Steven OtteLet's keep this thread as close to on-topic as a barely-on-topic thread can be. Refrain from sexist jokes and stereotypes, please. After all, the fact that not every railroader's wife responds the same to her husband's hobby means that one wife's response can't very well be attributed to "wives, amirite?"
Dave
I'm just a dude with a bad back having a lot of fun with model trains, and finally building a layout!
Let's keep this thread as close to on-topic as a barely-on-topic thread can be. Refrain from sexist jokes and stereotypes, please. After all, the fact that not every railroader's wife responds the same to her husband's hobby means that one wife's response can't very well be attributed to "wives, amirite?"
--Steven Otte, Model Railroader senior associate editorsotte@kalmbach.com
HER: What's wrong?
ME: I can't decide which of these engines to buy.
HER: They're F units. Buy them both.You may all now die of jealousy.
Disclaimer: This post may contain humor, sarcasm, and/or flatulence.
Michael Mornard
Bringing the North Woods to South Dakota!
Wifey said to me that when I die, the trains will be gone before I'm even cold. I'm working on my end of the arrangement, too, as I certainly wouldn't want to be around to see them go.
Wayne
OK, Thanks. Never used foam board before.
Wifey is ok with the layout, I told her I was going to the hobby store to buy some rail spikes, and when she went to the grocery store, she stopped at Home Depot on the way home and bought a box of spikes. Geez! I'll use them on the shed I plan building now.
hon30critterMy wife, Dianne, is very supportive of my train hobby and pretty much everything else that I want to do. She doesn't question my purchases (although she does rib me occassionaly about how many freight cars I have). She is quite willing to listen to me talk about my lastest modeling project, and she is fascinated by the level of detail that I put into my special projects.
NorthBritMy wife, Dawn is the same. She also ribs me on the number of locomotives I have.
My wife is also the same. I get plenty of ribbing for the freight cars, but she is fascinated at how much effort I put into the kits.
She also listens to my ramblings about steam locomotive design differences. The quantity of brass steam locomotives has not been brought up yet, but I don't think she has ever seen them all in one place.
-Kevin
Living the dream.
3% = the Zakat!
10% = the Tithe!
I pay $125/YEAR foir my cell phone. TracFone, you know. I have never gotten close to using all of my minutes.
When I worked in the world I built a budget based on two paydays a month.
Twice a year there were three paydays in the month, and so that entire paycheck could go to a vacaion or to a train layout, or for leopard feed.
The Route of the Broadway Lion The Largest Subway Layout in North Dakota.
Here there be cats. LIONS with CAMERAS
DonRicardowould the wooden open grid cause any problems with the foan road bed?
When we had a new high-efficiency furnace installed the guy said the humidity is going to drop in the house. This, of course, would dry out the lumber in the layout, however, the only two little speed bumps I got were where the track was directly caulked to wood in a couple of places, with no issues on the foam.
DonRicardoI also use Caboose manual switches, so there would be a question of attaching them to the foam.
I just use caulk to attach them and haven't had one come loose yet.
Brent
"All of the world's problems are the result of the difference between how we think and how the world works."
Open grid benchwork is done. I liked the way you used the foam for your layout. Wood expands and shrinks with the temperature, I don't think foam does, but on an open grid benchwork layout, would the wooden open grid cause any problems with the foan road bed?
I also use Caboose manual switches, so there would be a question of attaching them to the foam. I will run the piano wire to the throws in trenches made in the foam? (When we were kids watching the coal trains run by, the brakemen , I guess, would jump off and throw the switches themselves.
Those were the days of the Westerm Maryland, now a fallen flag road. (1950's)
My wife owns way more Golden Retrievers than I own steam locomotives so that will never happen to me.
hon30critter My wife, Dianne, is very supportive of my train hobby and pretty much everything else that I want to do. She doesn't question my purchases (although she does rib me occassionaly about how many freight cars I have). She is quite willing to listen to me talk about my lastest modeling project, and she is fascinated by the level of detail that I put into my special projects. Dave
My wife, Dianne, is very supportive of my train hobby and pretty much everything else that I want to do. She doesn't question my purchases (although she does rib me occassionaly about how many freight cars I have). She is quite willing to listen to me talk about my lastest modeling project, and she is fascinated by the level of detail that I put into my special projects.
To the world you are someone. To someone you are the world
I cannot afford the luxury of a negative thought
However, I think the biggest show of support (hobby wise) that she has ever given me was when I purchased a 1968 MGC GT in the mid 1980s when we could hardly make it from paycheck to paycheck! The car was rare (only 9000 were built) and I was absolutely in love with it! She said that if the car meant that much to me then we had better buy it! You can't beat that!!
Cheers!!
richhotrain drgwcs OK my first reaction as a pastor in reading this thread as a pastor is..... man I need to do some couples counseling in here I am not a pastor, and I am not a marriage counselor, but there is something wrong in a relationship in which the wife resents or forbids the husband from enjoying his chosen hobby, just as there is something wrong with the husband who resents or forbids the wife's chosen preferences, whatever they may be. My wife and I watch HGTV (too much HGTV). We are always amused at how one spouse wants a Victorian and the other wants a mid-century modern. Or a fixer-upper versus move-in ready. Halfway into each program, we both become convinced that a divorce, or worse, is about to become a reality. My wife and I sometimes disagree on things, and we long ago decided to agree to disagree. But, way more often than not we agree on things. When we don't, it doesn't take much to reach agreement. Realtionships are all about compromise between to separate human beings. I often remind myself of a fellow forum member who began dating after a divorce. After dinner at a restaurant, he brought the lady over to see his house. He showed her a bedroom filled with his layout, either hoping to impress her or perhaps to just show her the room. She quickly exclaimed, "How much did all of this cost". He dumped her and with good reason. Rich
drgwcs OK my first reaction as a pastor in reading this thread as a pastor is..... man I need to do some couples counseling in here
OK my first reaction as a pastor in reading this thread as a pastor is..... man I need to do some couples counseling in here
I am not a pastor, and I am not a marriage counselor, but there is something wrong in a relationship in which the wife resents or forbids the husband from enjoying his chosen hobby, just as there is something wrong with the husband who resents or forbids the wife's chosen preferences, whatever they may be.
My wife and I watch HGTV (too much HGTV). We are always amused at how one spouse wants a Victorian and the other wants a mid-century modern. Or a fixer-upper versus move-in ready. Halfway into each program, we both become convinced that a divorce, or worse, is about to become a reality.
My wife and I sometimes disagree on things, and we long ago decided to agree to disagree. But, way more often than not we agree on things. When we don't, it doesn't take much to reach agreement. Realtionships are all about compromise between to separate human beings.
I often remind myself of a fellow forum member who began dating after a divorce. After dinner at a restaurant, he brought the lady over to see his house. He showed her a bedroom filled with his layout, either hoping to impress her or perhaps to just show her the room. She quickly exclaimed, "How much did all of this cost". He dumped her and with good reason.
Rich
I would agree and as an observation any issues with a train (fishing tackle, hunting equipment etc or in the other hand a sewing room etc) are generally a symptom not the problem. Just like what happens on HGTV is just what comes out of a deeper issue(no doubt encouraged by the show for more drama.) One of the saddest and at the same time most comical things I have ever seen at a trainshow was probably 15 years ago. An older man was walking along with his hands in his pockets with his head kind of stooped. Their grandson was pushing his wife. He lagged a bit behind and she said "you better catch up to your grandfather he looks like he is going to buy something! He has that look in his eye" I kind of suspect there was some dementia involved but just goes to show there are often deeper issues that need to be worked through. My wife is actually working on a group for model railroad wives to encourage their husband's and get involved.
Jim
NittanyLionExpenses don't entirely scale with the number of people involved and two individuals invariably make more money than any one of the individuals does alone.
Totally agree, two people earning a decent wage can become an economic powerhouse. The trouble arises when they push their spending habits back to an uncomfortable excess after seeing a lot of gravey when they first shack up together. I had the house before the wife, 25 years later we have the same house only now the perfect wife shares it with me.
PM RailfanEveryone knows less wife = MORE trains!
This math is bad.
Expenses don't entirely scale with the number of people involved and two individuals invariably make more money than any one of the individuals does alone. Where you may have once been able to spend, say, 3 percent of your annual income on discretionary spending like trains, the increased income combined with certain cost efficiencies (your single man cell phone may have cost you $75 a month and cost your future wife $75 a month, but together you only pay $100, representing a savings of $50), your 3 percent is now a greater monetary value. You may even now be in a financial situation that you can spend 4 or 5 percent!
And this is without getting into things like opportunities for gift buying and what I call "purchase balancing." That is, she finds a box on the porch that says, oh, Trainworld on it. The box comes in and she says "did you buy more trains" and then you say "that reminds me, a Nordstrom package came for you when I was bring in the trash cans" and that's the end of that conversation.
selector Mister Mikado batman my i ask what town you moved to? not chilliwack is it? love the name. -rob I have been on Vancouver Island, Comox, for the past 17 years. It gets its share of rain, but the further south you go, especially Victoria, there is less rain and less snow. Not a lot less, but enough that the denizens of Victoria have a good thing going. The Olympic Mtns of Washington State, to the south-east, put Victoria in a rain shadow. Of course, you'd expect the cost of housing to be darned near prohibitive in the provincial capital, with its balmy weather, and you'd be bang on. Up where I am, housing averages CDN$350K with a lot of variance, ocean-front three times that. No, four. Until this year, it was rising about 12% per year. We do get our share of rain, over 70"/annum, and all of it between Nov 01 and March 31. The greyness, winds, and wet make some move.
Mister Mikado batman my i ask what town you moved to? not chilliwack is it? love the name. -rob
batman my i ask what town you moved to? not chilliwack is it? love the name. -rob
I have been on Vancouver Island, Comox, for the past 17 years. It gets its share of rain, but the further south you go, especially Victoria, there is less rain and less snow. Not a lot less, but enough that the denizens of Victoria have a good thing going. The Olympic Mtns of Washington State, to the south-east, put Victoria in a rain shadow. Of course, you'd expect the cost of housing to be darned near prohibitive in the provincial capital, with its balmy weather, and you'd be bang on.
Up where I am, housing averages CDN$350K with a lot of variance, ocean-front three times that. No, four. Until this year, it was rising about 12% per year.
We do get our share of rain, over 70"/annum, and all of it between Nov 01 and March 31. The greyness, winds, and wet make some move.
Vancouver island is beautiful and where Crandell lives in Comox is really nice. Just North is Campbell River where the salmon fishing can't be beat. There are direct flights to Hawaii from Comox and Victoria which the wife and I thought was great.
I don't know how many people have said to me they don't want to move there because they don't want to be stranded on an island. Vancouver Island is larger than a lot of countries with any service you would ever need.
Alton Junction
Here is my 2 cents. You can make a HECK of a GREAT layout in N scale with 96x44 layout! Build it, build it proud. Eventually the son will move out and the train room will be back in play, so build it with that in mind. Make sure you can get it in the room, and make sure you build it with expansion to the room in mind. I am close to laying my first board for my U shaped layout after I realized I did not have the rooim for what I wanted in HO.
OK my first reaction as a pastor in reading this thread as a pastor is..... man I need to do some couples counseling in here.....
Seriously though I am very thankful for an understanding wife who understands and encourages my hobby. She has always went with me to shows.. We have had shelf layouts in a few small apartments as well as a 2x4 n scale that slid in a bottom compartment under our RV when we were traveling full time for two years. Now I have a larger layout 20 x 8 in the basement. The only constraint was that she had to be able to get in the laundry room, guess those clean clothes come in handy.
Doughless I have convinced her that we "need" another shed in the back yard, so that she can use the existing shed as a potting shed. A 16' x 20' shed with a loft! And maybe a porch. While working on this idea, I have my benchwork finished, open grid, 8 foot x44 inches. Water Level Route DonRicardo So now I am reduced to a 96"x44" layout, which isn't bad for a n scale set up. I am trying to get her to move her shelving into the laundry area so I can do an L shaped layout. Don, why not simply ask for a shelf on each of the units to extend your layout across? Minimal loss of storage for her, good gain for you. I did something similar in our basement. We needed lots of storage shelving, so I built a 2' x 16' shelving unit in place. One shelf is the staging yard for the trains the rest is less important stuff. Agree. My current train room (and the future train room) is set up that way. Current layout is 52 inches high, built from those 5 shelf metal garage storage kits. Each metal leg is about 36 inches high with a 48 inch 2x3 attached to each to provide support for the table top, and the shelving units themselves are 36 inches wide, making for layout support legs 3 feet apart. The 5 shelf unit is separated to make two units 6 feet long, several of them strung out around the room. A cleat supports the back end of the train shelf. The metal shelving units are 4 legged of course. The garage sheving units I used were 18 inches deep for a proper toe kick on a 24 inch deep train shelf, but those units come 24 inches deep to, if you want a 30 inch deep train shelf. Next time, I'll probably choose that. Then there is a shelf above the layout...traditional shelving brackets. The height of that shelf leavers a 30 inch tall backdrop for the trains. I have 9 foot ceilings in the walkout basement, so I have good space above the layout for shelving space. If OP built this all at once or in a different way, he can probably make it prettier than I did.
A 16' x 20' shed with a loft! And maybe a porch. While working on this idea, I have my benchwork finished, open grid, 8 foot x44 inches.
Water Level Route DonRicardo So now I am reduced to a 96"x44" layout, which isn't bad for a n scale set up. I am trying to get her to move her shelving into the laundry area so I can do an L shaped layout. Don, why not simply ask for a shelf on each of the units to extend your layout across? Minimal loss of storage for her, good gain for you. I did something similar in our basement. We needed lots of storage shelving, so I built a 2' x 16' shelving unit in place. One shelf is the staging yard for the trains the rest is less important stuff.
DonRicardo So now I am reduced to a 96"x44" layout, which isn't bad for a n scale set up. I am trying to get her to move her shelving into the laundry area so I can do an L shaped layout.
Don, why not simply ask for a shelf on each of the units to extend your layout across? Minimal loss of storage for her, good gain for you. I did something similar in our basement. We needed lots of storage shelving, so I built a 2' x 16' shelving unit in place. One shelf is the staging yard for the trains the rest is less important stuff.
Agree. My current train room (and the future train room) is set up that way.
Current layout is 52 inches high, built from those 5 shelf metal garage storage kits. Each metal leg is about 36 inches high with a 48 inch 2x3 attached to each to provide support for the table top, and the shelving units themselves are 36 inches wide, making for layout support legs 3 feet apart. The 5 shelf unit is separated to make two units 6 feet long, several of them strung out around the room. A cleat supports the back end of the train shelf. The metal shelving units are 4 legged of course. The garage sheving units I used were 18 inches deep for a proper toe kick on a 24 inch deep train shelf, but those units come 24 inches deep to, if you want a 30 inch deep train shelf. Next time, I'll probably choose that.
Then there is a shelf above the layout...traditional shelving brackets. The height of that shelf leavers a 30 inch tall backdrop for the trains. I have 9 foot ceilings in the walkout basement, so I have good space above the layout for shelving space. If OP built this all at once or in a different way, he can probably make it prettier than I did.
Working on it.
selector We do get our share of rain, over 70"/annum, and all of it between Nov 01 and March 31.
We do get our share of rain, over 70"/annum, and all of it between Nov 01 and March 31.
PM Railfan SUCKERS! Everyone knows less wife = MORE trains! Ahhhhhhhh the single life! I can put a train any dad-gum place i want in this shack. Blow the horn all i want, anytime i want, all over the house if i be wantin too. Can even do it in my underwear-n-tophat if the fancy strikes. Can leave my Model Railroaders/Classic Trains open faced just about everywhere your kids leave their clothes. Dont need no stinkin permission to buy 'oooooo - just one moreeee!'. Dont have to hunt the remote, or fight for it. That goes for the throttle pack too. Things are always where i put them! The food aint half bad. And its always just what i was wanting. No dishes! No frilly stuff ya gotta watch out for in the laundry. No pantyhose drying on the shower rod. Best of all - NO mother n law or nagging! And if not in the mood for running trains, etc., the peace and quiet of being in the house alone.... is utterly priceless! I mean, the list can go on and on forever guys, or have ya had enough cryin in your saki remembering the 'good ole days' before you were sentenced to life? PMR PS: The flip side to that coin is should i get hit by a train in the train room ( ), or simply fall down the stairs shattering every bone i have - laying there at the bottom, bleeding out till i can chuff-chuff no more...... well thats a bummer. I mean, what if i left my transformers on, who would turn them off?
SUCKERS!
Everyone knows less wife = MORE trains! Ahhhhhhhh the single life! I can put a train any dad-gum place i want in this shack. Blow the horn all i want, anytime i want, all over the house if i be wantin too. Can even do it in my underwear-n-tophat if the fancy strikes.
Can leave my Model Railroaders/Classic Trains open faced just about everywhere your kids leave their clothes. Dont need no stinkin permission to buy 'oooooo - just one moreeee!'. Dont have to hunt the remote, or fight for it. That goes for the throttle pack too. Things are always where i put them!
The food aint half bad. And its always just what i was wanting. No dishes! No frilly stuff ya gotta watch out for in the laundry. No pantyhose drying on the shower rod. Best of all - NO mother n law or nagging! And if not in the mood for running trains, etc., the peace and quiet of being in the house alone.... is utterly priceless!
I mean, the list can go on and on forever guys, or have ya had enough cryin in your saki remembering the 'good ole days' before you were sentenced to life?
PMR
PS: The flip side to that coin is should i get hit by a train in the train room ( ), or simply fall down the stairs shattering every bone i have - laying there at the bottom, bleeding out till i can chuff-chuff no more...... well thats a bummer. I mean, what if i left my transformers on, who would turn them off?
It sounds like you didn't
PM RailfanSUCKERS!
"One difference between pessimists and optimists is that while pessimists are more often right, optimists have far more fun."
Mister Mikado BATMAN Mister Mikado batman my i ask what town you moved to? You may ask. funny ha ha. wife and i might move to the chilliwack area because the weather seems mild compared to the interior (yes i know it's damp and rainy) and the earthquakes seem less severe than vancouver. any info from a native would be a great help.
BATMAN Mister Mikado batman my i ask what town you moved to? You may ask.
Mister Mikado batman my i ask what town you moved to?
You may ask.
funny ha ha. wife and i might move to the chilliwack area because the weather seems mild compared to the interior (yes i know it's damp and rainy) and the earthquakes seem less severe than vancouver. any info from a native would be a great help.
Keep going to Vancouver Island, that's where we are headed if things ever start to slow down enough. Depending on your needs the sunshine coast would be my choice but that does not work for the wife.
Go to the Environment Canada website and check the historical weather for different areas. Then there is the price of real estate. If I had not grown up here and bought 47 years ago, there is no way on Earth I could afford a house here (that I would want to live in)
PWRS is in White Rock, the driest place in the country, I am way East of there but someone in the family goes by on a regular basis so I save on shipping.
Your housing budget is the determining factor, for those of us that are here with no mortgage, we can move to anywhere in the world and come out ahead.
Good luck!
Mister Mikadobatman my i ask what town you moved to?