Being able to get as much done on the layout as I would like,trying to get it right the first time…then having to keep going back to ‘tweek’ and adjust things.This seems to apply to track work,motive power and rolling stock.Buildings that warp,glass becomes un attached…ON and ON and ON.
[soapbox]My biggest current frustration? Cost. I’d love to do more with my layout & fleet, but the general cost of this hobby is putting a huge damper on my progress.
It’s not just the cost of specific items (like locos, rolling stock, and structures – which is bad enough), it’s the additional cost of required tools and support materials. I prefer to do things on the cheap, but even this still requires a certain amount of investment that is hard to justify on a limited budget.
Yes, hobbies can be expensive. But I am starting to wonder what the point is of having one if you can’t afford to keep up with it?
Rant over. Sorry, I must be in a bad mood today…
Not being able to run trains!!! My layout isn’t far enough along. [:D]
I agree , it can be frustrating. and talk about “tweeking”, i installed under table switch machines, tweeking these is NOT a one person operation. You also mention buildings warping and windows falling off, been down that road too. To solve this i went on a “GLUE” hunt. I talked to the manager of my local hobby store and he gave me some ideas. So i tried different glues on scrap parts for certain things. I exposed them to heat, sun ,cold etc…The best overall glue i found for multipupose plastics and wood was cheap DOLLAR STORE SUPER GLUE in liquid form. it has worked great so far and doesn’t set as fast as regular super glue. Well good luck, i’m going to go frustrate myself with some scenery today.
About what?
These forums - the stupid polls people design who know nothing about marketing surveys and have built in bias.
My Railroad - time and money
Life in general - the next eight months of political ads and garbage we will have to endure and most of it will be either distorted or lies and the people who will believe what they hear.
right now the prices of rolling stock, locomotives, and other materials. also the time i have to work on the layout isn’t enough. this week i haven’t looked or ran any trains as i’ve been busy every night. also for some reason there are other things that are more important right now, like waiting for some PS2 games to come out and getting ready for a college visit i have next week.
N-scale couplers, especially those itty bitty springs+bad eyesight+sausage fingers=frustration.
Money. Not enough.
Mine is changing my mind on my track plan every 5 minutes
Gordon
Electrical conductivity. Especially if I make the mistake of using the points of a turnout to control the polarity of a frog. There must be a solution to that problem some place but I haven’t found it… - Nevin
Wiring. I hate wiring!! [banghead] I am glad DCC is out, but I’m not sure if I still have to have seperate operating blocks, or [censored] insulated whatevers! Frankly I’ll just run one big wire and pray I don’t fry anything (including myself) in the process. [:P]
Combinations of two words like…“SOLD OUT” and “LIMITED RUNS”!!!
Not surprising however,this is the way marketing is geared nowadays.Product suppliers only care about their financial benefits and certainly aren’t about to care about their customers.
I can understand that a “not too popular” item could be discontinued after a while,but having very popular items produced in “spoonfuls” so that only the luckiest ones can buy any doesn’t make sense.
Well,Okay,it makes sense to the manufacturers who make sure about overstocking,big inventories and so on,and this I still can understand.The part I don’t understand is why popular items aren’t returned to production right away,so that if a modeler misses purchasing from one batch,he can catch up on the next one without waiting years to do so.
My biggest frustration ever was when I finally had a fully functional layout to opperate at a show in Belgium last year and during the finall test run at home I found out that the wiring in my turnouts was so messed up I wasn’t able to get it functional in time. I spend the entire weekend driving my trains back and forth over my layout while a switchered was stalled on a dead track as if the engineer had a coffeebreak 
My ever lasting frustration are the high prices to get things imported from the USA to the European continent. Even whith the current exchange rates.
MONEY AND TIME!
ONE WORD: MONEY!!!
Oh Yeah, look out for dollar store stuff…
It’s cheap
In the book „Structures of the Early West“, I found the drawings of the Pitkin City Hall. I scratch build this structure and had nearly one Year of work with it. This structure was not yet implemented on my layout when I discovered the first ads for a kit of this structure in the magazines. Now I could have it done in much shorter time. However, my City Hall has a working bell and kerosene lamps in the entrance and in the stairwell, powered by an electrical bulb and fiber optics of course.
Rene