Seeing all ive seen so far on this, ive made a few of my own judgements and opions on this:
1. MRR is not really all that expensive, I buy used Loco's at show and refurbish them. They work better that new for less.
2. One hobby I see is left out: Antique Tractor Restoration, another one of my hobbies, cost more, depending what needs done and you goals
3. Houses may be expensive, but out here you can get a 2500 sq. Ft. house (5 bedrooms, 2.5 baths) for only $130,000! This includes 4 acres (about 4 fooball fields) and several outbuildings
4. There are a lot of whiners on here!
5. R/C car racing can be expensive (raced for 2 years)
6. One hobby that DOES cost more: Dirt Track Racing
Even though I only read to page 3 of this, this here sums up all I feel about it.
I find it comical that people ignore Athearn Blue box and look at the most expensive HO engines and cars and use the prices as a benchmark of what this hobby costs. Good God. You can spend $150,000 on a Porsche. Does this mean it costs $150,000 to buy an automobile???
What is really happening is the price of the hobby increases as our tastes become more discriminating.
MAbruce wrote: There seem to be two basic camps when this subject comes up: Camp One: The hobby is too expensive and it's getting worse. Camp Two: This hobby has always been expensive so get over it. I’ve come to the conclusion that both camps are right.
There seem to be two basic camps when this subject comes up:
Camp One: The hobby is too expensive and it's getting worse.
Camp Two: This hobby has always been expensive so get over it.
I’ve come to the conclusion that both camps are right.
Call me a contrarian, but I belong to a third camp - the one labeled, There is always a less expensive way to get what you want!
I don't mean E-bay! I mean go back to the roots of this hobby and build from prototype plans, photos and raw materials. Once upon a time MRR published a couple of construction projects for locos with wooden boilers and homemade detail parts to go over the least expensive mechanisms available. I have taken to building passenger and freight stock needed to fill out my roster from card stock and sheet styrene. Maybe these methods don't produce the museum-quality detail of a $50 box car or a $499 locomotive, but at normal viewing distance who can tell? (There's also the fact that you may end up wth the only model of Podunk and Northern #10 in the known universe.)
Do I hand lay track? Yes, when it's less expensive than buying commercial products, but not when I can get satisfactory results with flex track (bought as damaged goods, for less than half price. The rail that was on damaged tie strip now becomes raw material for specialwork.)
Do I obsess over the fact that my models won't look perfect in photos, or when examined with a magnifying glass. No! If you do, you have to pay for the greater fidelity you demand. If you don't, why DO you pay for more detail than you need to satisfy your requirements?
One last thing. While all the people who use DCC swear it is wonderful, they also have to concede that DCC can easily double the cost of a really cheap locomotive. Unless your trackwork is really complex and you want to run a dozen trains at once, DC wiring is less expensive than DCC command stations and boosters.
Model railroading can be as expensive as we let it be, or as inexpensive as our ingenuity will allow.
Chuck
tomikawaTT wrote: MAbruce wrote: There seem to be two basic camps when this subject comes up: Camp One: The hobby is too expensive and it's getting worse. Camp Two: This hobby has always been expensive so get over it. I’ve come to the conclusion that both camps are right. Call me a contrarian, but I belong to a third camp - the one labeled, There is always a less expensive way to get what you want! I don't mean E-bay! I mean go back to the roots of this hobby and build from prototype plans, photos and raw materials. Once upon a time MRR published a couple of construction projects for locos with wooden boilers and homemade detail parts to go over the least expensive mechanisms available. I have taken to building passenger and freight stock needed to fill out my roster from card stock and sheet styrene. Maybe these methods don't produce the museum-quality detail of a $50 box car or a $499 locomotive, but at normal viewing distance who can tell?
I don't mean E-bay! I mean go back to the roots of this hobby and build from prototype plans, photos and raw materials. Once upon a time MRR published a couple of construction projects for locos with wooden boilers and homemade detail parts to go over the least expensive mechanisms available. I have taken to building passenger and freight stock needed to fill out my roster from card stock and sheet styrene. Maybe these methods don't produce the museum-quality detail of a $50 box car or a $499 locomotive, but at normal viewing distance who can tell?
Chuck - In a sense, I agree completely with you from an old-timer's standpoint. Indeed, a lot of money can be saved by doing-it-yourself-from-scratch. But the unfortunate fact is that probably 90% of the newer people in the hobby don't have or never acquired the modeling talents/construction skills necessary to do so. You have an awful lot of (relatively) younger fella's today that never were taught how to build anything from their dad's or other sources when growing up and that's a big part of the reason expensive RTRs of all types have become such a large part of the marketplace in recent years. I learned how to build stuff from my dad, who was a model railroader starting way back in the 1930's and was also a passable carpenter, electrician, etc., as were most dads back then. Can most younger fella's say that today? Below is a shot of one of my scratchbuilt model structures. How many folks under 50 here do you think can do the same? Darn few, I expect and not because I'm so good or anything like that but simply because they've never had exposure to or learned the skills necessary. Plus, there no longer is any place to learn them from (the magazines certainly don't teach it anymore)...save through trial and error, which is an awful approach.
So, you have perhaps 90% of newer modelers locked into buying, not building, and that fact simply can't be changed to any significant degree. Incidentally, when talking savings, I built the structure below for about $35. The commercial FSM kit that builds into essentially the same factory runs $400+ on eBay...built-up examples even more.
CNJ831
CNJ831 wrote: Chuck - In a sense, I agree completely with you from an old-timer's standpoint. Indeed, a lot of money can be saved by doing-it-yourself-from-scratch. But the unfortunate fact is that probably 90% of the newer people in the hobby don't have or never acquired the modeling talents/construction skills necessary to do so. You have an awful lot of (relatively) younger fella's today that never were taught how to build anything from their dad's or other sources when growing up and that's a big part of the reason expensive RTR has become such a large part of the marketplace in recent years. I learned how to build stuff from my dad, who was a model railroader starting way back in the 1930's and was also a passable carpenter, electrician, etc., as were most dads back then. How many fella's can say that today? Below is a shot of one of my scratchbuilt model structures. How many folks under 50 here do you think can do the same? Darn few, I expect and not because I'm so good or anything like that but simply because they've never had exposure to or learned the skills necessary. Plus, there no longer is any place to learn them from (the magazines certainly don't teach it anymore)...save through trial and error, which is an awful approach. So, you have perhaps 90% of newer modelers locked into buying, not building, and that fact simply can't be changed to any significant degree. Incidentally, when talking savings, I built the structure below for about $35. The commercial FSM kit that builds into essentially the same factory runs $500+ on eBay...built-up examples even more. CNJ831
Chuck - In a sense, I agree completely with you from an old-timer's standpoint. Indeed, a lot of money can be saved by doing-it-yourself-from-scratch. But the unfortunate fact is that probably 90% of the newer people in the hobby don't have or never acquired the modeling talents/construction skills necessary to do so. You have an awful lot of (relatively) younger fella's today that never were taught how to build anything from their dad's or other sources when growing up and that's a big part of the reason expensive RTR has become such a large part of the marketplace in recent years. I learned how to build stuff from my dad, who was a model railroader starting way back in the 1930's and was also a passable carpenter, electrician, etc., as were most dads back then. How many fella's can say that today? Below is a shot of one of my scratchbuilt model structures. How many folks under 50 here do you think can do the same? Darn few, I expect and not because I'm so good or anything like that but simply because they've never had exposure to or learned the skills necessary. Plus, there no longer is any place to learn them from (the magazines certainly don't teach it anymore)...save through trial and error, which is an awful approach.
So, you have perhaps 90% of newer modelers locked into buying, not building, and that fact simply can't be changed to any significant degree. Incidentally, when talking savings, I built the structure below for about $35. The commercial FSM kit that builds into essentially the same factory runs $500+ on eBay...built-up examples even more.
CNJ - I believe you have a pretty accurate evaluation of the current general state of the hobby. Very few kids (especially boys) today - at least in my neck of the woods, known as the land of f**its (censored by PC speech code), nuts and flakes - are taught to build anything or to work with their hands. Even simple things such as changing the oil in your own car at home gets you reported to the environmental police as an oil spill waiting to happen. And the neighborhood beautification committee is ready and willing to drop a law suit on you for building a tree fort or climbing structure of scrap lumber with and for your kids - you've got to buy a mega-thousand $$ commercial model, have it commercially installed and fenced in, and post proof of insurance and multiple warning signs. So how does a kid learn about working with his/her hands?
A quick story - my Dad grew up in London, son of a dentist (a professional). Basically same story for him - there was no instruction on the use of tools, doing things with hands, etc. But when he came to the US with little money, the best he could do for his family was to build stuff himself. He learned the hard way about cheap tools in finishing out an attic for additional bedrooms and building a kit boat, and learned lots fixing second hand Lionel trains and bicycles on Christmas Eve (he couldn't afford to buy us new ones). Later, he almost completed his NMRA Master Modeler before his health gave out, teaching himself to modify cheap plastic structures into beautiful models. Lessons - if the will is there most of the skills to kit-bash and scratch-build are fairly easily learned. The first time is always the hardest. And invest in good tools for the task.
Another way to keep the cost of the hobby reasonable is to keep the scope small. It's a hobby for me, and I get enough team-building and forced interaction at work to more than satisfy this introvert. Not knocking the clubs and club-like layouts - it's just not for me. But in praise of smaller layouts, I come up with:
- tighter focus. Because there isn't room for everything, having a model of everything doesn't make much sense. Two or three selected scenes tends to naturally focus era, region, and prototype inspiration to some extent.
- short trains. Short trains require less rolling stock, and if you can only run 2 at a time, what are you doing with more than 5 locos and 2-3 dozen cars? Collecting? If collecting is the real hobby, than these suggestions on how to save are not valid! Converting to Kadees or replacing plastic wheel sets is not so formidable (and self-defeating) when you only have a dozen cars to do.
- time to see accomplishments. You can "complete" a small layout in less than a decade or before your next move - whichever comes first. Taking on a small shelf layout, even though I know I'm moving next summer, doesn't sound unreasonable or a waste.
- time to build (or learn to build) things. Because you don't have a large layout, and only a few cars, you can take the time to build a locomotive kit, tune it, detail it, paint it, weather it without pushing layout completion back years. The same with scratching structures, building cars, and hand laying track. Several folks have bandied about 4 hrs/week as a typical amount of time for the hobby, a figure that seems reasonable to me. Given that amount of time, I can hand lay the track (without jigs or tie strips, but rail painted, ballast applied, and feeders hanging under the layout) for a fairly complex 4x8 with 10 turnouts in less than 3 months (and I am no speedster).
And of course, costs are far less. With a small layout, there is less of everything, and you can buy cheaper stuff because you have the time to upgrade it as you see fit.
my thoughts, your choices
WOW!!!! cnj831 you better than me, and I good : ) Almost fell for it being real till I blew it up, car well done also, do you do this for a living, by the way how dose one cheak someones profile.
CNJ,
Great looking model! Wish I could build that for $35!!! While I agree that many young folks don't know how to do this, don't give up on us so fast. I come from 4 generations of carpenters on my mother's side and my granfather was a mechanic; my father is great with his hands, having built many cabins up in northern WI (and I helped!), but never really did much with model trains besides lay track and build simple plastic structures. He did spend A LOT of time on it with me, instilling the love to trains to the next generation. But as for scratchbuilding I am clueless. This is not to say I am lazy, as I have been through over 14 years of college, medical school, residency and fellowship training, but I don't know the darndest about scratch-building a structure, beyond what I have begun reading. I do work with my hands, having a 1923 home that I have LOTS of repairs/maintenence to do on, but I am hardly a journeyman carpenter! Regarding the lack of scratch-building (and hence inexpensive) building, I do concur... 90%+ of people buy kits because they do not know better.
I would encourage experts like you, CNJ, to post a how to, or take pictures of the process you use with your scratchbuilding. Post it, and maybe even a few of us would build it alongside with you... pass on your skills to those of us who don't have such mentoring available. Perhaps the most useful thing that could come out of this post (besides some cheese to go with the whine) I look forward (hopefully) to your posts.
Sincerely,
Brian
P.S. I am only 33, so I guess I am one of those "whipper-snappers"
rrebell wrote: WOW!!!! cnj831 you better than me, and I good : ) Almost fell for it being real till I blew it up, car well done also, do you do this for a living, by the way how dose one cheak someones profile.
A pro? Heck no, model building is just (serious) fun for me. You really need to see some of my better efforts. There used to be an awful lot of other guys in this hobby who modeled at and above my level but now it seems that every year there are dramatically less and less. That really saddens me.
To check a profile, as far as I know, you simply click on the poster's name in any of his posts and it should come up. You won't find anything very interesting in mine, by the way.
fwright wrote:at least in my neck of the woods, known as the land of f**its (censored by PC speech code), nuts and flakes - are taught to build anything or to work with their hands. Even simple things such as changing the oil in your own car at home gets you reported to the environmental police as an oil spill waiting to happen.
tighter focus. Because there isn't room for everything, having a model of everything doesn't make much sense.
Here is a money saver link: this one is 40% off and they carry LOTS of WS products, Xacto tools, Air brushes Scratch builing items, Brass, Base wood, Balsa Card stock.
I got a BAG of tubbing all sizes, brass, copper, alum all for $15.95 less 40%.
http://www.hobbylobby.com/site3/weekly/coupons/2006week32.gif
Want to save big $ how about the Mountain Valley Scenery Kit from WS for $79.95 less 40%.
Clip and enjoy.
Are we underestimating younger, less experienced modelers? For that matter, are they underestimating themselves? Last time I looked, every one of them had the same number of fingers and eyeballs that I have, and, very possibly, more functioning brain cells.
When I started building from scratch, my only incentive was Lackawampum (which was also the name of a contemporary model railroad.) My father actively derided the hobby ("Aren't you getting a little old for toy trains?") There were more articles in the model press, but most of them assumed that the reader already had basic scratchbuilding skills.
The significant difference, from my vantage point, is that people then weren't so terrified of failure. We knew that our first efforts would be less than perfect, and we didn't expect them to be. Now, it seems, a lot of folks are so afraid that they won't achieve 100% museum quality right out of the starting gate that they won't get into the starting gate. If they would lighten up on themselves (and suggest an appropriate course and destination to hypercritical rivet counters) they might find another whole new universe of satisfaction.
Nothing beats the high of saying, "I built that!" - especially when you DON'T really mean, "I assembled that kit."
On a more practical note, maybe we could convince the fine folks at Kalpubco to reprint Jack Work's construction articles, along with Al Armitage and maybe a Thornburgh loco or two. In the meantime, doesn't Carstens still own the copyrights to the E. L. Moore buildings?
Chuck (scratch builder and kitbasher forever)
tomikawaTT says:
How's about adding W Gibson Kennedy's series on scratchbuilding a complete CPR Kettle Valley passenger train to the list? There was a pike size (5 cars) passenger train.
Then there were several articles, IIRC, by Malcolm Vordenbaum on de-Pennsifying Penn-Line (now Bowser) locos. Vordenbaum came up with some cool, if freelanced, locomotives.
I seem to recall a pot load of Bill Clouser articles using Strathmore as a construction material for a number of things. Those might be interesting, too. Clouser was an O scale traction modeler, but his techniques would still be useful in all scales.
I'll second the Thornburgh articles, especially the "Thornburgh Builds A Wabash Mogul" series which I believe started in the January, 1959 issue. I seem also to remember a series of articles (not Thornburgh) with a title something along the lines of "Build A Kitchen Table 4-4-0".
Oh, yeah. There was the series in the early 1960's by Bob Darwin on detailing a Bowser Challenger. IIRC, Darwin also sprung the the drivers.
There was also an article by Jim Boyd (Sept. 1967 MR, I think) on building your own boilers starting with a tube and lagging them with styrene sheet or something like that.
Andre
andrechapelon wrote: I seem to recall a pot load of Bill Clouser articles using Strathmore as a construction material for a number of things. Those might be interesting, too. Clouser was an O scale traction modeler, but his techniques would still be useful in all scales.
Wow! Bill Clouser! The best traction modeler I ever saw and, without question, also the greatest model railroading photographer of all time! Boy, does his name bring back memories. You really must have dug deep to pull that wonderful name up.
I still recall the great debate in MR 50 years ago when hobbyists wrote in chastising MR and Bill for publishing photos of prototype scenes represented as models. Only when Bill submitted shots fully showing his photo modules did the clamor end! In a time when both modeling supplies and cameras were primative, that man was all talent.
CNJ831 wrote: andrechapelon wrote: I seem to recall a pot load of Bill Clouser articles using Strathmore as a construction material for a number of things. Those might be interesting, too. Clouser was an O scale traction modeler, but his techniques would still be useful in all scales. Wow! Bill Clouser! The best traction modeler I ever saw and, without question, also the greatest model railroading photographer of all time! Boy, does his name bring back memories. You really must have dug deep to pull that wonderful name up. I still recall the great debate in MR 50 years ago when hobbyists wrote in chastising MR and Bill for publishing photos of prototype scenes represented as models. Only when Bill submitted shots fully showing his photo modules did the clamor end! In a time when both modeling supplies and cameras were primative, that man was all talent. CNJ831
Didn't really have to dig deep. Some things make a big impression and one of those was a Clouser article (may have been a series) on building an Illinois Terminal Class C freight motor (April, 1960). I'm not a traction fan, but that article almost converted me.
The August, 1959 MR had a photo of a Clouser model on the cover: http://index.mrmag.com/tm.exe?opt=I&MAG=MR&MO=8&YR=1959&output=3&sort=D
If I'm not mistaken, the picture on the August, 1959 cover is of the locomotive that Clouser wrote about in the April, 1960 issue.
You got to look around for some things. I've have found the Norscot CAT products and Athreans John Deere products at Wal-Mart.
Walthers has it listed at $15.95 and I got it for $5.99 at Wal-Mart
Some times you LHS has better deals to. You just got to look around.
4x8 are fun too!!! RussellRail
I have a 2 layouts (N scale and Ho) I have been working on the N scale since November. I have just laid track put down WS grass pre made trees and bought a bunch of Engines and freight cars. I dont hate to scratch build stuff but at this point in my I would rather build a simple flat RR with a good track plan. And enjoy operating it. When Im older I want to have a nice detailed layout. That has realistic operating and towns etc. But for now Ill just run my trains. lol Everyone enjoys diffrent parts of this hobby. Tim
rtpoteet1 wrote:andrechapelon;Your reference to the Jim Boyd article out of the September, 1967 MR was titled "Lagged Boilers are Easier" I was thinking that it was an RMC article but you are probably correct. I have the issue but it is currently on vacation in a box while I do some sorting and reorganizing. Whereever it was published the date is at least in the ball park.I remember this article very clearly and I am sure that he lagged his boiler with either .005 or .008 brass, both of which are commercially available. That article has always intrigued me and I have read it through at least twice; if I remember correctly it appeared shortly before I rotated from the Phillipines which was in September, 1967; when I got settled into my new assignment at Norton Air Force Patch at San Bernardino, Calif and I took inventory of where I was at I concluded that I wasn't going to be able to build a layout and so I spent the better part of the next ten years building die-cast locomotive kits.As I related above, I have read and reread that Jim Boyd article and I have been giving it considerable thought of late; he doesn't paint any pie-in-the-sky pictures in his article; rather he outlines a rational process for constructing a boiler using readily available brass materials. I am in N-Scale but I don't think that scratchbuilding is necessarily out of the question in that scale and just as soon as I can locate and fish this magazine out of its temporary domicile and refresh my memory I'm going to start doing some serious planning towards getting started doing me some N-Scale scratchbuilding. I have concluded that if I am ever going to have a stable of iron horses (read: steam locomotives) I'm going to have to figure out a way to build them myself. All I can do is go flat on my face and I got as ugly as I am from landing there many, many times in the past; one more time ain't gonna make me any uglier.I would reference two more articles in the lets-figure-out-how-to-save-some-money spirit of your post.Sometime towards mid-year, 1970 MR published a rather "strange" article by an American prototype modeler from South Africa. This individual had constructed (smoothside) passenger carbodies from "paper"; what was unique was that his "paper" was none other than tissue paper (Kleenex(R), Puffs(R), etc) soaked in Elmer's(R) white glue draped over a hardwood form which had been filed to shape and greased to prevent the white glue from adhering to it. A lot of people don't realize that white glue is, in reality, a plastic. These cars were extremely light weight, relatively strong, and incredibly inexpensive; they were not, however, waterproof. I am more into flute-sided passenger cars but here is another article which deserves republishing because it uses common inexpensive materials and the outlay for tools is absolutely minimal.Lastly there was an article in the April, 1971 RMC by a rail from Kaycee dealing with his procedures scratchbuilding (smoothsided) passenger cars in N-Scale. Now, before you HO-Scalers fly off into the vast world of indifference this rail's procedures would be applicable to any scale; the quantities of tools involved is minimal and it uses relatively inexpensive materials. In addition to passenger cars he had also used the same procedures building an SW1, a locomotive which was not available then and has never been available in N-Scale. I would like to see RMC re-publish this article for the benefit of newer modelers, particularly those on a restricted budget - or just trying to save some money in general.I stated in an earlier post on this topic that I would "continue to pay for this hobby" because I have been at it for so long that I really have no desire to go anywhere else; I may not necessarily go "out-of-the-box-ready-to-run" but I am going to go somewhere.cnj831;MORE!!! MORE!!! SHOW US MORE!!! I drooled all over the front of my shirt looking at your photograph; my wife told me I should change my screen name to "needsabib"!!!
Brass? I coulda sworn it was styrene sheet used for lagging. OTOH, styrene sheet could be used just as effectively and would certainly be cheaper than brass. IIRC, Boyd's illustration of how it could be done was a boiler he was making for a Burlington S-4 4-6-4. That's a conical boiler which has the same taper below as above. A "wagon top" boiler would be a bit more of a challenge as it's flat on the bottom and tapered on top. A straight boiler like a Harriman 2-8-2 should be a piece of cake relatively speaking.
If you haven't seen Russell Straw's work in N scale, here's something to whet your appetite, a Southern Pacific (T&NO) GS-1 in N scale: http://www.railimages.com/gallery/russellstraw/auu
Basically, this is a kitbashed Con-Cor GN S2. I don't know where he got the tender or if he scratch-built it, but it sure looks pretty. He's also done an SP 2-10-2 starting with a Kato 2-8-2 (this is before the Con-Cor 2-10-2). The Con-Cor 2-10-2 would probably be a better choice now that it's available. Then there's an SP AC-6 from a Con-Cor (probably) Y-6b http://www.trainboard.com/railimages/showphoto.php/photo/5908/cat/585
Here's Russell's home page. Enjoy.
Comment added later. Whoops, forgot to include link: http://hometown.aol.com/ramblinrus/myhomepage/index.html
It's almost enough to convince a body to give N a try.