Murphy's law rules this hobby

Model Railroader General Discussion (Model Railroader)
1

If anything can go wrong, it will. The latest example of that is my attempt to create my own decals for my fictional railroad. I have an inkjet printer which won’t print white so where I need white lettering, I have to match the background color to the the car or loco I am decaling. After much trial and error, I got the decals sized and colored to my satisfaction. I purchased decal paper, bonder, and solvents recommended for the task. I started with my boxcars and did the Bowser ones that came with the data portion already on them. The rest of the undecorated ones had to wait for the data decals I ordered. I then did my cabeese, my passenger cars, and my diesel loco decals, the latter with gold on black lettering. Lastly I did my white on black decals for my steamers as well as some additional decals that I hadn’t printed enough of for the other pieces. That’s when Murphy showed up. After printing the first row of white-on-black decals, the print faded out and I surmised it had run out of one of the colors of ink. My printer apparently uses a mixture of colors to print black rather than using the black ink only cartridge. I had just printed a full sheet of Pullman Green decals and I surmised it had run out of the ink it used for those. I ordered a new color cartridge from Amazon and received it two days later. When I tried again, I was still getting faded decals. A close look at the cartridge showed it was leaking ink. I arranged to get a replacement which arrived a yesterday. I inserted that and still the same thing. At this point I realized the problem was not with the cartridges but with the printer. Now if I want to complete my decaling project, I’m going to have to invest in a new printer that I will almost never use for anything else.

Looking back, it probably would have been less expensive to have the decals custom made given the ink cartridges and other supplies I needed to buy. I never did pricing on custom decals but I can’t imagine it

2

Seems like the current problem is more technology than Model Railroading. I have had more than one printer go rogue. Take a breather and step away for a couple of days. Sometimes working on a different area helps and it makes things more enjoyable. I prepped about ten pieces for decaling and got about halfway through. (The ones with individual letters were getting to me…) Set them aside and worked on more trackwork. I had the same thing building a lot of structures for the club- I had to take a break from building them- I commented I was getting “structural fatigue.” As for getting things out of our “investment” we probably never will. I am a “bargain shopper” and as such maybe I come out better. We have to look at it as entertainment- right now it does not seem to be so entertaining but give it a few days and it will seem easier.

3

In Model Railroading Things Are Always Going Wrong.

That is a true statement. However, it is not Murphy’s Law at work.

Murphy’s Law applies to planning, specifically planning military operations. You need to plan for everything that can go wrong, because everything is going to go wrong. It is used in business when making big plans, again, because you need to identify everything that can go wrong, control what you can, and prepare for what you cannot.

Murphy’s Law does not describe things that are just bad days, and it sounds like you had a few.

Murphy’s Law would apply to model railroading in the construction phase. Make sure everything is built well, because if you say “Good enough, that should do”, it won’t.

Anyway… back to things going wrong in Model Railroading…

This hobby involves building what will surely be the most complicated piece of equiment in your house… your train layout.

This structure will be more complicated than you A/C system, stove, refrigerator, wiring, plumbing, dishwasher, and maybe even your automobile COMBINED!

Add to that all the fiddly nonsense you need to build the models, and it will seem like everything is going wrong.

Think of all you need to do to keep a house operating, maintenance, repairs, and upgrades. Your Model Railroad Layout will require the same.

I have a second hobby… Table Top Wargaming. This is a great escape from model railroading. No moving parts, no wiring, and nothing ever breaks. And… it is better with beer and pretzels. However, it does not satisfy all my desires from a past-time like model railroading does.

Model Railroading is not for everyone, but it is for us.

Things will get better.

-Kevin

4

Geez, John, you are on the verge of becoming Debbie Downer. In several of your recent threads, you have bemoaned the fact that you will have to purchase a tool to use once and then never again. If that were true, then don’t buy the tool and find an alternative way to do what you want to do.

But the fact of the matter is, as others have pointed out, if you are really into this hobby, you will use these tools more than once. Getting into model railroading is one big learning process. Whether you love it or hate it, the learning process is necessary to become an accomplished modeler.

So, maybe the time has come to sit down and make a decision one way or another to stay in the hobby or get out and save your sanity, time, energy and money.

Chances are, in the aggregate, you probably could get ten cents on the dollar, especially when you take into account locomotives, rolling stock, track and electronics. Some stuff, like

5

On the printer - Are you using recycled or off brand cartridges? I have had that issue before when using those, but when I tried a official name brand cartridge, it worked just fine.

Sometimes saving a few pennies is not worth the hassle.

And, based on my retail experience in the printer industry, that exact experience with off-brand or recycled cartridges is extremely common.

6

No, these are HP cartridges bought through Amazon. They were not listed as refurbished. The fact that I got the same result with the cartridge that had been good, the replacement, and then the replacement for the replacement indicates to me the problem is with the printer, not the cartridges. If I could have gotten just a few more decal sheets printed before this happened, I could probably live without a printer. Just about anything else I print, which is very little, I could have printed at my local library at a nominal cost.

7

My gripe with model railroading is that it is too much work and not enough play and part of that reason is because things are always going wrong, even things that aren’t directly related to the hobby such as my printer. I really enjoy running my trains and conducting operating sessions but at most that constitutes about 2% of the time I spend on this hobby. The rest is spent building and maintaining the the various components of the layout. I don’t enjoy doing any of these tasks. Some I dislike more than others but unlike a lot of people, I do not enjoy the process. If I could afford it, I would have paid somebody to build my layout for me. Every bit of it. I’d also gladly pay somebody to handle the maintenance of it. I’m not someone who enjoys the journey. I want to get to the destination and that’s not happening.

8

Murphy just challenges us to do things better, more effectively, or just differently. When I find that I can’t do things the way I planned, I have to invent a new method.

Stuff from the old parts of my layout that I was happy with back then, or it was at least “good enough,” would not pass muster now, because my skills have improved and I have higher standards for myself.

Workarounds and different methods are as much a part of model railroading as Murphy’s Law. In the end, we are better off for having learned new techniques and better ways of doing things.

9

If I were to sell it off piecemeal on ebay or some other avenue, I might get 50 cents on the dollar for some of my locos. Certainly not the ones that are painted for my fictional layout. I wouldn’t get anywhere close to that if I were to sell them as a lot. The retail value of any of these items is going to be what someone is willing to pay for it. If you’ve watched Pawn Stars, you’ve seen how this works. Those guys have a good sense about what the retail value is for whatever it is someone is offering to sell to them. Generally they will offer that person about one third of the retail value. That means the seller will get one third of the anticipated retail price, one third will cover the pawn shop’s overhead, and one third for profit. If I have a used $300 loco with a factory installed decoder painted for a prototype railroad, it might sell for $150. That would mean I would get offered $50 if I try to sell it to any of the LHSes in my area that deal in second hand merchandise. I have no idea how much I’ve spent on this hobby over the last 40 years but I’m quite sure whatever it is I couldn’t get 10 cents on the dollar if I were to unload everything I have.

10

You can get as much play out of it as you want.

As I have mentioned many times… I have a HUGE collection of Kato Untrack, and sometimes I just set up track and run trains… PURE PLAY!

Other times I want to build, sometimes I plan, or even just daydream.

This hobby has so many facets, if something is frustrating, set up a loop of Untrack and run some trains!

-Kevin

11

John - model railroading is a hobby which requires an enormous amounts of different skills, some, or even most of which we are not trained in. Yet we tackle each job, which sometimes may prove to be beyond our current set skills. There are only two remedies - either give up and start collecting stamps or other nonsense (no offense meant to philatelists), or be patient and adopt the NTB approch - Next Time Better!

12

Murphys law applies to everything, period. I am sorry you didn’t plan for things to go wrong, decaling in general is open to more things going wrong than most parts of the hobby. On another note, people always say that they can’t get back what they spent on the hobby, wrong, all said and done I will break even but then I don’t buy much retail. Sure I have lost money on some items but made it back on others (and I pay someone to list for me).

13

Can’t you take your computer file and your decal paper to the local fedex store/ staples/anywhere else they do printing and get them printed there?

14

Mister Beasley nailed it for me. [Y]

For those of you old enough to remember Joe Btfsplk, he was my mentor. I thought that my mother and dad gave me the wrong name, they should have named me Joe Btfsplk Perry. [st]

As I was growing up pretty much everything I attempted failed, I think I was born with the cloud over my head and it has never let up.

Thank goodness some things do go right. The last couple of weeks I’ve been working on HO vehicles, installing LED headlight, taillights and marker lights. Even though some of the vehicles are identical everyone gave me a fit. They have all turned out very nice but I had to fight with both Joe and Murphy all the way.

But that’s what our hobby is all about and Murphy and Joe are always peeking to see if they can help us.

Mel

My Model Railroad
http://melvineperry.blogspot.com/

Bakersfield, California

I’m beginning to realize that aging is not for wimps.

15

Don’t know if they would be willing to print with my decal paper. Then there is the problem with sizing. Will it print to the same scale? I create my decals using Windows Paint accessory but I’ve never been able to figure out how it will size them. It seems to want to fill the print page and often enlarges what I print. After creating them I turn to Photoshop to print them. I tell it to print in 8x10 mode and I consistently get the size I want. I don’t know what software these companies use so I don’t know if I’m going to get the size I want.

16

Sorry to be the Grinch but next time it will be something else. That’s the way it seems to be in this hobby. When it comes to model railroading, Murphy was an optimist.

17

Then maybe it’s time to give up on MRR, homeownership, and relationships; they all take maintenance.

18

Most of my locos were bought new at retail over past 40 years. The locos on the current layout were bought during the last 20 years. When I started the layout I thought I could build up my roster by converting the locos from my previous layout to DCC. Shortly after I started I discovered Trainworld was selling Athearn BB F-units at a giveaway price of $30. I bought about a half dozen planning to repaint and convert them to DCC as well. Then I discovered sound and saw how much better the newer locos were than the what I had been used to in the DC world. I began building my roster mostly with factory installed decoders and mostly with sound. I’ve gradually built my roster in that manner over the last 20 years. Only rarely have I resorted to the second hand market and then only to get a loco that was no longer in production. It’s too late for me to buy cheap and selling out would bring me a fraction of what I originally paid for what I have.

19

As I said earlier, I have too much time and money invested in it to simply walk away from it. I could never get back the time and only small fraction of the money. As I said in the OP, if I thought I could get back a tenth of the money I have invested in it, I would get out.

20

Staples uses Adobe Photoshop. (Among other software.)

And at least the one I was at, we did use all kinds of custom paper so long as it was 8x10 or larger.

Smaller stuff would jam in the large printers.

And, if you would like a proof, we would do one to size on our cheap paper for free, so you could check it.

Worst case is your areas store would say no to your asking. Best case is it would work perfectly.