When I was 4 or 5, I received a wind up train set (Triang) where my Dad had carefully applied Letraset for Canadian National. A year or two later, that train was replaced by electric ones. The year after, we were introduced to some other trains, which had been left with us by a colleague of my Dad's who was returning to Europe (Switzerland?) and could not bring his trains. Those metal models included a steam engine, a shunter and a green and a blue electric. At first I liked the blue one, but when I realized that the green one went with a coach that had little knobs on the roof to open the doors, that one became my favourite when we were allowed to play with it.
A few years after that, our family moved to Switzerland when my Dad took a year's sabbatical to return to his alma mater (ETH). For my birthday that year, I got a 3050 Ae 6/6 and for Christmas a small Start set so that I could run my new train. I discovered that the green locomotive (RET800) and 348/1 were in fact Swiss trains, I learned what SBB was and I was hooked.
In the 1980s, when I was at University, I got back into the hobby while working at a local hobby shop and following a summer class in Germany, I started my collection which represents trains that I have either taken or seen during my travels.
I think that what made Swiss trains so interesting was the mix of international cars and coaches that could be seen behind Swiss locomotives.

Regards

Mike C

My inspiration I have had to get where I could.
In the days before internet, most information and inspiration was gathered from what was available to me;
Primarily the Märklin catalogues, a couple of books by Bernd Schmid (sold by Märklin), and some odd magazines that I could get my hands on. (Not much available on my non-existent budget and "far away" from Copenhagen)
Although I would have liked to model danish trains, what was available was mainly german epoch IV stuff.
Later, thanks to available german magazines from the local library (MIBA and Eisenbahn Kurier), my eyes were opened a bit more to the world outside of Märklin.
Catalogues from Roco, Fleischmann, Lima, Arnold, etc. showed layouts in a totally different style than Märklin. Much more... "realistic" decorations, in my eyes.
Forays into US and british train modelling magazines showed mind-blowing decorations which helped me define what I wanted, and what I did NOT want.
However, on my strict budget, a totally new beginning was out of the question, but at least I could get onto K-tracks and gradually reduce my epoch IV stuff to get more epoch III (steam!) stuff.
Because of numerous other accesories, a german DB layout was also always a given. This is not a problem. I love my german trains!

A visit to the early MiWuLa (year 2002 I think) helped solidify my ideas for my own future layout.

Lately I plow through youtube videos from huge exhibition- and club layouts, from the hands of Joseph Brandl and other master artisans. Of course I can never do anything close to what they do, but they are certainly my inspiration!

Ah, do you remember the time when Hamley's display ran all the way round the upstairs balcony? Vollon & Brun SNCF BB 9211 'Mistral' pulling a long rake of the 'inox' coaches under catenary at great speed all day?

I was hooked.

I think his scenery skills were excellent, but what I certainly didnt like about his layouts, was the trackplan. Even his last layout featured in the Profi-Tips series of articles in the M.Magazine always used the same boring double oval. Ever since I discovered the "dogbone layout" (=crushed oval), I´ve never looked back at any of his trackplans.

Gamages in High Holborn, London had a large Lionel layout at Xmas every year and my Dad always took me there. When I was old enough (10) he wanted to buy me a set but it was way too expensive so he bought me a Triang Transcontinental box - 2-6-4 Canadian pacific lok, two freight cars and a caboose. My local library, in South London, had a copy of Frank Ellisons "On Model Railroads" which is a book made up from Model Railroader articles - all dated pre 1955. Since then I have drifted around but mostly building (or at least buying on my regular trips to the US) US outline stuff. Now retired, I have gone through N Scale US, HO scale US, UK N gauge and finally Marklin.
Incidentally, a friend in the US found me a copy of the Frank Ellison book so I now have my own!

Interestingly enough, our original layout design is actually available in today's retail world (albeit out of stock) as shown below. Atlas had a plan book that included detailed wiring instructions (also still available as Atlas HO Layouts for every space) which was our bible for building the layout. This layout had great operating elements with lot's of crossings and a reverse loop. Our second layout extended this original design with each of the loops being much larger and containing yards, industry and a turntable. Great stuff and always great to see classic designs being continued today.


Original Atlas layout

There have been many sources that have inspired my layout designs and general interest in this hobby over the years.

-Train watching in Germany as a boy
-Repeatedly skimming through Marklin Catalogs, Marklin Magazines, and many other reading materials
-Visiting various club layouts in the Toronto area as well as in Germany (including of course several visits to the MiWuLa among others)
-More recently watching Youtube videos of many layouts and of DB verkehr from the 80s and 90s
-Viewing the many layout build threads and track plans here on Marklin-users.net and the websites created by a number of users here

I've obsessed compulsively about trains from my earliest childhood memories, even before my father bought my first starter set.

Mom was from Jersey City, Dad was from Brooklyn. Mass transit was all around. Lol.

Facebook has this group called New York's railroads, subways & trolleys psst & present. The group consists of historians, railroad workers, and everyday people into rail transportation. There are early videos of trolleys going over the Brooklyn bridge and many other parts of the early subway and elevated systems. If you follow the posts long enough you can see how all the first, independent start ups grow in size to become the system it is today. Photos as early as the1870s. Check it out if you're into it.