With the turn of the new year, we all make resolutions… whether or not we stick to them is subject for another discussion post. I was reflecting on my progress I have made with my railroad and where I hope to be a year from now… for me, I am looking to buy my first home in about 6 months. I live in Wisconsin, where basements are plentiful and this has become a must have for me when considering my future home. So a year from now, I hope to be out of my apartment and in a new home, with a nice little basement for my workshop and layout… what is your model railroad resolution…? Benchwork? Layout design? Finally weathering the fleet? Traveling cross country for some well deserved relaxation and prototype research? I would love to hear… and hopefully get some motivation for my other projects as well. Cheers!
I am afraid this year will be my final year in this hobby, which has been accompanying me for over 56 years. I am no longer able to do the modelling work. I have been trying to sell my layout, but did not succeed, so I will be donating it. Engines and rolling stock, however, will be sold through the usual channels.
Hi Ulrich,
Happy New Year!!
I don’t believe you! If you give up this hobby you will be letting one of your major pleasures pass out of your life. Don’t do that to yourself! If you can’t actually do any modelling, then at least stay with the forums. You are an insightful and knowledgeable contributor. Where would we be without the many videos that you have shared?
You will disappoint a lot of people if you leave the hobby. If you do, I will buy a ticket to Hamburg (or hopefully, Denmark) so I can personally kick your butt several times!!![swg][(-D][(-D][(-D]
Cheers to a good friend!!
Dave
My personal resolution for 2020, other than kicking Ulrich’s butt if he tries to leave the hobby, is to get on with the numerous modelling projects that I have on my plate. I admit to having procrastinated over the past year, so before I kick Ulrich’s butt, I need to kick my own!!
Here is what I have been avoiding. Everything is for the club:
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Finishing the 9 stall roundhouse, diesel shop/machine shop, paint shop, brake shop, steam plant, and the ice house/icing platform,
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Building the Huntsville station and freight shed (I’m still not happy with the size),
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Building signals in HO for the club and in N for my friend Henk,
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Updating the club’s website BARM.ca,
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Learning to use JMRI to set up basic operations for the club,
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Finishing the mountain scenery.
In amongst all of that I have to lead the club through our 50th annual train show and sale in February, and continue to do all the things that a club’s President has to do. I think I’m going to be busy!!
Cheers everyone!!
Dave
To actually get trains running!
I don’t do resolutions. That’s not how I live, nor is it how I do my model railroading.
My layout has been done (no wait, model railroads are never done) to point of scenery and running trains since 2014? Somewhere around there.
I have many projects in the works, detailing projects, to “deepen” the layout, and fill in some voids, along with locomotive and rolling stock projects.
I work on them as I get inspired to do so. The last week or so, besides running trains, I spent some time with a On3o locomotive, doing some repair work, and running different small layout schemes through my mind.
I think next, I’ll spend some time on my steamline passenger train.
Last year I did get my long awaited MILW. transfer caboose project, and an overhead crane “build-n-bash” for my transload area completed.
Good luck with the house and move IrishRR. [Y]
Mike.
I’m hoping to find the spark that gets me wanting to work on my layout again. I got the table built, laid out my track and got a few “external” walls built for most of my buildings to see them on the layout. And then - nothing. Been sitting like that for almost a year. Can’t quite figure out what it is I don’t like, but I keep looking at it each day!
I was never into this resolution thing either, it seems like an artificial thing imposed by media or peer pressure. Best thing is to resolve on an ongoing basis to do your best.
I do hope to make major progress on a layout started during December. Benchwork started going up in early December:
There are two more sections up on either end (not shown), and two more sections assembled and ready to add. Yesterday I picked up some more wood and a sheet of Homasote and applied some paint to it for a better surface to work with.
To actually build something. Contractor is coming over Friday to get the down payment for starting the build work, expect to be finished by the end of the month, but they will be working back to front so I probably could start before they are completely finished, but to do so i would have to immediately cut up any lumber I bring home and get it inside, this is not the time of year to leave wood stacked up outside, and there is no room in the garage right now, with all the former basement stuff stacked up and my car parked for the winter.
They (the contractor) turned me on to a place that actually sells the GOOD plywood. I thought they were strictly wholesale to contractors but it appears they do sell retail as well. They have all sorts of specialty products - if you want to build nice cabinets and furniture, this is where you would go.
–Randy
My layout has been in storage once again for about 2 years, so my resolution is to get my layout moved from Nebraska to my current location in Tennessee and find a house with enough room for it.
I’ve also moved, and the trains have not been set up yet. So, that’s the job. Most of the train stuff is upstairs already in the new train room, but one large chunk remains in the garage and must be disassembled. I still have planning to do. Some of that is the “abundance of riches” problem we face when we must downsize.
I probably will not rebuild the subways. They are neat, but face it, they just run around in an oval, no switching or anything else. Other than that, the most action they see is when I have to keep moving them around to clean the track with the CMX machine.
I’d like to keep the roundhouse and the carfloat terminal. These must be more accessible, both because they need to be practically, and because the new layout won’t have a large section, rather be more around-the-walls.
This is mostly a list of projects yet to do.
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Change out the gears on my Bachmann Shay. I have the NWSL replacement gear set ($35) but the holes in the gears are a little too small to accept the axles. I have a set of numbered drills and I will carefully measure the axle diameter and drill out the gears to match, leaving just a tad of interance fit. I also have a tube of Red thead locker in case I over do the drilling. While the shay is in the shop decal an owner’s name on the “tender”
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Design and build a circuit to make the crossing flashers flash. Use two pair of IR LEDs and phototransistors to detect the train. If a train gets parked on the grade crossing should the flashing stop after a while?
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Paint and install more people on the layout.
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Redo the mail boxes. I bought a set of diecast HO scale mailboxes, painted them, installed them and discovred that they are just too small. They don’t look big enough to accept an HO scale magazine, let alone an HO scale load of junk mail. My real mailbox is like 2 feet long and nearly a foot high. These diecast model ones are nowhere near that big.
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Make and install more trees.
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Trouble shoot a spot on the mainline where the trains slow down for no apparent reason.
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Trouble shoot a passing siding where I cannot turn off track power to keep the train on the siding. This used to work, dunno what broke.
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Think up good names from all my lineside industries and put signs on their buildings. I alread have Lotta Rock Diary, Franconia Paper, and Digital Equipment Corp. I need maybe four more names.
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Think about a deep river gorge that the mainline crosses on a soaring bridge. I may not have enough space left on the layout to pull this off.
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Make some videos of my best trains, B&M stramliner, the long ta
I’m getting close to the way Ulrich feels. I started an overhaul last February and my layout it’s still not up and running. Old age and Arthritis have made it almost impossible to get anything done on my layout. Good days are few and far between.
At least I am able to work at my workbench so I’m still working on ‘My Model Railroad’.
I had a goal for last year to finish the wiring but it just didn’t happen. When I set my goal in May for Christmas I figured that was plenty of time but it’s a new year and not very much accomplished.
I’ve kept going at my workbench and have something to show for the past few months. I have remotored a half dozen locomotives and finished 9 Arduino projects. The Arduinos are waiting on the rewiring of my layout but ready to go.
So my new goal is my old goal, 
Me
I worked for the Post Office for a couple of summers when I was in college. From experience, mailboxes were always too small, particularly when people got Life Magazine delivered, or Playboy. I never delivered to rural mailboxes, though.
This is also one of my main goals this year. I have to finish a scratch-build shopping center, and then I have a grain elevator kit I got for Christmas. After those are done, I will try to start my first crossing flashers.
My New Year’s hobby resolution is simple:
Plastic diesels are out; brass is in. My goal is to sell every plastic diesel I own and to only run brass. (My son will retain his Genesis diesels, which only includes 4 units, and his one MTH SD70ACe). I plan to keep one old Stewart/Kato PRR F-3.
The reasoning is that I got a brass model back from my painter, and the work was so good, combined with the highly detailed model, that it immediately put my fleet of plastic diesels (of the same thing) quite a bit to shame. Without bashing any manufacturers, I realized that those who say the plastic is as good as brass are in some cases not being fully truthful. For me the difference was obvious between models of the exact same prototype. Howard Zane is correct when he says that the look of paint on an actual metal surface generally appears “more realistic” than it does on plastic. With good paint work, that indeed is the case.
Also, I only need a few engines to run my layout, so I don’t have all that many to replace. Liquidating the plastic I do have will pay for the paint jobs on the brass I have on hand or hope to get.
I am definitely not saying that anyone else, especially Sheldon, should do what I do. This is what is best for my modeling goals and is not meant to infer that anyone else should ever do what I do. I only responded to the question that was posed above. I have also experienced…a level of frustration with mass produced plastic models not always living up to what was advertised. The brass isn’t perfect either, but can often be straightened/realigned/resoldered/modified prior to painting, and then I really have something that is unique (e.g. some Mexican paint schemes not done in plastic).
John
My goal is to build a diorama of some sort to practice basic techniques and develop some skills. I’d also like to assemble a few kits. Continuing to add to my reference collection for future modeling ideas. Lastly, continuing to add to my per diem boxcar collection and adding other rolling stock and a few locomotives. Maybe sell at another show or two. With a 7 month old starting to move and no space for a layout, I hope these are easy goals to accomplish In my “free time”.
My traditional modeling resolution is to finish more projects than I start. Maybe I’ll actually manage it one of these years.
This is painful for me.
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January 2020 was supposed to be the date of breaking ground on the Actual Sixth STRATTON AND GILLETTE layout, but nothing, NOTHING, has happened on my house remodel in 2019. The Master Bedroom is not done, so I do not have a Train Room, and no layout construction.
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I need to be home to get the contractors and workers doing what I cannot do. I am just never here.
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In 2019 I had to oversee the remodel on our Atlanta Facility. In 2020 I need to spend several weeks in Atlanta, Indianapolis, and Charlotte. I only made it to Charlotte once in 2019, that will not do.
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I don’t know what I can do to get this thing moving along.
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My resolution would be to finish the train room in 2020, but that does not seem likely. I am running out of time, and I feel like I am failing at my personal life goal.
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At the rate I am building the Fleet Of Nonsense, it will be done in 2020. I guess that is getting work done, but not what I want to be doing.
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I am over two years now without a layout. This has never happened before.
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-Kevin
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That is an impossible goal.
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-Kevin
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