On the topic of me and trains by me

[brianel027]

Hey gang, again a sincere thanks to the many kind words of support. Slowly I'm working my way back to being comfortable posting here. Usually first thing in the early morning is a good time and really my only time.

As I said before, it is so easy to forget that we train guys here are real folks. I read these words on a computer screen and have to remind myself there are real people here with real lives and problems. In that sense, the trains are a wonderful thing for me and probably for many of you guys too. For some of us who never have been able to devote large sums of money to trains, the Forums can sometimes be a discouraging place... when you read the comments of this new train and that new train... the excitement expressed over the top-of-the-line engines... the latest (expensive) electronic control system.

But I have seen, especially here on the CTT Forum that I am not alone in my choices of trains. The hobby isn't about impressing the neighbors or the fellow collectors. It's about much more than that. And I sincerely doubt that even some folks in the actual industry fully understand that - though they do profit from our passion for the trains. And they profit from the sector of the hobby that can consistantly go out and purchase the latest and top line items. The companies should be thankful for the numbers of die hard operators.

For me, there's an element of nostalgia in the hobby. An element of going back to a simpler time when things weren't so complicated. Or maybe when I was just less aware of those complications and responsibilities.

For me, I got back into the trains due to getting a set for the son of a girlfriend. We split up before he got the set and the trains became a real therapy session for me. A wonderful escape. I could have turned to things far worse for me after that relationship. Seeing the issue of CTT with Neil Young on the cover cemented it for me. That was a sign. As an artist, Neil has always been one of my biggest teachers. I used to joke with musicians that I went to NYU. They'd ask "New York University? I didn't know they had a music program?" And I'd say "no, Neil Young University."

After many years of being a public person in the public spotlight, it was nice to still have a way to channel my creative energy without being in the public eye. (Though I did get comfortable with promoting the hobby through my display layout.) It was also ironic that some artist, photographer and musician friends of mine were all getting back into trains at the very same time, but unbeknowst to eachother initially.

In my years back in the hobby, I've met some wonderful folks. There are some wonderful folks too that I've never met personally, but have heard from here on the Forums. Yes, also I've met a few folks who I didn't think were so wonderful. But I understand this is more due to the money/collectibility element of the hobby and I don't really connect with those folks anyways.

This hobby can be expensive, so there is always a monetary element. But it is also a wonderful hobby that can be done on a budget if you are willing to compromise and be patient. It is wonderful beyond words to see the looks in kids faces when they see my trains. It melts aways the years and makes me think that's what I must have been like so many years ago... I had my first set when I wasn't even a week old. I have fond memories of heading to my grandparents house to see my Uncle's train layout down in that old stone walled damp basement. And I still get just as excited now as I did when I was a kid to see a real train rolling down the track.

I haven't been posting as much recently. Part of it is now time contstraints. Part of it is due to just a lot to think about. There's a lot more to life than meets the eye. I don't need to say again the economy is still not good, despite shallow reports to the contrary. Though I am shooting for work that offers more money, I may end up accepting (if it gets offered) something that offers much less. This is happening a lot today in America.

I'm trying to focus more on the positive in life. And even the positive in the hobby. And though I'll probably be as opinionated as ever on the topic of newcomers and trains aimed at that audience, it's really no skin off my nose. The train companies will do as they please and as they see fit. They certainly must be feeling the effects of the slowed economy also.

I wi***hings were different. But nearly anyone of us could potentially say that. It's so easy to see what we don't have in life instead of what we do have. I learned from my trains to accept my limitations and make the very most of them. I learned to look at my "Yugo" train collection and see it as a "Cadillac" train collection. As I did years earlier with my art and music, I learned to appreciate accidents and non-perfection as the perfect end result... finding perfection in less than perfection.

Now I'm trying to take those 027 non-scale lessons and apply them to a much larger scale... real life. I have yet to ever meet a person who didn't sometimes wonder about the real meaning of life, or to at times, feel the weight from frustration or disappointment. In the long run it makes most of us into better people.

Thanks gang and thought you all deserved some kind of update, such as this is.

[Anonymous]

Brianel,
An excellent thought provoking post! Thanks and keep them comming.
Bill
www.modeltrainjournal.com

[Big_Boy_4005]

Well Brian, it sounds to me that you are making slow but steady progress after our "online ordeal". My financial situationis not desperate, but it is not what it once was, and I really have no money to spend on trains these days.

Personally I agree, and have no use for high buck products from the manufacturers. A couple of weeks ago, I went to the biggest train store in town, a place that I hadn't visited in almost 2 years. In the past whenever I went there I always spent at least $100. This time, I didn't spend a nickel.

Maybe I'm lucky, I've never had "Cadillac" taste in trains, or anything else for that matter. I buy what I like, and what I like is never more than $300, even with TMCC. I'm not sure what it means, that I left the store emptyhanded, maybe for the first time in my life, but I dinn't feel bad about it.

The bottom line is that this hobby isn't about how much money you can spend, there will always be someone who can spend more.

It is about what you can accomplish with a few dollars and a lot of imagination, creativity, and ingenuity.

Brains, not bucks!!!![swg]

[Anonymous]

Without making this sound like a confessional topic, over the years we all change and right now, I feel a change coming on. I have a nice layout with a lot of trains. I have gone from collecting Lionel to buying trains of all manufacturers. From toy to scale, although a lot of mixing.
I used to wait in anticipation of magazines arriving, club renewals and TCA publications. This too has changed, and I'm even thinking of dropping the mags and clubs. I have CTT from day one all in pretty binders, and innumerable catalogues that seemingly procreate several time a year, to fill my shelves.
I no longer go to TCA meets. I have all I want, I don't sell and what new items I want I get from the discounters. However, I do play with my trains virtually every day, if even for a short while, which gives me immense pleasure, so my interest is still there, but has definitely changed.
Perhaps its the cost. I have my share of 1K locos, but that wears a bit thin when on considers the total investment, which one day a survivor will have to virtually give away. Perhaps they won't be able to give them away by that time!
I still have my modest train reference library to keep me interested in the subject and my trains remain my main hobby, but not with the awe and reverence they once had.
At least, right now!

[Big_Boy_4005]

QUOTE: Originally posted by BRIAN W

Without making this sound like a confessional topic, over the years we all change and right now, I feel a change coming on. I have a nice layout with a lot of trains. I have gone from collecting Lionel to buying trains of all manufacturers. From toy to scale, although a lot of mixing.
I used to wait in anticipation of magazines arriving, club renewals and TCA publications. This too has changed, and I'm even thinking of dropping the mags and clubs. I have CTT from day one all in pretty binders, and innumerable catalogues that seemingly procreate several time a year, to fill my shelves.
I no longer go to TCA meets. I have all I want, I don't sell and what new items I want I get from the discounters. However, I do play with my trains virtually every day, if even for a short while, which gives me immense pleasure, so my interest is still there, but has definitely changed.
Perhaps its the cost. I have my share of 1K locos, but that wears a bit thin when on considers the total investment, which one day a survivor will have to virtually give away. Perhaps they won't be able to give them away by that time!
I still have my modest train reference library to keep me interested in the subject and my trains remain my main hobby, but not with the awe and reverence they once had.
At least, right now!

Amen Brother, the truth shall set you free!!!![swg]The thing to do now is enjoy all that you have gone to the trouble to gather. Create something, and share it with people!!!

[FJ and G]

well said on life changes!

(To be honest, the only magazines I'm awed over each month are Trains and MR). I may just cancel all the toy train mags. Too many product reviews and new products featured and too little "how to do" stuff.

I'm extremely happy haven't invested in $1K locomotives. My total investment doesn't exceed $3 or $4K so if I were to depart this world, you could fit my entire collection into my casket. :-) and mummify the entire toy train collection and myself in hydrocal.

I can just picture anthropologists in the year 2525 unearthing my mummified body and toy trains and putting us on display in some history museum.

dav

[waltrapp]

Brian,

It's GREAT to see my O27 support person back in action (posting!)!! I predict you'll soon be clogging the boards again in no time.[^]

I agree with your observations, but one in particular hits home for me cause I "say the same thing" to friends quite often. It deals with the perception that one can be left with when everything you read and everyone you talk to is a big-time player in this little hobby of ours.

I love the OGR forum, don't get me wrong. But there are so many times where the offered 'help' is a recommendation to just scrap all of my O27 stuff (36 switches and more O27 track that a distributor would stock) and replace. Or buy this or that add-on or adjunct. As though money should not factor in at all. I CAN afford to spend more than I do but I CHOOSE not to spend more.

I think to myself: "these guys don't relate to my level of involvement in the hobby". Money seems to be no object to many of them. And then I read MR, RMC, OGRR, and CTT and because they want to showcase the best, we are once again left to believe that EVERYONE is a big-time player and I'm like the only one that isn't.

A false perspective for sure caused by the fact that we're interfacing with "THE" involved group (aka big-time players), not the casual hobbyist. And I think money is no object to the majority of them. Well, to some extent it has to be but not to the extent that it is an object to the more casual hobbyist.

It seems like the posters on this forum are a bit closer to my level than on OGR's board. But still, I want to know what "the best" are up to in case I do want to pursue it. Maybe you're reading pleasure would return if you adopted a similar attitude. You don't have to aspire to be just like them. Just understand and accept where they are coming from and enjoy.

I love the hobby as you can probably glean based on the number of posts that I wrack up here and on OGR. But if I listed my inventory of engines and rolling stock you'd have to say that I fit the defition of casual hobbyist - or worse!.

We are out here!!

- Walt[:)]

[brianel027]

Thanks Walt... you are one person I remembered and liked early on in my active days on the OGR Forum. At one point as you may remember, I posted my reasons for not being so active on the OGR Forum. This was many months ago. At some point later someone posted another thread on "where was I." And there were some very kind comments as well as some kind emails. There are some decent and kind folks on the OGR Forum too.

I do think what you and I (and probably others) both feel comes back to what I said about "words on a computer screen." Say you post a thread as you suggest on a problem with 027 track. I too would become discouraged at the comments which 'seemed' or 'appeared' to dump on 027 related product.

But after some thought, I believe is that those folks were really trying to help. If you have a layout with Atlas 0 track and know how wonderful it is, well, of course you are going to let others know about it. Your advice on the topic of track will lean towards the Atlas 0 because this is what you know.

And because many of us are anonymous to each other beyond a clever Forum name, that lends itself to the quote-unquote snide-like or sarcastic reply. Most of us are far more likely to choose words carefully with someone we personally know and respect. You might not consider the point of hurting someone's feelings if you don't know that someone at all.

But this is (or should be) a big hobby with choices. Choices means options, not an ultimatum. And the point of helping people should be just that: helping people. Which means assisting posters within the parameters of their specific question. For example, if someone asked a question concerning a specific operational aspect of TMCC, you wouldn't reply and tell the person ditch their TMCC. That doesn't answer their question or help them at all.

I think we are all capable of at times forgetting a specific question warrants a specific answer to that question. If one is to suggest that someone replace one thing / product with another, it should be done on the basis of helping the person and not belittling them. How many times has someone openly posted their income level on the Forum? None that I can recall. Therefore, there is a possibility that someone operatating with 027 track cannot afford a nicer or better track system. Or may not have the space to permit use of larger diameter curves.

In most cases I think it is the former that happens... folks will say, "gee I used to have your problem, but since I made the switch from 027 track to 0 Gauge track, I no longer have those problems you describe."

But again not everyone can drop big money on trains. So if someone has a specific question on 027 track, or a K-Line Alco, or a Lionel 4-4-2 Columbia steamer, they are seeking an answer that will solve their specific problem with what they have. Not advice to go out and spend more money on products they may not be able to afford.

I can understand a comment like "for the same money as the Lionel 4-4-2 you could buy a Railking Dockside steamer which does not have that problem." What I cannot understand is a comment like advising someone with a Lionel 4-4-2 to trade it in for a scale Mikado with TMCC. Unless that is the point of their question.

Fortunately from what we see here on this Forum, there are a good many of you folks out there who know how to solve problems (hopefully me included)... sometimes with a simple and cheap homemade remedy. And for the guy who just bought his son a starter train set, this is the advice he seeks. Not the advice to go out and spend anther several hundred dollars that he doesn't have.

As Vincent Van Gogh once said, "there are more colors in the dark of night than during the day. You just have to condition yourself to see them."

There is as much beauty in a simple K-Line Alco as in a scale MTH Premiere Alco... there may not be as much detail... there may not be the same scale proportions, but there is still beauty.

If that somewhat more austere level of beauty allows just one new person to begin and afford a train layout and to enjoy what we all know is a great hobby - then I say bravo. And if we here on the Forum can help that person make his little Alco run better and answer his specific questions without making him feel like less of a modeler, we've not only helped that one person... we've also helped the hobby.

[ChiefEagles]

Plan on running my 1980's "stuff" and add some of the fancy stuff later as I save up. Do not see any $1,000 + trains in my future. I can buy several of the smaller "stuff" and enjoy more. Glad to see your "chuff rate" is picking up. Remember the "Little Engine that Could". You will. God bless.

[FJ and G]

Apologies, Brian for stealing some of your quotes. There's about 7 or 8 posts worth of material in there. A lot of fat to chew on!

Dave

[Big_Boy_4005]

This is a little of topic here, but maybe what is going on here these days is that WE ARE GETTING TO KNOW EACH OTHER!!!

By including our first names, and not hiding behind our screen names, we develope a cretain intimacy, even in this medium. This makes our posts more HUMAN and like normal conversation. Suddenly we have personality, and it is much easier to talk on a personal level.

This forum has had this kind of warmth for quite some time. The OGR forum may also have it, but for a long time it has been perceived by newcommers as more difficult to break into the established group. Brian's story, and the fact that we now have so many dual members, may have served to break down some of that barrier. The whole thing about the $18 may have been a blessing in disguise for OUR COMMUNITY!!!

Oh Brian!!![swg]

[FJ and G]

The thing I really like about CTT is the warmth and friendship of the people. There's also a lot less hoopla on this forum about the latest "Must Have" products, or oogling of catalog hype.

dav

[Big_Boy_4005]

Dave, I've noticed that catalog announcments, and York, and other product related posts don't get much action here. This group has slightly different priorities. I LIKE THAT!!! [swg]

I think we are less about money driven consumerism, and more about the hobby.[^]

And now we are right back ON TOPIC!!!

[Anonymous]

First, I'd like to say that it's good to hear from you, Brian. You've been in everyone's thoughts with your situation & it's good to hear that things at least aren't getting any worse.

I'm in Boston right now at a conference, and I sat at a table for lunch with some folks from all over. One guy, who is a speaker at the conference & is from DC, has indicated that the IT market, at least, in the DC area has picked back up to the point where they are making offers to guys because they know that if they wait, the person will have gotten an offer from some one else. Some one else from up here indicated that the same thing's going on in this area. So the job market will probably turn around in NY real soon.

Regarding the OGR forum, I just want to say this: they're no different from the people on the CTT forum. We all have own own interests, and people here can be just as rude as people there. Likewise, people here can be just as nice as people there. There does seem to be a greater number of people with scale interests on OGR than there are here. So what?

As has been pointed out in postings on OGR, there are things that we can each learn from the others, no matter what our interests. Just because you're into toy train operations doesn't mean you don't have something meaningful to say about layout wiring to a guy building a scale layout. The conflicts occur when guys from one crowd feel they have to chime in on a thread that doesn't interest them to "set the other guys straight." If you're working with a TMCC system, who wants to hear "Dump it & get DCS?" Likewise, if you're trying to reproduce an area of Pennsylvania on your layout, who needs to hear "Hey! Get over it! They're just toys!"

This last area is where we need to learn to respect each other & our different approaches to the hobby. And I think we can do it if we just remember that the guy on the other end is human & not just the words he posted.

Tony

[Anonymous]

Wow, good stuff here! I have always liked to see Agent 027 here among others.....
I agree with Tony, there are many different ways to view this hobby, perhaps as many ways as there are people. The contentious comments between hirailers and toy train guys on OGR got too bad for me. I have learned now not to get too wrapped up in the forums, or what anybody says. I have a life, and this is recreation. I don't have to read anything if I don't want, so I'm very selective. Taking it that way, I more enjoy my brief interludes on this forum, and am happy to just pick up some new idea, or get encouragement in my hobby. You're a great bunch, and I value the wisdom you impart!