I had a strange but very vivid dream last night about model railroading. I dreamed I had removed a 4x8 section of my railroad and sold it to a man and his young son. Never mind that I don’t have a 4x8 section on my layout. It was after I sold it to him and he had loaded it up in his truck I realized there was a scratch built structure on it that I had wanted to keep and reinstall on my layout. Never mind that I don’t do scratchbuilt structures. I spent the rest of the dream coniving how to get that structure back. I was trying to decide whether to buy it back or remove it covertly. I woke up before I got it back.
I was wondering if others sometime dream about model railroading and if they have a story to share.
A few times I’ve had bridge dreams. The dreams have not been so much to do with troubles or the snags I’ve had in building them, but the problems in placement. Which has been more of a stumbling block, where the solution has come to me in a dream more than once.
Usually it’s after laying awake to long, thinking to hard about it, not coming up with the solution in a continuous state of mind.
Nope, can’t say that I have, or at least remember.
My dreams are still about being on a huge construction site, trying to get where the concrete pour is going on, and getting over all the obstacles that are put in my way. [(-D]
And I’ve been retired since 2011!
Anyway, dream on! And get that structure back! [swg]
When I was a boy I had vivid dreams about a train going by near our home (although in the dream the tracks were much closer to our house which would have been fine with me) and with the benefit of adulthood and hindsight I realize the train I saw in that repetitive dream was a sort of “hospital train” of broken down examples of various locomotives, bits and pieces of steam and GG1s and other stuff, mostly as I knew them from Lionel catalogs, but not exactly like any actual railroad equipment.
I now realize that what I was dreaming of was influenced by the part train, part boat, part plane "Air-O-Doodle from my favorite kid TV shows, Howdy Doody.
Then years later I started having a repetitive dream about a fantasy layout, sort of Malcolm Furlow on controlled substances, and it was only a chance viewing of a very old cartoon, that I had probably seen a few times as a little boy, that was influencing that dream. It was the head on train collision in the cartoon “PLay Safe” which starts about 3:47 into this online version
But more recently I had a helpful dream. I have been building some structures following prototype photos I took years ago and after much work that would be very hard to replicate again (including close to scale door hinges and door latch hasps) I realized I’d made a cutting or measuring error in one wall. The solution came to me in a dream and fortunately I remembered enough of it the next day to try it out and it worked.
So here’s to more ice cream and spicy foods right before dinner!! [dinner] Or maybe just one more small martini … [D]
I’ve had my share of ‘railroad-content’ dreams, including a recurring one about a city in northeastern Pennsylvania on what would have been the high-speed passenger-optimized lines to/from New York without diverting south, which might qualify as “1:1 model railroading”. But none of them have involved actual ‘practical’ railroad modeling.
Of course I carefully avoid rarebits, or Marshall Holloway’s shrimp, or too much rich food close to bedtime…
Was finishing up some extreme intricate detail looking through the visor late one night, while eating Ho-Ho’s and Nutty Bars at said modeling table.
Needless to say, the modeling dreams that night weren’t very pleasant ones, with cute girls following me around playing violins, but being chased around by big scary monsters with machine guns, while worrying about breaking my model in the chase of said dream.
Upon waking, one needed to revisit the table to make sure the model was still intact[:|]
Years ago, long before retirement, I used to dream about subways. Not model ones, but real ones, and the dreams always involved MOW flat car trains running in the tunnels.
After I got back into the hobby and actually built my own model subways, the dreams stopped completely.
One day, I’d cut a piece of 283 H channel styrene too short and discovered it was my last piece. Ran to the hobby store, a bit devastated to find out they didn’t have any either.
Have you ever had one of those repeating dreams that goes in a circle, over and over all night long?
The repeating dream was looking through all my many bags of styrene, over and over looking for that one piece of 283. Never did find it[:S]
I’ve been retired since 2001 and I had an office job. I’ve had a recurring dream that I have project that is coming up on a deadline and I have done almost nothing on it and my boss is about to find out. The strange part is I have a different boss in every dream.
One of four or five recurring dreams I had as a kid was of flames shooting up out of the ground next to the neighbor’s shrubs and steam locos running up and down our street - without rails.
[#offtopic] For all its failings, I do like this Forum as it allows for these topics of whimsey! (And too those who see this as a “major” irritation, simple, just don’t click on the topic!!)
The only thing I’ve come to realise over the years is that if I start dreaming about work, I’m overtired, need to back off and urgently get some proper, uninterrupted sleep!
Cheers, the Bear.[:)]
PS. “Play Safe” was a enjoyable watch to go with my morning coffee.
Congratulations! My daughter and I have had a running competition for a while, to come up with the most egregious ‘first world problem’. This hits it out of the park.
Never had a RR dream but before model RR sailing was my thing for over 30 years. I used to have dreams about haulout. First had to take down the mast. The leverage at the end of a 40’ aluminum pole is amazing. Then had to lift a 3 ton boat suspended from slings and swing it around to drop precisely on a trailer. Had to lift it quite high as it had a 4’ draft. Usually it was windy and cold and 4 guys holding ropes were needed to control the swing. When I sold the boat in 2009 the dreams stopped.