Yes, I envy the northern model railroaders. You have basements to build your layouts, you have “Real” hobby stores within driving distance, you have longer model railroading season (i.e.cold days) and snow days where you can stay home and railroad all day long. I’m sure there is a negative aspects that i’ll be enlightened to.[:)]
Living way up north in Scandinavia I can tell you this. I’m looking forward to the summer. I will then be able to expand my train room which now is impossible due to the several feet of snow that are in the way. I’m also forced to insulate the house with between 10" and 20" of insulation just to keep the house warm during winter witch of course increase the cost tremendously.
Layout progress have been slow due to the endless process of shoveling snow and getting wood to the furnace in an attempt to fight the -20-30 degrees cold that has been plaguing us for the last two months, only right now breaking. Of Course, my LHS is close by, only 300 miles aways.
Want to trade? [:D]
And oh BTW, staying home due to snow? We shovel our way out and go to work. If I would call my boss and tell him that I wan’t coming due to snow, he would laugh and not even take it serious. Up here, we are used to the snow. Do you guys actually stay at home when it’s snowing?
[:)] And a little smiley so no one gets offended, darn southerness… [(-D]
Magnus
Oh, yea, Willy. We Northerns have the soft life. Anytime you want to pay my $17.60/mcf natural gas bills (up ~70% over last year’s bill and locked in [:(], you are more than welcome. [swg] The heating bill for the past two months has been enough to pay for at least two very nice BLI locomotives or one nice used brass locomotive off eBay. [xx(]
I will agree that having a basement for a layout is nice. Course, its sole purpose isn’t just for model railroading. It also serves double-duty as anentertainment, laundry, storage, and practice room. Needless to say, there isn’t much room to expand upon what I currently have without infringing upon the other “purposes” listed above.
Tom
Actually, the basement gets really cold in the basement, so it’s pretty hard to get motivated to do something down there… Especially if it’s something I don’t enjoy…
Envy this:
Our back yard yesterday. The fence behind the tree is about 4 feet high. Yes, winter is fun!
NOT!
[|(]
[:(!] O you even OWN a snow shovel?!! [%-)] Do have an actual furnace in your home?!![:O] Do you have to run your car for 15 minutes to get ice off the windshiel?!![:(] Do you know what it’s like to see the snow plow coming up your street - after you shoveled your driveway or car out of a foot or two of that lovely white stuff?!! [:-,] Not to mention the cost of heat, winter coats, gloves, ice melt chemicals (salt), etc., etc., etc.,?!![V] Wanna swap climates for a year?!![:-^]
Seriously, I’ve been in every state but 2 (Montana & Idaho - I don’t hunt or ski!), and for every plus for a state or climate, there is a minus!! Even spring and fall can be rainy/foggy/icy etc!! [:)]
All that glitters aint gold. Today, in Minnesota we are under a ‘‘winter storm warning’’. 6’‘-12’’ snow expected. Yes I will be going to work just like any other day,(snow day… yeah right) it will just take an extra 45 minutes to get home tonight (traffic), then I have to clear the driveway out. Maybe if I’m lucky I will have time to go out in my garage to the train room and monkey around for an hour before bed. BTW it costs me 40 - 50 bucks a month just to heat the train room. Not to mention the 200 dollar gas bill for the house.Heat is not cheap. I have to go now my truck is running.
Last night, I was thinking about a structure kit I wanted to start. But, it will have to wait. It’s too cold outside to spray paint. And, oh yeah, there’s all that white stuff outside the back door. And the side door. And the front door. The garage door is mostly clear, though, because we have to pay some guy with a plow to remove the snow. A foot of snow is quite the Economic Stimulus Package if you’ve got a pickup truck with a plow on the front.
We are a skiing family. We all love skiing enough to drive up north most weekends and spend the whole weekend at Sunday River, again stimulating somebody else’s economy. We leave Friday afternoon, and get back Sunday evening. Pooped from a weekend on the mountain, I might sit down and just railfan my layout for a while. Or, I might go straight to bed. Since Thanksgiving, I’ve made almost no progress on my layout. That will have to wait for summer, I’m afraid.
Yep, I have a basement and you don’t. T’is a pity for you. We are up to 15 feet of snow for the season, but that’s OK. An hour or so of shoveling the driveway each day keeps me in shape. That’s a good thing. So what if it cost $300 or so to heat the house last month. Come summer, when you are spending your last spare cent to air condition your place, I’ll be enjoying a less-than-$50 gas bill and the cool comfort of the aforementioned basement. Nope, I don’t have air conditioning at all - except for the car - and I don’t need it. I have lived in the south - Virginia, Florida and Texas. Nice places all, but I stay here in Western New York for a reason. In the big picture there just ain’t no better place to be than right here. I feel sorry for you. Really.
Can you tell that us Northerners like to complain about where we live?[banghead] Having a basement is nice, cold and snow are not! Well, at least after Christmas the snow is not welcome. One thing we all forget is, we can move! Ah, but we don’t. Then we would have to find something else to complain about![swg] By the way, we are looking at six to eight inches of snow today. I don’t think it’s going to be that busy at work! Oh well, at least I have a basement![(-D]
The one advantage to having a cold and snow season is that it makes outdoor railfanning somewhat impractical. If I lived in a warm weather state I’d probably be trackside when I should be working on the layout.
Dave Nelson
Good morning from lovely Minnesota [:)] in a winter storm watch. Snowing very good now. I will be out shoveling and snow blowing in a few hours. 6" - 12" snow expected, blowing 20-30 MPH to beat heck, weather people don’t know for sure how much snow.
I have been laid off since October 2007, drawing unemployment, working part time jobs, paying my bills and staying above water in this wonderful economy we have.
Yes, I have a basement with a 12’ x 20’ over under layout I get to work on and operate all the time. Plus I get to go operate and help build the new layout at the club I belong to boot.
Life is good, maybe I will get called back to work someday. No jobs up here in construction as that is my field. I cannot retire but that’s life.
Barry
Hi!
Just couldn’t pass this posting by without comment…
I grew up in Chicago and modeled there in basements in the '50s, and modeled in Joliet Illinois (also in a basement) in the early '70s. I lived and modeled in Dallas in the late '70s, and have been here in the Houston area since then. Both Texas homes had modeling done in spare rooms as there are no basements - especially here in the Houston area. My point is, I have experience in both areas.
The north has had a rough winter and that means you get stuck in the house a lot. If you are lucky enough to have a dry warm basement, that is great for modeling. BUT, many of the basements are damp and bone chilling cold and frankly dreary. I recall my last winter in Joliet, where it was ice and snow continuously from Thanksgiving to late March. That ain’t no fun no how.
Here in the Houston area, I have a nice 11x15 layout room on the second floor. Of course it is climate controlled with the rest of the house. The downside is that it is work not to trail a mess from the garage (where I do woodwork, etc) to the layout room. And, the demands of our long growing season takes a lot of time for outside projects like mowing and landscaping. I do have two full LHS within a few miles, which probably makes me more fortunate than most however.
I guess what I am saying is that there is plus/minus to both worlds. And weather wise, I liken our long hot humid summers with the north’s long winters.
FWIW,
Mobilman44
I guess it is a ‘trade-off’ on layout locations. I live in Minnesota(and we are expecting 3-6" of freezing sleet/snow after lunch. I know I will be ‘snow blowing’ this evening after I get home from work. At least I do not have to deal with hurricanes/flooding.
I have a nice dry basement level that has a 20’x25’ area dedicated for my trains. Usually it is warm enough down there, but the brutal low temps this year have reduced my ‘layout time’ in January. A small space heater will resolve the problem; but after spending an hour with the snow blower, I usually am not in the mood to start another project!
Even here in the Midwest, the actual area available for a layout has shrunk since the late 70’s. Many homes are completly finshed off on the lower level and have bedrooms in the prime layout area. My house has 3 bedrooms ‘upstairs’, and a ‘family room’(crew lounge) off from the train area!
Jim
WQilly6 … looks like you kicked a hornet’s nest ! LOL . No you all in the warm climates surely have it better . The cost of construction of a basement … heat to make it bearable … dehumidifiers running year round to keep the dampness down … a building/shed outside with peace and privacy would be much more desirable with warm temps all year round . I’ll trade you ! But my wife keeps putting off our move south … I detest the winter and cold . [V]
willy6,
I live in eastern Massachusetts, and I have to agree with the sentiments expressed, for the most part. We have basements, but we do pay for it in other ways (higher heating costs, snow removal, etc.). My father and I have a basement layout in a commercial property, and it’s been too cold to be down there for more than an hour for the past two months. I don’t have any heat other than space heaters down there, so it’s a little problematic to do much railroadin’.
My folk’s house dates from 1890, and while it has a basement it’s practically unusable: fieldstone foundation, dirt floor, wood posts that still have the bark on them, naked lightbulbs for lighting, etc. Not to mention 119 years of collected items (okay, probably not that many as my family has only had it for 70 years, but still…). It’s also pretty cold in the winter.
As for hobby shops, well… I have one in Warwick, Rhode Island called AA Hobbies that’s very good that’s about 40-50 minutes away but you have to drive around Providence. The other very good shop is about 100 miles away in Warren, MA called Tucker’s Hobbies. There are other shops around, but they really don’t have the selection. There is one that’s about 20-25 minutes away in the next town over from me, but while he’s got stuff, it’s not easy to get at as most of it’s packed away for all the train shows he does.
As for snow days…heh, only if you go to school. Do I stay home if I can if it’s going to snow? Sure, but there’s only so many days one can do that, so I try to save that for the bigger storms.
But for me, the best part about living up here is the lack of:
1). Hurricanes - last one that effected me was Gloria in 1986.
2). Lake Effect Snow - folks that live in Buffalo or Erie are nuts (my mom’s from Erie and my great Aunt lived in Buffalo…she moved after she had her snowblower stolen twice in
I now live just south of Cleveland and have that fear also, I miss Alaska where the plows were not allowed to plow into peoples driveways. They had plates that they dropped to keep the snow on the blade then deposited the snow after passing your driveway. And if they happened to put snow in your driveway, they would send a truck to plow it out.
Also, I never had a gas bill over $100.00 a month while I lived there, then come back here to $400.00 gas bills. What a bunch of crap!
Rick
Paul,
Good thing you don’t live in NE Ohio. We can experience 2, 3, 4, 6 & 7.
Actually, folks who live in the snowbelt and/or experience lake-effect snow are no more nuts than anyone else. The trade-off is having to endure those beautiful sunsets over Lake Erie during the warmer months. I hate when that happens…
Tom
If you envy glazed roads and a solid month of below-zero temperatures, you need help! (and now you know why Rapid City is on my, “Been there, done that,” list.)
Rex Roberts’ definition: Basement - first you dig a well, then you try to keep it dry.
Lots of local hobby shops? Maybe in New York City or a few of the other bigger setlements, but not in the hinterlands. And if you live where there are lots of local hobby shops you have to put up with an astronomical cost of living and probably can’t afford to visit them very often.
Somebody else covered the heating and winter clothing issues, so I don’t have to.
Believe me, I’ve known plenty of people who would have moved to where you are in a heartbeat, just to get out of the way of the advancing glaciers! When the only thing between you and the North Pole is the wire fence at the Canadian border, North Carolina sounds pretty darn good.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - in Southern Nevada)
I live in Atlanta and we have all that stuff as well, execpt for the snow days, but down here every season is model railroading season. Plus all the BBQ and biscuit joints you can stand! Jamie