Photography, both railroad and non-railroad related, music (I play drums, occasionally with friends who play other instruments, mostly on my own though), reading, computer/console games, both sports/racing and railroad related, and I also enjoy both playing (with friends) and watching baseball, football, and watching NASCAR.
ATSF - I think I figured the orange team, if NASCAR, but blue and red would offer more than one option. Now, if it is manufacturers cars however… [;)]
At 75, I now ride a bike on local rail trails. Maybe forty miles of rail trails.
I do about 60 to 100 miles a week. Not hard core. Side bag on bike for shopping.
My city has a bagel shop in the former station.
A city nearby has a former Union Station that use to serve four railroads at one time. Only Amtrak now. Two side station that is now a 200 person restaurant and out door dining.
One rail trail on one side. RR, other side with a new Amtrak platform nearby.
Lots of dancing three or four nights a week.
Workout at a local Snap Fitness.
Rich
My other hobbies include refurbishing old garden tractors, building and landscape projects around the house, and building and working on our place in northern WI.
Mike.
Now that I am 70 I am 100% trains now but in the past I was a minor league 3rd baseman playing in the minors for the Chicago white sox. I had two spring training stints with the major league teams but that was it for my baseball career.
I did play some hardball baseball till I was about 40 for some local leagues. Had fun while it lasted.
After the majors I took a job with a local supermarket chain and at the end I was a district manager.
Dave
I collect high end 1:24 scale model cars, collect movies and enjoy knocking around my work shop repairing things.
Hello, along with my model train addiction, I’m into RC speed boat racing, squeezing all the HP I can get out of my Dodge Magnum,reading collecting old movies music and NASCAR races
I like to fly when not in the basement … I am a private pilot with an instrument rating and I enjoy working out complex flight management systems and autopilots. As such I read a lot about avionics in passrnger airplanes as well.
Full size antique airplanes, rubber models, reading.
MY other main hobby which consumes a lot of my time is woodcarving. I started carving 25 years ago. You can check out a sample of what I have one on my web page at jimcarves.weebly.com
Besides model railroading, I really enjoy building any sort of kit. I also like doing custom PC work now and then, and I can kick back and do gaming for hours at a time (no shortage of that with the NES, Genesis, N64, Gamecube, PS3, Wii U, and PC!).
Lately I’ve been doing quite a bit of work around the house, from remodeling to yardwork and restoration. With that and the full time job, I haven’t done as much model railroad work lately. The problem is once all that’s done, I don’t really want to work on anything else…
Birdwatching!
That is the sort of hobby that you are either in to or you laugh at. My wife and I are IN TO it! We just got back from a trip to British Columbia where we saw more Bald Eagles than we could have imagined. They are pretty rare here in central Ontario. That was a thrill! However, we also saw a small brown inconspicuous bird that turned out to be a juvenile Crossbill. Just to illustrate how nuts we birders are, that sighting was a lifetime first for both of us, and we about as happy as if we had won a lottery! Ya, like I said, we’re nuts.
Dave
I have always felt that all hobbies are interesting, and birdwatching is no exception.
People feel too defensive about how they spend their spare time and worry too much about how other people view their passions. My experience is that people don’t spend much time chuckling about other people’s hobbies. In some ways, all hobbies are a bit strange…but only to people who don’t share the passion.
In the case of birdwatching, I don’t do it, but I get it. At our golf club, the grounds superintendent is a gruff guy who you would think would be most interested in collecting whiskey bottles (LOL). But, lo and behold, every time he spots an exotic bird at the edge of the water, he photographs it and posts the photo on the club’s website. To my surprise, he carries a book about birds in his cart so that he can identify the species on the spot.
So, Dave, carry on with your hobby and don’t worry about what other people think. Chances are, they aren’t thinking about you or your hobby at all.
Rich
I also enjoy bird watching especially in the winter. Our feeder attracts all kinds of birds and during the summer between the flowers and bird bath, we get all kinds of birds. I also read novels by Clive Clussler, Jack Higgins and Daniel Silva.
Most of my hobby time is spent on model railroading but very occasionally I’ll get my pencils out, my latest effort.
Cheers, the Bear.[:)]
(Bird watching? Not if her-in-doors is around!![B)])
My other hobbies are collecting coins (mostly American), skeet/target shooting, and traveling. I am considering taking a cruise next year to Alaska, so I am enjoying researching for that.
I thought about getting my pilot’s license, but the funds are too low for that. That’s OK though, I work for Cessna and get to build planes for a living.
Rich:
We don’t worry about what other people think of our hobby of bird watching, and you are right, most people are supportive even if they don’t participate in it themselves. What does grind my pepper is when the general media can’t report a bird watching event without poking fun at it. Certainly there are lots of dedicated columns that report important sightings, but it seems that when the general media gets ahold of a birding story they can’t seem to keep a straight face.[:(!]
Anyhow, thanks for your encouraging words.
Dave
DRFan:
Some of our best bird watching has been done right in our own backyard. We have two feeders, one with black sunflower seed and the other with niger seed. We get lots of different birds, some like Gold Finches in large numbers.
In the winter we spend at least one day each weekend driving around looking for Snowy Owls and hawks.
Each May we spend a few days at Point Pelee on Lake Erie observing the spring migration.
Good luck birding!
Dave
Oh, there’s been so many. Currently, I also build WWII era plastic 1:48 aircraft models, collect vinyl records and vintage stereo gear and enjoy fishing and spending time at my cabin in N. Wisconsin. But over the years I have collected electric guitars and played in rock bands, I also restored vintage snowmobiles and once owned over 25 of them and was the editor for the VSCA’s national magazine. Had a stint with 2-stroke street bikes, Kawasaki triples being my favorite, and for a while sunk my money into sailboats. I got back into Model Railroading after having a N scale layout that my father and I built in 1970 and spending the 80’s with a stack of Model Railroader magazines and big dreams.
What I’ve learned most over the years is that I need to limit my hobbies. I still have too many, but the record collection is to a point where there’s few releases that I don’t already have and I’ve mostly run out of room to hang planes from the ceiling of my den. So that leaves the layout. 