I came into trains in an odd way.  As a kid I never had any interest in them.  I was asked by a friend if I could paint a locomotive for him as he knew I owned an airbrush and had painted helmets for people from time to time.
I remembered the Maine Central from childhood and when I saw a Proto 2000 caboose at a yard sale I purchased it just to set in my display case of lead figures.  A year or so latter I saw a flat car that caught my fancy and added that to the case. I got several requests to paint engines from people who saw the first one, and before long I was doing a couple a week.  Well somewhere along the line I ended up with one that was not claimed by its owner.  It too sat in the case; a one car train looked silly so I went out to add a few more cars, and discovered that engines could be had factory painted and made of plastic.  I always assumed they all came in brass   I collected a lot of engines and cars but finally saw a set of the Amtrak high speed Acella cars and power units and that became my first and only train set.