I model pretty much all year round. I just don't do as much as I would during the winter months. I just spent two long evenings thinking through and wiring my NYC Freight station for interior and exterior lights. I did this while watching/listening to a couple of DVDs.
As far as running trains, I do that in any weather or climate.
Tom
https://tstage9.wixsite.com/nyc-modeling
Time...It marches on...without ever turning around to see if anyone is even keeping in step.
Our "family sport" is skiing, so we spend a lot of weekends sliding down mountainsides in Maine during the winter. Sometimes, I get more layout time during the summer, particularly if it's brutally hot out, or raining like today in the Northeast.
Next week, the wife is going off for a "girls week" in Michigan, and sometime in August I'll be a lone wolf for a week while she and my daughter go out to visit her brother in Indiana. I'm limited in how many vacation days I've got, so I get to stay home and do some trains. Not a bad arrangement, actually.
Also, I do all my "Instant Rust" weathering outside. That stuff smells, so I try to do it in nice weather.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
I work on my garden railroad.
Describe this "vacation" you speak of.
I think I'm unfamiliar with this concept.
I do things in the reverse of most folks, being a 'redhead' I really can't be out in the sun much, so I spend a lot of time working on train stuff in the summer...especially anything requiring ventilation like airbrush painting, hate to do that in the winter with the house all sealed up.
Also factoring in is that I work in taxes, so my busy time is January-April or May, so I do little modelling those months, when for many people that's their peak time. Fall is usually pretty slow workwise, so I do sometimes take time off around Thanksgiving and Xmas/New Years to finish up some layout stuff like scenery work.
pcarrell wrote: Describe this "vacation" you speak of.I think I'm unfamiliar with this concept.
I model year 'round too. Summer IS the time for more outdoorsey activities, so I take the opportunity to do most of the heavy construction (cutting, sawing, sanding, etc) in the warm weather, as well as most of my painting (I still don't have my spray booth set up in the basement). I also "model" by going on lots of "fact finding missions"; wandering around semi-aimlessly chasing trains and (especially) the ghosts of what used to be around.
But that's not to say that I don't actually model during the summer. It does still rain, or get too hot, or gets dark from time to time, so there's plenty of time to actually do this sort of thing:
Ray Breyer
Modeling the NKP's Peoria Division, circa 1943
I take my family on a 4000 mile westward trek (from OSL to MSP) to spend a month with in-laws in the Twin Cities in Minnesota.
That also opens up the possibility to do some on-site research of the prototype I want to model in my basement back in Norway - the Minnesota Transfer Railroad. Plus a chance to buy some modelling supplies of various kinds.
Well, time to download from my digital camera all the pictures from my early morning expedition yesterday along the tracks of MTRY successor Minnesota Commercial, and see if I can make a couple of decent background image from the various image series, which I can take in to a store to have printed big enough to use as background images.
Smile, Stein
Dr. Frankendiesel aka Scott Running BearSpace Mouse for president!15 year veteran fire fighterCollector of Apple //e'sRunning Bear EnterprisesHistory Channel Club life member.beatus homo qui invenit sapientiam
Just the opposite here in Texas. Too hot to go out in the summer. In fact, I was waiting to video a train in Mineola one day in August two years ago right after moving here when it was about 102 deg., when a shopkeeper came out and asked me if I wanted to wait inside. She said no one stands around outside in that heat. In fact, I looked up and down the street, and I was the only person outside. I don't do that anymore.
So, I do a lot of model railroading in the summer, and a lot of railfanning and motorcycling in the winter.
Since it gets so blasted hot here in Texas, we usually hook up to our home away from home and head for cooler climates. This photo was taken last year on our way to Grand Teton and Yellowstone National Park.
Don Z.
Research; it's not just for geeks.
I mow the lawn, landscape the grounds (Ooo! Doesn't THAT sound hoity-toity?), paint the house (aargh!), and other such things. I also try to spend at least a FEW hours on the layout each week.
HEY, DON!
What time of year was that? August?
Mark P.
Website: http://www.thecbandqinwyoming.comVideos: https://www.youtube.com/user/mabrunton
Brunton wrote: HEY, DON! What time of year was that? August?
Mark,
That was May 27th of last year, at Togwotee Pass, elevation 9568 ft. On Memorial Day we woke up with 6" of snow!
Vacation? is that when you get to NOT work and no one calls you to come in on your days off??
I was listening to some youngsters the other day at the LHS who were complaining that summer vacation wasn't long enough.....before they even got the words out the shopkeeper said , '' boys, enjoy it now, when you get out in the real world they ain't gonne be no summer vacations!''......reminded me of my youth and wanting my dad to spend the summer with me.....pesky ole work interfered with that tho!
I work on my layout in the summer when I can, it's in the basement and it's always 20 deg. cooler down there, so on those days when I have time and it's hott outside...I can be found lurking in the basement with the tv on and a cold beverage close at hand.
I do custom painting in the summer.
-Smoke
Don Z wrote:Mark, That was May 27th of last year, at Togwotee Pass, elevation 9568 ft. On Memorial Day we woke up with 6" of snow!Don Z.
In Wyoming you learn early - on a trip, be prepared for any kind of weather!
Brunton wrote:Togwotee Pass! I'm green with envy! I used to spend quite a bit of time in Jackson as a kid. We'd always take Togwotee Pass on the way. It's my favorite spot on planet Earth.In Wyoming you learn early - on a trip, be prepared for any kind of weather!
Togwotee Pass! I'm green with envy! I used to spend quite a bit of time in Jackson as a kid. We'd always take Togwotee Pass on the way. It's my favorite spot on planet Earth.
I'm sure you'll recognize this shot....approaching Moran Junction from the east...and you're dead on about being prepared for the weather. We learned very quickly!
Don and Mark, you have just reinforced my comment in the thread bout the Big Boy's operating territory. I think that Wyoming is the dumping ground for the weather Siberia doesn't want!
Since I'm fully retired, life is one long vacation. OTOH, nobody with any sense spends much time outdoors in the leftover corner of Hades which is known as Clark County, NV, during the months from June to Mid-September. Temperatures BELOW 100 F are a newsworthy event! The sun is strong enough to fry anyone who isn't either in the shade or protected by industrial strength sunscreen. The routine now is work in the train room (not climate controlled) from dawn to discomfort, have breakfast, then spend the rest of the day in conditioned space. Some off-layout construction (a control panel, at the moment) gets done, along with reading, net surfing, tube watching and enjoying the results of my wife's main hobby (gourmet cooking.) Trips, long and short, either involve family affairs (my granddaughter's wedding being the most recent) or are spur-of-the-moment (to National Parks, historical sites or good railfanning locations.)
Are my wife and I enjoying life. Youbetchum!
Chuck (modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)