I have stopped working on my layout. So what, you say! Just let me ramble for a bit. For the last several years, my layout has been a pink foam desert. Over the Fall, I succeeded in painting the backdrop, but that is all I’ve done in several years. I got tired of looking at the bare white plastic. This is not a big layout: 9’ X 13’ in about 2/3s of a bedroom. Not enough room for much of what I wanted (HO-scale),: no staging. Over the last several years, I have spent my hobby time building, detailing, and painting 2 steamers (2-8-0 and 0-6-0) and 3 Diesels (RS2, RS3 and a boxcab) into creditable likenesses of D & H equipment. Also, a B & M RS-3 and a G.E. 44-tonner. All have sound. I’ve also kitbashed 4 cabooses to match D & H prototypes. I was astonished to find the amount of time this stuff takes. But I just can’t bring myself to actually work on the layout. No buildings, no scenery, just a loop of track with a couple of passing sidings, branch lines going nowhere. I’ve pondered just giving up and watching television, or knocking the whole thing down and starting over someday when I have a better idea of what to build. My wife would have a ++++ hemmorage if I tore this down to start over. I have rebuilt and modified the existing layout at least three times, and nothing more gets done. What I have is a modification of a layout featured in a model railroad book to represent one serving Jerome, AZ. I didn’t know what to build, didn’t have any ideas of my own, and felt I needed to build SOMETHING or nothing would ever get built. Switching to N-scale is “out” as I’d have to sell an awful lot of stuff to finance it, and it is too small for my tastes. My last work before the Holidays was to kitbash some Roundhouse milk reefers into copies of prototype cars, one each for D & H, B & M, and Rutland. They sit on my workbench, kind of started, but I haven’t been in the layout room for weeks. Just no interest. Thanks for letting me bitch and moan, getting this off my chest. Not someth
So is it a problem of not knowing how to start, what to do, or just not having the motivation? I go through periods where I work on my layout every night, then go through weeks at a time without touching it. It’s a hobby after all, I don’t feel like I “have” to work on anything.
Maybe you could join a club to get those model railroading juices flowing again.
Sounds like a perfect situation to find some Railroad buddies to share with. There is probably someone out there now that loves to work on layouts but hates doing the prototypical detail work on loco’s and cars.
I’ll bet many, if not most, of the participants here have experienced some version of the problem you’ve described. I think it happens for several resons–1.) lack of confidence that you can successfully tackle a project that is large scale since the kinds for things you have been doing, while no less complex, are at least smaller and more limited in scope, 2.) lack of a “big picture” concept of what you want the end result to be, 3.) as another poster said, lack of a ‘partner’ to pitch in and be there as the work progresses and to affirm your collective progress,— and there may be other reasons as well.
My layout project is 13 years old, and most has been done in close partnership with a good friend and equally zealous model railroader. He is (was) the master carpenter on the benchwork and I did layout design; he was (is) the gandy dancer and I do the scenery. He lays the streets and highways and I build the buildings.
The layout models the Texas & Pacific with five distinct areas from east to west–Big Sandy on the edge of the Piney Woods, Dallas Union Station, Ft, Worth (generic) freight yard, Abilene, and Sierra Blanca where the T&P met the SP going west to El Paso. By doing an area at a time, we always felt like we had accomplished someting and that gave us motivation to move on. We went through periods of weeks or even months where not much happened on the layout, and then got motivated and worked like crazy.
Take heart! Put down two feet of plaster cloth, some ground cover, plant a few trees and a couple of trackside shanties. Run one of you locos and a couple of boxcars through there and next thing you know, your wife won’t be able to get you out of the layout room.
Mike
It sounds to me that you are not happy unless something is perfect. It is one thing to faithfully copy a man made object. It’s another to try to emulate the world in a scaled down version. You WILL NOT be able to copy the world![:)] Of course, this is an observation from someone who has never meet you, nor seen your work.[:)]
Why not drop everything and step back for awhile. I get into slumps like that from time to time. I find that if I just stick my new MR in the closet as soon as it arrives, and no do anything train related when I’m on the net. Then a few weeks or a few months, I find that I have a renewed vigor for the hobby. Find something else to work on for awhile. When I take my breaks I spend my time down in my garage, hand loading, and casting my own ammunition, and acting as a gunsmith for the guys I work with. Then I get bored with that, and come back to model railroading. Hope this helps.
You need to get a structure kit, paint it, assemble it and detail it. While you’re doing this, think about where it will go on your layout, and put it there. Then work on the scenery in the immediate area. Get some white glue, turf and ground foam. Experiment with creating natural surfaces from scrap pink foam and plaster cloth. Try getting a mold and some hydrocal, and do some rock castings.
It’s all a learning process. You’ll find that it’s easy and cheap to rip out your scenic mistakes and start over. More often, though, you’ll be very happy with something you never knew you could do.
I can appreciate where you’re at. Linn Westcott reported in his book that it even happened to John Allen.
My motivation got shaken a little this year. While I enjoy the process of working on my layout, I’ll admit, I really like it when other folks see my layout an do the ooo! ahhh! thing.
This year, my entire fan club disappeared in just a few months. I had sort of borrowed my way into my wife’s family - they dig trains and they would stop by now and then to look in on what I was up to. On June 25, that all ended with a divorce.
My other fan was my father, a model builder in his own right. His thing was scale R/C planes. He’d built them from scratch, dead-on right down to the needles on the gauges. We understood each other as modelers and shared ideas for overcoming the obsticles that our endeavors present. He died on July 31.
My dad’s eye for accuracy and the ooo’s and ahh’s are gone. Aside from me, my layout hasn’t been seen by a human in 7 months.
Impressing my fans is not the only reason I’m in this hobby, but I know now that it’s a healthy chunk of my motivation. I feel differently about it all, now. I don’t feel as motivated, but I keep doing it. Sometimes, my motivation is simply to have something to post on the upcoming WPF thread.
I don’t have any real advice, but I empathize. I imagine that we all find our ways of dealing with the way our feelings about the hobby evolve over time.
There are many members here who just like trains…in general…models of trains, too…but who have no layouts at all. I think of Bob Boudreau, for example, a master modeller who must go to a club to run any trains. His “thing” is building dioramas and putting things together to look highly realistic in miniature.
As for me, I love steam engines, and having my modest stable of different engines work away on my simple track plan gives me pleasure. Building a decent layout is a chore, frankly, althought I can’t say I didn’t enjoy much of it…but it is an end to my means of getting to watch my models move around in a semi-realistic scale setting. I know I will have to build a third layout in the next two or three years, and am torn…I look forward to improving what I produced last time, but not going six months full tilt to get to the point where I can slow right down and tinker in between running sessions.
I suspect you don’t really have a clear goal in mind. Your commitment is therefore low, and fools you, and you in turn fool others. You need to develop a keenness that you don’t currently enjoy. If what you are doing isn’t already “it”, then you must embark on another process of self-discovery. It may even lead you outside the hobby, which wouldn’t necessarily be a bad thing if it got you oriented and happier with your circumstances.
-Crandell
Sounds to me like you’re doing the stuff you like - building / modifying engines and cars.
Just use your layout for railfanning. Get rid of the branches to nowhere and have a loop with sidings. Do a quick scenery of grass and a few trees from Woodland Scenics and put on a couple of prebuilt buildings and call it done.
At the moment, I’m going the other way focusing on getting the layout built using as much RTR as I can. Once that’s done I may switch to car building or I may just operate the trains or maybe I’ll build another layout.
This is a hobby so focus on the fun parts - whatever that is for you at this time.
Enjoy
Paul
Ya know, its your layout and if its not interesting to you,go ahead and tear it out.I’m not sur why the wife would object,its not her hobby.If money is the problem then show her how much you are recycling.
One of my favorite things in the hobby is finding a plan and building benchwork. Try not to get too complicated, Maybe just a shelf around the room with a couple sidings and like IronRooster says,“some minimal scenery”. Also sounds like you like to build cars and locos. If you don’t have an elaborate layout then you can build more rolling stock. If you want an elaborate layout but are not motivated then maybe you can build rolling stock for someone who will do benchwotk and scenery for you.Bill
People always lose interest in things over time for one reason or another. I build 1/24 scale model cars as well and I’m going through the same thing with them. I have a Rusty Wallace Nascar Cup car I’m almost finished building but I just can’t get motivated to finish it. I super detail all of my cars and have around 100 hours of work just into this car alone. I originally started it to enter a contest but I missed the deadline and just lost interest. Basically it just needs final assembly to be finished.
I’ve got a fairly complete layout, scenery, buildings, a yard, some staging… I also have a plan to expand and “finish” it. I go through weeks at a time when I simply can’t get into the train room due to being pretty busy, then there’s times when I can’t bring myself to go up there.
One of my problems is the more I run the layout, the more I become aware of its shortcomings. Some will be overcome when I complete the full design, but others are going to be a lot more difficult, primarily access in and out of staging.
Due to the nature of the design, fixing the staging issue will require substantial demolition just to get to the area I need to change (one of the drawbacks of hiding the staging below the scenery).
So I get into these funks where I wonder if I shouldn’t just take it as a “lesson learned” and start over, or if I can continue to enjoy the topside of the layout, and just deal with the subterranean problems. BTW, the problems don’t involve trackwork or derailments… just the track plan and access… so I can live with it, it just makes ops more complex than they need to be.)
So, take a break, step back, and maybe see if you can hunt down some fellow modelers who are interested in layout building, then you might get some help, or at least be able to go to someone’s house to run your nicely detailed rolling stock…
Lee
See if you can find a club where you can run your equipment. Layout building might not be your forte.
See if there is a modular club in the area. Build a 4 foot module as a “photo backdrop” for your equipment. that will let you join the modular club and operate as part of a group. Putting some scenery on a 4 foot module would be less arduous than doing a whole layout.
Build some buildings. That may help sure your layout building desires. A building is just a car without wheels.
Go to the mismatched paint department and buy a cheap gallon of a tan latex paint. Paint the pink foam tan. Its a half hour project that will change the look of your layout immensely.
See if there are other modelers in the area that might help you with the layout. Maybe you, who likes building cars and engines but doesn’t like building layouts, could build and detail cars and engines for other modelers, who like building layouts but don’t like building and detailing cars and engines, and they could build your layout.
Some years ago, I started a layout thinking it would be the ultimate, super, never-to-be-bettered layout. Three years later I found myself bored and neglecting it. I took some time to consider what was wrong. This is what I determined:
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My track had so many issues that it seemed pointless to continue working on it. There was always some sort of new problem that would derail the train. Every operating session started with an hour or so of trouble-shooting and repair.
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The layout was so big that it seemed like it would take forever and a lot of money to bring it to the point of being presentable.
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On the occasions that I could actually get a train to make the circuit, I soon got bored watching the train go around and around (the layout was a dogbone 15 feet long).
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The bargain locomotives I was running were unreliable and frequently needed tweaking. All of my locomotives were diesels; I really like steam engines, but they were more expensive than diesels; I tried to convince myself that I was a diesel fan. I wasn’t, and I never really enjoyed the diesels.
In short, there were a lot of reasons that it was not fun. I decided to start over, but to be smarter about it. I spent months researching and planning (and saving money); this is a summary of my new approach:
- Use a published track plan for a point to point layout. Chances are, if someone else enjoys a track plan, I’ll like it, too.
Point to point because it allows room for expansion, and it’s more like a real railroad (this is not a criticism of continuous running layouts). It also requires operators to pay attention and be actively engaged in the operation - no sitting back to let 'er run.
- Build it the way the experts recommend - Homosote, L