There has been one question that floats around my brain when I read Model Railroader or look at the forums : What do you like to do in this hobby?
Any thing can work. To get the ball rolling; here’s some of my favorite things to do:
detailing and weathering railcars and locomotives
detailing/kitbashing building kits
going to the hobby shop and drooling over the new arrivals in the locomotive sections (and sometimes buying some locomotives)
So, what are you waiting for? Just think about what you do most often with your model railroad and what you thouroughly enjoy and will enjoy, no matteer what, and post it here.Don’t worry, your among friends, no one will laugh.
I like to design and build things, and I like being in charge of my own little “empire” and seeing it run as planned, so I like just about evey aspect of the hobby - as long as it does not involve any more use of a computer than I am doing right now.
I love to build stuff! Give me a Campbell craftsman kit and I may disappear from the rest of the world for months. I love the old wood freight car kits, too. And those etched brass caboose kits - sign me up!
I also love to take a distressed brass loco and bring it back to glory.
About the only plastic kits I enjoy are the Jordan Highway Miniatures. These are usually good for about 8 hours of model building bliss.
The part of the hobby that really kind of bores me is operating. It is important that my layout and equipment run well, but I don’t jump at the idea of running trains. It’s more fun if I have company, then I’ll be the brakeman while the company is the engineer. That is a lot of fun!
Another thing that is fun to do with company is paint people (but I don’t enjoy it alone). Somehow, it a helper or two can take a monotonous task and fill it with laughter and joy.
My father was similar with R/C planes: he built beautiful models, but he flew only rarely. He kept a sport plane to keep his “edge” but given a coice, he’d have rather been building.
I’m a Builder. I enjoy creating scenery. That’s everything from structures to ballasted track to ditches filled with “water.” I’ll spend a lot of time detailing each scene. Then I run trains through the scenes and enjoy it.
Right now, I’m expanding my railroad with plans to add staging and more industries, so it will be more fun to operate. Once that happens, I’ll see if I can take an interest in operations, or if I’ll be doomed to planning another extension so I can keep building. I figure it’s one of those win-win situations.
I enjoy car kits, craftsman level to blue box. Just the joy of assembling a piece of rolling stock.
I’ve also gotten into kitbashing structures. It’s fun to take a building and come up with something that differs from the packaged kit, sometimes subtly and sometimes radically.
I like to do something I’ve never seen or heard anyone else really liking to do…design logos for my freelance railroads!! Like the one on the left, for instance. I have more logos than actually running rr lines!
I know it’s goofy, but one of the first things I read about this hobby is that there are dozens of aspects to it. On the other hand, I dread electrical chores, and am so unsure of how to do soldering that I’ve never even tried it!
For me, model railroading is all about locomotives. I’ve collected them, painted and detailed them, and I enjoy just sitting back and watching them run.
Daydreaming about what I want to do next, which I do a lot. Then running the trains, I have cut back a lot in the last year. But they still see 2 hours a day. I all so like coming to the site and helping others when I can.
Little off topic, I like doing scenery and laying track half way good at it. But, for some reason I have to make my self do it? Example I have 9.5’ X 2.5’ and 6 inch tall section of foam to carved and paint for K-10 mining. It would take me maybe 2 hours with clean up? But I have been putting it off for a year now?
I all so still like going to my LHS K-10 Model Trains, but not the thrill it use to be. Honestly, far as rolling stock and engines there really nothing I want. That does take some of the fun out of it.
Whatever it takes to meet the challenge presented – Like creating templates for live overhead construction (in N Scale) for the interurban CR&T, plus; templates for live catenary to run Pennsy GG1s – PRR prototype catenary is different than CR&T’s single-wire overhead geared to city and local railroading.
I find that I like to do scenery, but I have to get started on a project, then I can’t stop. The wiring of tortoise and controls come next. I look forward to and creating wiring projects. And lastly running the trains. I don’t do much operations, but just let them run and think of what’s next. Above all, I still have fun!
My bench work is 4ft wide X 18ft with a J configuration on one end. When I first started it was all about running the trains. To make the running interesting I created a double main with a cross over on opposite sides with two reverse loops inside the mains. This resulted in having 10 turnouts excluding spurs or sidings.
But when I operated the trains I was running from one side to the other and after 10 minutes I had so many derailments because of turnout being thrown the wrong way.
This drove me to scenicing which I have come to enjoy much to my surprise. It doesn’t look half bad and for me it is pleasing. My industrial area is pretty well done so I’m getting ready to install switch motors before starting on a town.
After the machines are working we will see what becomes more important. My guess it will be building and creating.
What I like to do is whatever needs doing at the moment. At this particular moment I’m taking a break from wiring a terminal block that will provide proper electrical control for a spring switch (still have to get proper frog polarity…) I think it’s fun, others might consider it drudgery.
Next will come the fun of replacing existing temporary wiring on the layout with the meant-to-last-forever version. Then more tracklaying until I run out of benchwork. Then more benchwork construction… I like all of it, but only as a prelude to…
I LOVE operating trains, following my prototype’s actual timetable and directing car movements by a more complex than most car card/waybill system.
So, what DON’T I like? Waiting for some item absolutely crucial to progress to come in off backorder.