboose, and the Burlington Northern caboose has been given a veneer of wood siding and additional details and is now one of my standard gauge cabooses.

What were your first model trains, and do you still have them?