I am a returnee myself. I built a 4x8 flat layout in the mid-80s using choice 3 above and enjoyed it very much. Now retired and have more time for hobbies, I started making a track plan last April and got around to starting the building process for my 5x13 HO layout in June. A low budget and unable to stand for long periods has progress going slowly. I hope to have my first full loop completed by the end of April so I can start running some trains on it.
You guys are funny [(-D]… yes, please vote. I guess I hadn’t thought about those that are slower than me. [:D] Here I thought I was the sloooowest guy on earth!
CNWfan, What cha been doin’ for the past 10 years?
I have been getting my old orginal 70’s layout up and running. I’m about to unleash an F5 Tornado on it. The trackwork needs to be redone. When I put nails in they go all the way in.
What is it with so many people getting back into the hobby in the past year?
A year ago I was planning (initially) a narrow-gauge logging line, then an SP-based industrial switching area, then I discovered the SN. I don’t know how many track revisions I went through before putting in one piece of track, but it must have been maybe thirty or forty. Then there were two “starter” layouts of 3x6 feet that never got past initial trackwork before being taken up, and finally my current version.
I bought rolling stock despite not having much of a place to roll it, because I needed some to roll. I was relatively picky about what I bought, though, so I only have several times more rolling stock than I currently need…
I sort of made myself stop buying rolling stock until I had some track ready to go–right now my layout only has a capacity of four or five cars on industrial spurs and another four in a passing siding. The next two 1x4 segments will include a small yard/freight station and a large cannery which should enhance storage capacity quite a bit.
At least I’m actually at the scenery-building stage, aside from the furshlugginer street-trackage problem…
I believe that with today’s fast paced, high stress, society we’ve created that more and more people are finding they need an outlet to relieve stress and slow down the pace. Having a hobby, something outside their normal day-to-day routine, helps and most folks take up a hobby they’ve had in the past or something that they enjoyed as a child.
If you read the polls and/or posts along this thought you’ll see that probably 90% or more of the people are active in this or some other hobby to relieve stress. I got back into MRR and wooden ship building after being forced out on medical retirement. I got tired of the fast paced, high stress activity of watching the grass grow! [:D]
In the last 5 months I’ve gotten 15 pieces of rolling stock, a 0-6-0 and a 4-8-2. And now I will be getting a Rivarossi FEF-3 very soon, also. Then I’ll start to buy more track and get the benchwork started. I’ll have a lot of time once school’s out.
i was going to wait until i was out of school, that didn’t happen. i figured i’d have more time but i know i’ll be working a lot during the summer and i’ll be playing baseball so i won’t have a lot of time. also if i’m not doing one of the above mentioned things i’ll probably be watching MLB games, playing MLB games on PS2, or watching Baseball Tonight, i like baseball a lot.
I am back to the hobby from about . . . . 2000, I bought my first Rivarossi BigBoy and put it on display on a shelf out of reach of my ( then ) 3 year old train-nut son, so I had to give him a shelf with his favourite locomotive as well . . . . . .
have been lay-out planning ever since, the place I want to put up my lay-out has to get new floorboards put in, so until now it is just collecting and armchair modelling. My divorce speeded up the collecting process, I had to split my bank account in 2, but could keep my model railroad stuff, so the obvious happened, almost no money in the bank but a closet full of model railroad stuff. As planning goes on , and business will not be booming too much this summer, I will start building benchwork sothat I can really start to put things together I have lying around for the last years.
