Mentally Back in the Train Room

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
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Bear with me, (or skip the lengthy thread), I thought I’d post this tonight as if to formalize my being “back”. This spring, I was starting all the little fix-its to get the whole place ready to paint. House, carport, several outbuildings, everything. OK.

Well, in May, a dear friend of my wife and myself got displaced when her rented space sold. Rents here in central Oregon are outlandish, and hard to find. She was getting bounced yet again. My wife came up with the idea of putting her up in a 5th wheel trailer in the back of our one acre property. She liked it, we went for it. Painting the house got shelved for yet another year. That’s ok.

Since then, I have been working as if full time on setting up for the 5th wheel. This entailed moving 4 sizable outbuildings, 2 of which got heavily modified. Then grading and graveling the area, tie in to septic, power, and water. It looked like a war zone, all the ditches and dirt piles. Plus a ton of other related work I won’t go into here. Eight weeks alone went into building a substantial structure over the 5th wheeler.

At this point I’ll mention as soon as the plan for the whole project was hatched, in May, my mind went completely devoid of model interest. Gone. Even to the point I wondered if it would ever come back. I had no desire, or interest in any aspect of MRRing, 'cept checking the forums now and then. The layout even looked kind of distant and depressing when I went in there to get various tool for the big project. I just couldn’t care.

As of yesterday, Monday the 24th, I finished the final detail of that 19x40 structure, tying it down to heavy concrete blocks. FINALLY, the whole project was complete.

Also Monday and Tuesday, I made preparations for winter; get the 'ol snow plow Suburban out front, the studded tires on the family cars, yard all cleaned up and tidy, etc. Well, we’re are about as prepared for winter as we can be now…

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Yes!

I didn’t want to but my work load at work increased to the point I had no choice. I shut down for almost 10 years but when I retired it was like a bomb went off and I was “back in the saddle again” the beginning of 2008.

Even more so than before I shut it down, full throttle.

Now it’s a different problem, arthritis really shut it down in spurts of days to weeks. It doesn’t shut down in my brain just anything that moves. I can do well at my computer work station/hobby workbench in a super comfortable chair. I’m in one of those now.

I wanted to have my layout up and running by Christmas but that won’t happen. I started a major control panel/layout overhaul rewiring and a dozen Arduino installs in February so my layout has been dead since I started. I did get all the Arduino ribbon cables run and half of the wiring to my new signaling system. Maybe another

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You builta building over the trailer? My mothers father moved into a mobile home near his hold house which his youngest son, married with 2 kids, took over. The son built a structure over the mobile home which added a mud-room and an additional living space. He lived there until he passed away at the age of 97 IIRC.

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I guess you have been busy! You see that in Northern WI. with mobile homes, the object being a sturdy structure to withstand snow loads, and get rid of the constant roof repair of the mobile home.

You see this for those that have 5th wheelers for storage, too.

I kinda put model railroading to the side each summer, as I’m in the process of turning part of garage, on our property in Northern WI., into living area.

We call it our “gar-lodge”. My model railroad season runs from mid November ( the start of Trainfest in Milwaukee) to mid to late May. I have no problem with that, as I spend the few warm months we have in WI doing many things outdoors.

There’s always something that needs to be done.

Welcome back!

Mike.

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In modern terms, it never really shuts down, it hibernates as a slow running app in the background during household maintenance season.

It emerges with vigor around the holidays when I have more time off from work, then into spring.

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Sadly, I can’t turn off the desire to model. Even when away from it, I think of what next or how to improve. Such thoughts move the day faster until I have time at night to implement the thoughts.

Working full time, I only can devote about about an hour daily. Modeling is a part of the day, as is reading at night. Just things I “work into” the day. I get the challenge of putting everything in a routine.

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Hobbies are just hobbies.

I get what you are saying. Every single day I would like more time for myself, but being a dad, a husband, an employee, and what not takes priority #1. This is why the internet is so valuable to me. I can sit down and check the forum while taking a break at work or at night after I get home. Just 15 minutes gives me a break from reality and lets me keep in touch with my hobbies.

Don’t stress over your time away. Hobbies shouldn’t consume your life. Just try and take a few minutes each day to do something you enjoy.

Ed

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You know, I think this powerful ability of model railroading to withstand a long dormancy period – not just a summer, and not just Mel’s decade, but perhaps many decades – is why train shows such as Milwaukee’s Trainfest do important work by putting such an emphasis on introducing young people and families to model trains. I doubt if the expectation is that the 7 to 12 year old boy or girl who comes to Trainfest and builds (for free by the way) a Walthers structure kit that they can take home, or qualifies for the “junior Engineer” certification by operating trains on the many excellent operating layouts that permit supervised kids to run the trains and accomplish specific operating tasks, or who takes part in the “builders” program, is converted into a full fledged model railroader that weekend. Maybe a few do. I think the hope is that a seed has been planted that might take decades to germinate. Tony Koester has said that the hobby should be looking at retiring boomers for its growth, and a few years back the President of the NMRA wrote, or perhaps quoted someone else who wrote, that Thomas the Tank Engine was not the answer because teens taking up the hobby in significant numbers were not going to be the answer. But something needs to have taken place so that the receptive adult looking for a hobby has some good memory or experience about model trains to call on, however deep it may be in the memory banks.

By the way speaking of Trainfest, I was working the show office this year when a dad brought over his 8 year old son to show us the Walthers farm house kit the boy had just completed. This boy did a really nice, neat job, and proba

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I cannot turn off the hobby switch, but I can toggle it between three different settings…

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Trains

Photography

Wargaming

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-Kevin

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It sounds as if you had a very satisfying diversion from model railroading - not necessarily expected or welcome, but in the end something gratifying to you and your wife, and to your friend, too.

I don’t think that I’m capable of shutting off modelling desire, but I know that I can postpone it whenever my daughters need help with renovations to their own homes.

Both have capable and competent husbands, but both work long hours, so I’m called on frequently for smaller projects - trim work, wiring, plumbing, even reno projects like adding rec rooms, laundry facilities, or new bathrooms.

When those projects crop up, I have to put most of my modelling projects on the back burner, but I’m glad to still be of use for my family.

While it was over 30 years ago, I built my own house, so am familiar with how to do whatever needs to be done.
I don’t do as much of this work as I did at one time, but I’m always happy to help out when needed.

Welcome back to model railroading, Dan!

Wayne

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Well, I withheld that there’s a crazy twist to this whole project plot…After our friend moved in to the 5th wheeler, and after the cover structure was well under way, but also far from complete, another person entered the picture. A good, longtime mutual friend of all of us, just a great guy, who lost his wife to illness a while back, and our gal took rather an interest in each other.[;)] Guess where this is going, right?

Sometime after the snow melts in 2020, the shelter will be vacated, and I will just have to convert it into a 19x40 x13 high shop space. I don’t know who’s happier, me or them![}:)][A] And believe me, they’re happy, and everyone who knows them is happy for them.

Nows on the other side of the “MRR vs projects” coin, last summer, 2018, I got more done in the RR room than I had in the last 3 winters maybe. I had a mental block for the outdoors projects. (Aided by an old back injury that paid a visit) That was a first. I guess it all balances out. Dan

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Ahhhh, perfect! just perfect!

Your story would make a great Hallmark Christmas movie! [(-D]

Mike.

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Wintertime/cold weather my modeling bug hits hard for the smaller indoor scales. Once warmer weather arrives, along with cabin fever to get outdoors, the large scale raised garden railway and my Vespa scooter and the local scooter club rides call my name and the small scale bug gets mostly turned off. But on down time I do keep up with forums and watching for kits and brass to add to the next winters project list. Lots of railfanning on the Vespa thru the summer as well. Getting 75mpg makes for cheap railfanning and being on a scooter or a motorcycle really makes train chasing fun. Mike the Aspie