Well, in South Africa, trains arn't as big (as in well liked) as in the U.K and U.S.A., so I don't know how I got interested in them (not one family member has an interest).
Anyway, I just know that I do like them, facinated by their strength, smells and sounds I guess. I used to have lots of plastic battery operated plastic trains and then, one day, just before my 13th birthday I saw it- a Lima
South African Class 34 Diesel loco- man-o-man I had to have that, so, when May came I asked my dad to ask my uncle to send it up to us from Cape Town, every day for a week I checked our post box for the blue slip from the post office and eventually it came- YIPPEE (I guess that's the story of why 13 is my lucky number- I guess that's when I also really started noticing the ladies
).
So, I've loved trains all my life, but officially started having an interest in MRing for the past 7 years.