Trackwork and scenery.
My favourite part of model railroading?
Locomotives!
Make mine: Running trains through scenery, and scenery.
I love building Bowser Locos and re-building older brass locos Steam
Sam
Working on my models and the layout is what I consider to be my “down time” No children, wife, work, cell phone, or others to bother me. Morale of the story, the peace and quiet is what I enjoy the most.
Todd
Mine include video railfanning, painting, and the computer research/design. Now, if only I could get them out of my head and in 3D
Building something and finishing it and everything works like you planned it the first time, no checking for ground shorts.
Locomotives and running them. Or so I thought. After the Galesburg train show yesterday and today, I’ve come to the conclusion that it must be “Buying Them”.
Dick
Texas Chief
Definitely sneaking expensive stuff into the house.
Setting up scenes around my layout, photographing them and trying to make the photos look “real”
I like that idea to. My newest loco is usually my favorite but when I purchase a new one, it becomes my new favorite. It must be the joy of trying to find all of the new little details on it.
OK, I just thought of what it is in the hobby that I like to do best. I really like it all and I have a lot of favorite things, but what my most favorite thing is:
Figuring something out.
Figure out how to do something that I haven’t done before. Whether it is working on a new layout, expanding an existing one, scratch building something or building a kit, or doing something no one else has done. Just the process of design and engineering the pieces or project to achieve the end result, then building it and seeing it completed successfully.
Restoration and repair are fun, and way up on the list. But scenery is the most fun activity for me, aside from running trains.
I like to visualize a scene in my mind, and then make it happen on my layout. I started doing this with my subway stations. A lot of this was “technique development,” which is a fancy term for “figgerin’ out what in the name of blue blazes I’m doin’.” An important side track from this, of course, has been learning how to photograph these scenes so that I can post them here on Photo Fun, where the standards are pretty high most weekends.
Right now, though, I need to work on making my layout more fun to operate. It’s nice for railfanning, but it has no staging and therefore no “connection” to the outside world. Thanks to what I’ve learned here, and a generous offer of more space from my wife, I can now plan an extension to my layout which will add a lot of the things I missed the first time around.
I’d say working on scenery is pretty tops with me, but one of my real pleasures is finding an old brass steam locomotive junker and spending the time and effort to turn it into a good runner. And after that, it’s watching that ex-junker hauling a train through the scenery I just finished.
There’s actually a multitude of pleasures in this hobby, but the two I mentioned are pretty much at the top of my list.
Tom [:P]
I just like running trains! [^]
Rotor
Beating my head against the wall!!!
Hi!
I’ve been “playing with trains” since 1954, and I firmly believe that model railroading is a hobby that offers the opportunity to hone a multitude of skills, and also a hobby that can last a lifetime!
I consider layout construction to be the biggest expression of model railroading, and the parts of that objective would: layout design, benchwork construction, track laying, wiring, scenery, model building, electronics, prototype research, RR operations, etc., etc.
Without hesitation, I can say that I enjoy all of these steps, but have a weakness in electronics as it applies to MR. As I have been in the hobby for 50 plus years, I’ve gained what I call average or above average skills in most of the parts, but there is certainly room for improvement. One attitude that has helped a lot is that I will not accept “good enough” when it comes to benchwork, tracklaying, or wiring. And that has given my layouts longevity and reliability in operation. Ha, but that same attitude has cost me sleep more than a few times.
Hey, ENJOY !!!
Mobilman44
Absolutely Locomotives!!!
So far, it is making models and also trying to figure out a track plan and the accompanying DCC electrical problems. I need to tear down what I have and start over but seem to be building models and reading instead of getting to it!! [banghead]
Cheers, Jake