when you met your significant other and showed them your hobby how did they react and how has that reaction evolved in your relationship?
Here is my story:
When I got back into the hobby the girlfriend at the time said to me that it is a waste of perfectly good plywood when using it for my model railroad. I decided she was a waste of my perfectly good and precious time.
The next lady was giving me a hard time about the cost of ground cover while we were dating. So I decided that it was either the layout or her and the layout won. This happened while I was working, and paying for all costs myself, like I always have. [good thing she never found out the prices from the rolling stock and accessories]
The current lady in my life thinks it is a great hobby, loves the artistic side of it, does not care about the money I spend, as long as I am working and it does not affect anything else. She also appreciates the fact that it is better for me to be in a basement enjoying the trains rather then in a bar enjoying another women. To me she sounds like a keeper ( we also are very similar in many other aspects), but what are your experiences with your significant other in your life from the time they saw your layout to now?
My girlfriend of 23+ years thinks my N scale trains are neat. She also likes the G scale shelf layout around the ceiling of my “train” room (a spare bedroom).
She frequently refers to many of the trains as “cute”. I don’t find that offensive in any way.
She is also the biggest promoter of my trains. Any time someone comes to visit, she always suggests that I show them the trains. If our visitor has a small child, I fire up the G scale and let them run it. Since it’s up near the ceiling, there’s no problem of grabbing hands causing problems.
She is retired and I am semi-retired, which gives us a nearly fixed income. She has never said a thing about how much money I spend on trains. She may complain that she needs more money to pay some bills, but she never insinuates that the trains are sapping money from our account.
She also has little or no knowledge of the cost of the trains. Most of my rolling stock collection (400+) cost less than $10 each. Most of the locomotives (around 75) average out to about $35. The three biggies, Athearn’s Big Boy, an older Rivarossi Big Boy and Bachmann’s new DD40AX are the singular exceptions.
That is the reason why I have an inventory of all locomotives and rolling stock and am in the process of adding average “street prices” to the inventory. If I cash in early, I don’t want her or her kids just tossing my “old toys” in the trash bin! LOL
Men, women, and children who basically like me find my railroad moderately intriguing and they admire my skills; people who don’t like me think my railroad is a waste of time and essentially stupid, not to mention boring, expensive, and childish.
My wife is happy I’m happy laying with my trains. I’m a person who needs to keep busy or else I get very bored very quick and she doesn’t like it when I’m bored cause I get agitated very easy. She’s ins’t thrilled about the cost but I manage to keep that down by making a lot of my own scenery. She even comes down to help me trouble shoot problems once in a while which is nice. My son on the other hand who is 4 is absolutly amazed by my trains and wants me to spend all of my money and time on them. LOL[:D] I let him run them around keeping a very watchful eye on him to make sure he is carefull which he is.
The beauty of my layout is that my wife enjoys crafty things so I’m getting her into the scenery and it’s a just for fun layout so I’m not stuck to a time line so if she finds a loco she likes I think I will have her hooked totally.
I am fortunate that My Other Half {MOH} ios into trains as well.
I am in HO and dabble in N sacle at Xmas, MOH is into N scale.
MOH did not complain when I forced an issue and put up a very small HO layout in the equally small spare {to be read as “junk”} room. MOH gets to run trains at Xmas only- we put up the under the table top tree layout Thanksgiving weekend and leave up till Orthodox Xmas at the Jan 8th at least.
There is NO argument about going on a vacation or road trip to see trains- steamers operating at museums or tourist RRs for sure. Infact most of our vacations are that way. We live close enough to steam town National Histric park in Scranton PA that we go often jsut to watch them play with teh steamers On excusion days when they typically run two steam trains. We have a frioend who has become quite teh train nut and he now goes wiht us. The more the merrier.
So after 11 years, I think MOH is a keeper and keep I shall!
After my wife of 21 years abandoned me in 1986, I hit the dating scene for 15 years and had 4 long term relationships and a number of short term…
The first three were just regular gals and thought the trains were “nice” and did some “ooohs and ahhhh” over the layout, but really had no strong opinions one way or the other.
The first (only) “well to do” gal I dated seemed perfect. Between us (I thought), we could buy a big house for that large railroad I always wanted. Well, the first time she came over we went upstairs to show her the 11x15 HO layout. I opened the door to show her my pride and joy scenicke layout with mountains and tunnels and kitbashed structures and hand painted backdrop. Well, her VERY FIRST words were “how much did all THIS cost?”
Man, that was like a bucket of cold water thrown in my face. Needless to say, that relationship lasted only two months…
The final (that’s a clue) gal I dated was just the opposite. She had worked in her parents craft store for years, and upon seeing the layout she was beside herself. It was obvious her interest was sincere, and her questions were from someone who really cared. When she saw the empty cattle pens she asked where they were, and I said I had a box of them but they were not painted as of yet. Well, she asked if she could take them home, and a week later I had a mess of the prettiest painted cows I have ever seen.
A year later we were married, and we are now working on our 11th year. The original DC layout was removed, and a “new and improved” DCC layout stands in its place. My wife is not active in the building, but she has been a major positive influence in all the stages of construction. Frankly, it doesn’t get much better than that…
I’ve put this on another post, but I figure that it bears repeating:
I’ve been into model railroading for close to 35 years. Everyone that knows me is aware of my love of trains. So when my wife first met me, she knew all about them. I also don’t plan on building the Northeast Corrider, just a shortline on a tabletop oval. What makes my wife wonderful is she cannot understand why women want to change their husbands since this is who they met in the first place. She figures that we go to a lot of events that she wants to see, so it’s a fair tradeoff.
Plus, as an operations hound, I’m always learning about different industries associated with railroading. My wife sometimes uses reading material that I have for lessons in her class (she teaches 8th grade Language Arts) regarding history and economics. I have a model of a European box car that she uses for Holocaust lessons.
When we first started dating, she told me that she wanted to go to Pennsylvania Amish Country. What does that mean to train lovers? Everybody all at once - STRASSBURG!!! We got tickets for the dinner train (always a good idea for something different and interesting), and arrived a half hour before the train was scheduled to depart, and I asked her if I could take some pictures of the equipment. So she sat on a bench near two other women while I and their husbands began photographing the equipment. Immediately seeing the is-this-going-to-be-my-future look on her face, one of the women told her “you’ll always know where he is.”
Like what has been mentioned by others earlier, I explain that unlike smoking and drinking, I get to keep my trains pretty much forever and that if I want to get rid of them, there’s always EBay.
My wife is very good about my hobby and thats why we’re married 5 years. She knew about them from the beginning and didn’t try to change me.
My wife isn’t interested in the hobby much at all**, but she’s happy that I am. She knows that everyone needs a safety valve to bleed off stress, and that there are diversions that are far worse than “playing with trains”. I try to keep my expenditures reasonable, and I check with her before any major purchases to be sure it won’t stretch the budget too thin.
She also encourages the one or two weekends a year that I attend a regional NMRA convention or a similar rail-related event, and an NMRA National convention every two or three years.
**Now that the last of the kids will be out of the house soon, she’s actually mentioned coming with me to some of the conventions/events. I think that has more to do with her need to get out and about from time to time, but that’s fine with me. She’s a wonderful traveling companion and I’d love to have her along!
The current one is definitely a keeper - we have a 2 bedroom apartment and she let me have the BIGGER bedroom for my layout.
In the past it’s been apathy or outright resentment - the resentment surprised me, as as it was initially part of how we got together. But that’s all int he past, and I have a supportive if not actively involved GF and a layout well under way and it’s all fun.
My wife enjoys seeing each new completed project or model, although I am not sure she appreciates the difference in accomplishment between a nicely weathered kit built structure and a completely scratchbuilt one. Oddly enough the one thing she is most impressed by, and always wants to show visitors, is a laser cut kit of a television antenna.
Her only regret is that she gave permission for me to occupy the larger part of the basement before her own interests in woodworking, metal smithing, and enameling metal kicked in.
With rare exceptions she does not even try to buy me HO scale equipment at Christmas or birthdays. She did luck onto a brand new scale rule for a quarter at a Goodwill store, and got a good deal on some HO scale figures at a Hobby Lobby closeout.
Contrast my sister who is constantly plying me with Tyco reefers in Gerber Baby and other goofy paint schemes – hopefully she is not paying “antique store” prices for them.
My wife is the best. When I was planning my layout where to build it was stumping me. Our guest bedroom was out. Our third bedroom was too small. Our garage is divided into her jewelry making studio and my workshop with too much dust, dirt and lack of climate control. Our master bedroom is way oversized with a sitting area we rarely used so my wife said I could build my layout in our bedroom. How cool is that? As I said, she makes jewelry. So, we share our tools with each other and give each other tips on how to best do our hobbies. She also has no problem knowing what to buy me for Christmas, birthdays, etc. because I keep her informed of my wish list. It is great having a life mate that supports my love model railroading.
My wife gave me my first train set when we had been married 4 years and were expecting our first son. 38 years later we’re still going strong, there is a 12x31 foot layout under construction in the basement, and that first son and his wife just had my first grandson 1 week ago today.
We’ve been happily married 38 years and my wife has been consistently supportive and encouraging of my hobby. We’re moving into a new home in a retirement community in a couple of weeks. Because we llike to do things together, one spare bedroom will house my layout and her sewing table. Our two daughters and their husbands are equally encouraging…one son-in-law is also a modeler, of ships and planes.
My first wife was never supportive of my hobby and always saw it as frivoless and a waste time. She always had much more “noble” uses for our time and money. Needless to say, she is the ex now.
I was separated in 2000 and divorced in 2008. I just got remarried in March to an English woman I met on the internet. She is a completely different person and supportive of my hobby. She tells me she will share my trains with me, hah hah. I think the only thing she cares about is that we have the basics covered. She isn’t a high maintenence woman, and demands very little except to be treated well, which I’m happy to do. Of course I had to drag her from across the big pond! I took her to the Timonium show in MD just last month and we had a nice time watching the layouts and visiting the vendor tables, and chatting with people.
My wife of 33 years really doesn’t care one way or the other, but when I got back into the hobby last year she was the one that actually got me started again. I started a 13’x8’ layout Janurary and I really do not think she had a clue about the cost involved. I have worked a lot of OT to pay for it so it has had little financial impact on the family. I have to say that when ever I tell her there is something that I really want she always seems to find the money so I can’t complain.