I would like to express a great big thankyou to all who have responded to this thread. There are quite a few who have heartened me and opened my eyes to the potential that this hobby has for on-going involvement and pleasure. Here was me thinking in terms of trains going around corners and through tunnels and over and under bridges. Now I see beyond that to open fields, lakes or rivers, industries, towns and even cities. Not to mention roadways with vehicles on.
I'm beginning to wish that I had another 70 odd years left to to enjoy what I've found myself in. Golly gosh! At the age of 79 I must be the oldest newbie on this forum even though my interest in electric model trains was sparked around 1940 when I was about four years old. At that time, my parents couldn't afford to buy me one but a year or so later I did get a wind-up Hornby. But as kids do, I left it on the tracks on the lounge room floor and Mum managed to walk on the tracks (which didn't do them a lot of good) and also kicked the engine.
Interest waned for many years after that and it was not until some time in the 1970s that I became interested again. On that particular day I happened to be walking past a toy shop where a train was going around in the window. Instantly I was back to being a four-year-old again and being captivated by a model train operating.
I went in and had a discussion with the owner and was surprised at the flexibility of the brand on display - it was Marklin with three rails. It was explained to me that if I also installed a catinary system of overhead wires, it was possible to run three trains on the same track. When my body language expressed disbelief, he explained that current coming in the left track could control one train, the right track could control another and the overhead wires, a third. On top of that, it was possible, with the right attachments, to automate station lighting, crossing signals, and a host of other features.
I was hooked! I bought a Marklin catalogue and over a couple of days I designed the world's best layout (ha ha). Having drawn the track layout, I then listed all the different track components needed to build it. At this point I didn't bother too much about anything else as I planned on waiting to see what the layout would look like in the "flesh" so to speak.
A day or so later I took my plan into the shop and the owner said it would take him a little while to come up with a price and could I come back in a coulpe of days? No problem - a couple of days later I turn up and he suggested I take a seat. He said that some of the components weren't in stock and it could take a month or more before they did come in and within that time the price could be higher.
Now came the reason for his suggestion that I sit down - the track, as I had drawn it using the components I wanted, was going to set me back in the vicinity of between $3000 and $3500! I looked at him blankly thinking that no wonder my parents couldn't afford an electric train for me when I was a kid. Well, that was the end of my desire for an electric train. At that particular time I was earning about $100 a week (New Zealand dollars). The shop owner told me that Marklin steam engines cost between $300 and $500 each - I never got round to asking the prices of rolling stock.
Then eventually came retirement - leaving New Zealand to come to Australia in 1994, then building a new home and business and after a few years selling them both and with spare time and not a lot to occupy my mind I one day came across a video on DCC controlled trains. This would have been in maybe 2012-13 and I was amazed that it was possible to have smoke and sound. I was hooked all over again. The problem was that having just sold our home, I now had money burning a hole in my pocket. Not that that was a problem - I would have no trouble spending it.
Oh boy and did it burn! My wife became interested in scenery design and so between us we stacked up quite a lot of material for the future when we had a layout. Today, we've probably spent between $4000 and $5000 on our hobby and still the first layout is incomplete. We are both having the time of our lives and feel like kids again whenever something new that we've ordered arrives on our doorstep.
One thing that surprised me were the prices for steam locos - they aren't a lot more (in dollar terms) than Marklins were back in the 1970s - plus they literally have all the bells and whistles not to mention the smoke. So, to answer the question when did I really get involved with the hobby? That would have to have been around two years ago when I bought my first engine by BLI.
I'm emarrased to admit that having jumped in the deep end and without water wings, we have not yet had a "serious" play with our collection and here I am learning (once again, the hard way) that the best laid plans (hah! if only) don't always pan out the way we dream. Anyway, we are having fun and haven't come to blows - yet! I can honestly say that any short comings the layout has or develops are all my fault.
Once again, thanks to all of you who have told your stories.
Cheers,
Brian
I'm supposed to respect my elders, but its getting harder and harder for me to find any now.
Rich, while we did identify a slight like through a foundation crack, so far that has only been a minor issue. The water that covered much of the basement floor was due to the sump pump failing during a major storm. We had some contractors come in afterward and do their song and dance and the sump was found to be not working. I went to Home Depot and bought a similar replacement and replaced the bad one; we monitored the basement for the next 6 weeks and many storms came and went and no recurrance. That seems to confirm yep, with the sump not working, the french drain under the town house backed up into the basement and caused the water.
The ultimate fix will be to get a batter back up sump, which is a 2nd sump pump installed next to the primary that has a battery, so if the power failed or the main sump pump failed, the back up would kick in and prevent issues due the the sump failing during a storm when the power went out for an extended period or the main sump simply died.
Rio Grande. The Action Road - Focus 1977-1983
Great topic!
For myself, I was influenced as a small boy with Southern Pacific & the Santa Fe. We lived in Southern California (Pasadena, then the Mohave Desert). My father and grandfather were both railfans/model railroaders. I have some old photographs of our family as we wandered near the train yards and mainlines during the late 50's and 60's. My father modeled O scale and I remembered as a boy he had a Espee daylight passenger train (with a daylight painted GS4 upfront) that would loop around the garage layout he built. That was pretty cool, and influenced me alot.
Myself, I model mostly Espee, all in N scale, with the time period ranging from 1955 to 1970 or so. The N scale engines I enjoy running are my Espee Intermountain Cab Forward or the Kato F7 black widow diesels (geez I wish someone made a Espee styled snowplow for that Kato A unit...). A 15 or 20 car block of PFE orange 40 foot reefers behind these engines is the best. I never got to see a train like this when I was a boy, but I still get to experience it in model form.
I do alot of rail photography now, mostly up on Donner Pass. Espee is gone, but for the most part the scenery up there looks the same as it did years ago. It's fun to be at a location, take some photos there, then later at home compare my photos with those taken 50-75years ago during the golden era of railroading.
Thanks,
Jeff B
I am trying to model a generic plains transition era road. I grew up about a block from a CNW branch line and the old FtD, DM & S RR electric shortline. I will probably attempt to scratch build an old electric steeple cab engine or two as they are the first motive power I remember as a five year old. My grandfather used to walk me to a small cafe that sold ice cream cones and we would watch the steeple cabs go by and dim the lights in the cafe as the town my grandparents lived in received its electric power from the railroads DC power supply. I rode the interurban service several times as a youngster with my mother and sister. May also attempt to scratch build a couple of interurban cars. The interurban cars were ancient when I was a kid. Very interesting time to grow up.
Jim
I model (well, so far that means 'collect rolling stock and locos from') an era that I missed - the end of age of steam. Like so many others, I feel steam locos hold a certain mystique that modern equipment simply lacks (apologies to modern RR enthusiasts). The almost living nature of them, their exposed mechanical workings, the sounds, and the fact that they are now gone all add up to something special.
As far as settings, I decided to keep it more local - the rolling hills of the Mid Atlantic, east of the Appalachians. With the coal flowing in from the west, local agriculture, plenty of heavy industry (in my era of interest, at least), and viable passenger service along the NE corridor, it encompasses the type of railroading I want to model. The fact that I can work scenes from childhood memory as well as what I see everyday is a bonus, and a neccesity. I couldn't model the vast plains of the midwest, deserts of the SW, or crags of the rockies with any sort of authenticity, because I've spent minimal or no time in those places. I think modeling realistic scenery/scenes of life around the railroad is the hardest part of the hobby. People accept a train very easily when it's 'close enough', but miss the mark on the look of a region's towns, visible rock formations, water features, even the foliage, and everyone who sees it will notice that something isn't 'right'.
I saw the daylight in an I love toy trains video, and fell in love with it. Got a model of it, and everything is based around that one train.
-Peter. Mantua collector, 3D printing enthusiast, Korail modeler.
HObbyguyI've never been on a steam excursion, and never even saw a real steam locomotive in operation until we visited Ely a couple of years ago and I hitched some time in the driver's seat of Nevada Northern #93 as part of their "be the engineer" program. I was in no way disappointed!
The Nevada Northern is one of my favorite preserved railroads! I've been there many times, and rode on it 2-3 times. Mostly I prefer to watch/photograph rather than ride, because you can see more of the action that way. But someday I'd like to do the engineer program that you did, if I can ever find the time.
The first time I ever saw a working steam locomotive other than Disneyland and Knott's, was in 1986 when I took a brief trip to Colorado and saw the trains at Silverton and Durango. I could hardly believe I was actually getting to see and touch such legendary trains, that I'd read about for years and had only ever seen in photos!
I was born shortly after steam disappeared off the tracks, but back then there were a fair number of parks around that featured displays of retired steam engines, often unprotected so that kids could play on them. I was one of those kids that loved climbing aboard and "playing engineer" on those old steamers.
I grew up fascinated by old technology that made big power. I got into WWII warbirds for a while and attended the big WWII fly-in in Reading PA a few years ago as an invited guest in return for displaying my R/C model P61 Black Widow under the full-scale plane being restored there. I love restoring old musclecars and have two completed in my garage. All that has nothing to do with trains but you get the idea- my railroad had to feature big steam. And I decided it should be in mountainous terrain in the east since that is an area I am familiar with. Unlike many here I am not a real railroad buff, so decided to freelance based on the C&O with its steam-driven coal trains, and the B&O since I had to have an EM-1. Since they eventually merged into one railroad anyway I figured it was fair game.
I've never been on a steam excursion, and never even saw a real steam locomotive in operation until we visited Ely a couple of years ago and I hitched some time in the driver's seat of Nevada Northern #93 as part of their "be the engineer" program. I was in no way disappointed!
Huntington Junction - Freelance based on the B&O and C&O in coal country before the merger... doing it my way. Now working on phase 3. - Walt
For photos and more: http://www.wkhobbies.com/model-railroad/
In my case, my main engines came into being from a engine that was bought out of a markdown pile. (A Mantua BN GP20 that eventually was canabalized for parts.) I liked the unusual look of that engine which evolved into taking Tyco GP20 shells that I chucked the original drives and replaced them with Athearn GP35 drives. With some slight modifications, the frames fit perfectly. I now have 8 of those engines that I bashed together over the years.
I also have amassed in my collection of engines the following: an Athearn F7A which has the drive from the first engine that I ever purchased, two P2K GP18s (one BN purchased shortly after I graduated from college as the road number is the year I graduated from high school and the other is an NP which is my favorite prototype road [family connection being my gradfather was MOW for the NP]), three SW7s, and an SW1.
My cabooses are Tycos based on cabooses I have seen at a couple of towns in Montana that I have visted. Again I liked the look of them and just went to town with them so to speak. (Nine of them all told.)
As for my area, I went with a general idea of my home town area with two railroads connecting in town. (The NP and the Milwaukee had a crossing that still exists to this day east of town.) I added in a few other ideas that I liked the looks of that definitely don't belong in Montana. (A car ferry as an example!)
I grew up in South Carolina in a mill town at the end of an SR branch. At the time it was switched by an assortment of small switchers, mainly Alcos with an RS-1 occasionally. So I came to appreciate the shear work-a-day aspects of doing the daily grind as opposed to the "glamour" of the hotshots coming and going by the junction without a thought as to what was just "over the hill and around the bend."
Also there were a lot of small shortlines in SC, from the P&N, L&C, C&NW and many others, so it was very easy to fit in a proto-freelanced version. Originally I started modeling the 70s/80s with the wide variety of paint schemes out there (SR, SCL, Clinchfield, Family Lines, Seaboard System, and the connecting lines) as well as the IPD craze that added all sorts of colorful boxcars to the rails. Still a lot appeal there.
But after a couple of moves, my current space means smaller is better so I slipped my era back a bit to the 50s with 40 foot cars. Still modeling that small mill town in the south. In many ways it's almost become more about capturing the essence of the mill town way of life than about the railroad equipment. That strange combination of Mayberry, Hazard, and Hooterville, at the end of the line, over the hill, and around the bend.
jim
Although I'm only in the planning stages, waiting and dreaming of having a space in a house mainly, I do have an interest in modern railroads. When I first got into the hobby 10 or so years ago, I bought any and everything that was reasonably priced. Right away, I realized that this was a terrible idea and that I needed to focus on a specific era and railroad.
Growing up in western Wisconsin, I saw Union Pacific going through town every day. I'd sit in class in high school and listen for the train whistle and try to make sure I found a reason to get up to see what was leading the train. In college, I had an apartment feet from the Canadian Pacific line running south along the Mississippi. I'd drive home on the Wisconsin side and watch the BNSF.
This has all put me in a weird position for what direction I'd like to take a future railroad. I really like the modern era, but I also like the idea of keeping a fallen flag alive in a freelance setting. Thus, I'd like to incorporate Chicago & North Western into a layout. I would also like to incorporate the major railroads of today, but that is a bit far fetched as well. Freelance seems the best where I can create my own back story of how things work. I'm not a Union Pacific fan, rather I prefer BNSF, Norfolk Southern (something about the all black engine with a white front), and Canadian Pacific primarily. I really like gondolas, hoppers, and Railbox boxcars, too. So I'll be looking at industries that fit those criteria.
Being that I don't have a place to even think about building a layout, I can only look at the forums, browse the web, read the magazines, and dream. I'll be going to my first show in several years in January, and I can't wait to see what's out there and hopefully find some inspiration and direction. Really, I'm just a lost modeler looking for inspiration and a home to build in. Hopefully that home will come in the next few months as my fiancee and I are beginning the process of homebuying.
Because I was maybe 13 years old when I sold my Lionels and moved to HO. I bought an Athearn train set, with a Milwaukee GP9 because I thought the GP9 was cool and I liked the colors. When I went to college, my parents made me put the trains away. I carried them around with me for 40 years, moving the boxes from attics to basement.
Then I opened the boxes and started to resurrect my trains. Not really realizing that the engines were all going to end up as dummies, I stayed with the Milwaukee around 1960. Most of my old rolling stock is now operational, with Kadees and upgrades to metal wheels.
Why? Because a 13-year-old kid liked the colors, and 55 years later, he still does.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
I model what I remember as a kid- trains rolling past corn and bean fields in the midwest. Dad took my brother and I to see the N&W 611 when I was 10 when it came to town and that's been my favorite locomotive ever since. I've done a ton of reasearch about it as well as the N&W so my layout is a freelanced N&W town/area somewhere around the Columbus OH area so I can have both flat(ter) lands and some mountaineous scenes.
Modeling the N&W freelanced at the height of their steam era in HO.
Daniel G.
LION was going to build a generic 70s - 80s ish commuter railroad, but when life-Like came out with thier R-15 and R-21 subway cars, I instantly converted my railroad to the NYC Subway, and have not looked back since.
I could get older or newer custom made HO scale equipment at about $400.00 per car, but that was just out of the question. Now I am running 10 eight car trains on my 14 miles of track.
Watch the closing doors on the express......
ROAR
The Route of the Broadway Lion The Largest Subway Layout in North Dakota.
Here there be cats. LIONS with CAMERAS
I am a free lancer and alway have been. My childhood memories have nothing to do with my modeling choices other than my fondness for F-units which were the most common motive power on the MoPac branchline along Saddle Creek Rd in Omaha not far from where we lived. The branchline is long gone now. Pictures have been what has inspired my choices. I remember a long time ago putting together a jigsaw puzzle with picture of an Armour Yellow UP passenger train, probably somewhere along their Portland branch since it was in the mountains with a lot greenery. I don't know where else it could have come from. Anyway, when I got into the hobby in the late 1970s, the UP was my choice. Somewhere a long the line I saw a B/W picture of the Troy, NY Union Station in RMC with some heavyweight cars parked at one of the platforms. I thought the picture had a lot of character and got me thinking about modeling an eastern railroad. I couldn't find one that had all the elements I wanted so I decided to do another freelance railroad which is a composite of several railroads which operated from the west shore of the Hudson and across northern New Jersey into New York State, most notably the NYOW and the Lackawanna. Had those two railroads merged it would have looked very much like my freelanced railroad.
Being a child of the 90s I've only known steam in an excursion setting. But some early trips (including 4449 when I was eight) made me fall in love with steam locomotives as amazing and elegant feats of machinery. I liked the DRGW when I ran trains as a kid mostly because of its livery, and when I came back to the hobby about two years ago I settled on Colorado as a background because of that. But realizing I had to keep my ambitions modest, it was sort of chance finding a little short line that connects to the Rio Grande (the San Luis Central) and rarely gets modeled. I fixated on it because of its simplicity and their beautiful sole 2-8-0, which for the first 40 years of the railroad's existence was their only locomotive. I've given up on ovals in favor of rural switching, which I find quite relaxing as an operational mode.
P
I just have a bit of everything, because I'm from Chicago. I have UP and Chessie stuff right now, but I rode the Metra E8 units pretty regularly in the 1980s, I'd like to model those at some point.
I have GP30s and E/F units because I like how they look.
My interests are the midwest to the rockies, but I only have room for so much on my layout, I'm planning a scene on each 2x4 section, but we will see what actually happens :) It will probably be a whole lot of 'whatever' mixed with as much industry action as I can fit.
Julian
Modeling Pre-WP merger UP (1974-81)
I model steam and electrics, and save for our time in Norway, never saw an electric loco in the states until I was in my late 20's. I grew listening to my grandfater talk about steam, my mom talking about taking the train from Columbus, WI to Milwaukee and back for nursing school and breaks, and dad talking about the North Shore line.
When I went looking for a landscape that I could model, I stumbled over it. I was a field scout for Del Monte in the central Sands of Wisconsin and found by accident the old P-Line. There isn't much left, there isn't much written, but what I could find lent itself to the things I wanted to model, easy but rolling topography, sleepy small towns, interchange with 4 railroads and with one of them twice, and no future. The line died in 1946. It was a blank slate, but it was a blank slate that did have resonable points of departure that things could have been different. Soooo, steam survived, for a while and because it was always the back up power, and the electrics took over. I have 3x 40ton steeple cabs, with plans for an additional 4 or 5. I am saving for 2 EF1 AB box cab electrics, and I have my SBB krokodile which was appearently liscensed for manufacture to the ALCO, but never acted on. So while it is a duck out of water continentally, it fits at home with the rest of the electrics and the steam power.
When people learn my age (early 70s) the first question they ask is why I don't model steam so I explain to them that the first time I road on a train with steam power I was 6 weeks old,the second time I was 6 months old.The first time I saw a real steam locomotive I was in my 40s.
My whole modeling life like my real life has been around diesels.I prefer to model today so if you look at my layout(s) and a calender you will know what day I am modeling.
I was a Pennsy steam nut forever, but that kinda faded out when I saw the Broadway Limited prices (lol), so I switched over to Norfolk Southern, but that also faded because everyone else was doing NS. I eventually ended up settling on my current railroads, the Wheeling and Lake Erie with their assorted EMD power (SD40-2, GP35s high and short hood, etc) and the freelanced Austinville and Dynamite City railroad (AVDC), also powered by a ragtag assortment of EMD power.
(My Model Railroad, My Rules)
These are the opinions of an under 35 , from the east end of, and modeling, the same section of the Wheeling and Lake Erie railway. As well as a freelanced road (Austinville and Dynamite City railroad).
I was a Pennsylvania RR modeler for just about 35 years, although the layout was always in the planning stage because I could never commit to a PRR theme: east coast with GG1s? Horsehoe Curve with Js? Or Ohio with articulateds and 2-10-2s? Or the racetrack to Chicago? Moreover I saw no way I could get large pieces of plywood home in my small car. It was planning paralysis.
Anyway in the 1990s LifeLike suddenly became a quality product with their Proto2000 line and they soon came out with two C&NW SW1200s both carrying the very numbers of the switchers I saw every day on the C&NW line through my home town as a teen: 1124 and 1125. And in a flash I totally switched from Pennsy to North Western, modeling my old home town, based entirely on those particular two road numbers being available on plastic locomotives.
And at about that same time David Barrow introduced his domino style of benchwork and layout planning, and I discovered that Menards had "Handi-panel" pieces of plywood in Barrow's 2'x4' size. Rather suddenly I had more benchwork than I could comfortably wire.
Dave Nelson
I grew up along the Delaware Division of the Erie/Erie Lackawanna; at that time the main line between Buffalo and NY City. Then, after college, my first "real" job landed me in Dayton, Ohio, in the mid to late 70's. Lo and behold, the Chessie System, and, lo and behold, the Erie Lackawanna too! Then, a year's stint in northwestern Indiana, and, lo and behold, the Erie Lackawanna! Ever since that time I have been a fan of both the EL and the Chessie System, having locomotives (and, as close as possible, rolling stock from that era), of both road's liveries.
Well I started out to model a freelance mainline railroad in HO. But along the way I decided that HO was too small so I switched to O. Decided that was too big and switched to S where I have been since '93.
Then I decided that I didn't like mainline all that much, but did like smaller steam locomotives and truss rod cars. I had read The Ma & Pa by George Hilton years earlier, so I decided that would be the line to model. I picked the early 50's because passenger service was still operating. It also had a mix of small steam (4-4-0, 4-6-0, 0-6-0, 2-8-0) and small diesel switchers (SW1, NW2, SW9). The Ma & Pa (Maryland & Pennsylvania Railroad) still had truss rod cars with archbar trucks (no longer allowed in interchange) and open platform cars with truss rods.
Enjoy
Paul
I am a lone wolf modeler, meaning I can't run a bunch of trains at the same time...as a layout that has multiple operators can.
I like to represent a realistic look to the layout, with realistic operations.
Single trains, and limited space by which to make things look realistic, confine me into modeling shortlines...no long trains for me. I like diesels and more modern rolling stock. Shortlines acquire of variety of secondhand locomotives, allowing a variation of roadnames and oddball pieces on the layout. I live in the midwest, so an abundance of mountainous verticle scenery is not really what I want to model, since I want to be able to study the topography first hand, not having to rely upon photos or extended field trips.
So its midwest/SE shortlines of about post-1985.
But picking a specific shortline to model is difficult, since the operations are too limited for my liking. A freelanced shortine gives me more freedom to develop the operations I want within the realistic visual presentation that I want.
If not that, I'd be modeling a logging railroad in the western US or Canada, with geared steam, sometime in the 1930's to 1950's
- Douglas
riogrande5761 Michael, I too had some issues with water - although maybe not an outright flood, the sump pump failed during a major storm and all of one rooms floor got fully wet and maybe half of the train room floor. My wife and I were away for the weekend but immediately when we returned, we went into remediation mode as we had read you need to deal with things within a couple days time.
Michael, I too had some issues with water - although maybe not an outright flood, the sump pump failed during a major storm and all of one rooms floor got fully wet and maybe half of the train room floor. My wife and I were away for the weekend but immediately when we returned, we went into remediation mode as we had read you need to deal with things within a couple days time.
Rich
Alton Junction
Michael, I too had some issues with water - although maybe not an outright flood, the sump pump failed during a major storm and all of one rooms floor got fully wet and maybe half of the train room floor. My wife and I were away for the weekend but immediately when we returned, we went into remediation mode as we had read you need to deal with things within a couple days time. We removed all the laminate flooring in the adjacent den room and all the carpet out from under the layout in the train room; I also cut out quite a bit of drywall too to be sure we got everything. In September I started replacing the cut out area's with fresh drywall, and started mudding, taping and all that fun stuff. I'm just getting the last of it finished now - being realtively new to it, I'm not speedy Gonzales. We still need to put something back on the bare cement floors; this time going with vinyl tiles which can survive getting wet much better than carpet or laminate!