Leaving the hobby

[33C]

23 minutes ago, Phil Parker said:

because I made it myself.

I wanted a T14 "Paddlebox".....so i made one. ("What to do with B12's" thread)

"       "      " LMS "Claughton".....etc.

"       "      " GWR "Great Bear"....etc.

Won't win prizes but i like 'em.

Railway modelling, not buying. 

Trouble is, i keep building and not only loco's, so i'm running out of space! (but not money, Ha!)

Occasionally i put down the plasticard/card/tin and pick up the balsa or the Meccano/vintage Lego. 

"A change is as good as a rest!" someone once said....

[TheSignalEngineer]

49 minutes ago, 33C said:

I wanted a T14 "Paddlebox".....so i made one. ("What to do with B12's" thread)

"       "      " LMS "Claughton".....etc.

"       "      " GWR "Great Bear"....etc.

I wanted some non-corridor LMS stock long before Hornby made their P3 version. From two Airfix /Dapol lav brakes and two lav composites and a few whitemetal bits I made a P2 six compartment Brake 3rd, nine compartment all 3rd and a Push Pull Driving Trailer. Not the most detailed examples but they pass the test of "Do they look like a ....?" from 3 feet when running on the layout.

[steve45]

To me the hobby is also about the social aspects as well. I'm a member of a local model railway club and through this I also became a member of the operating team of an large static model model railway. As a result i have made a large number of friends over the years. Additionally I enjoy watching other peoples models on a weekly basis.

I can only say that Railway Modelling has enriched my life beyond collecting models, try becoming a member of your local club, you will find your hobby can be so much more.

[Robin Brasher]

10 hours ago, Phil Parker said:

 

A very valid suggestion. Going into the garden scales can be very economic. In 16mm, that £30 will almost get you a basic loco kit - complete. Spend time sticking details on the model, and you get a load of fun, for a bargain price. 

 

It all depends what the OP really wants. If they want a world where all the bells, whistles and details are stuck to every loco, made of metal and the whole lot costs £50, then it never existed, and isn't going to any time soon. Be a bit flexible and buy that old "duchess of sutherland" and there are loads of options. Railway modelling has something for everyone.

I missed out on 'Duchess of Sutherland'.  Then it appeared on the Swanage Railway that I am modelling.  I bought a second hand 'Duchess of Sutherland' from a set. It was to the present specification with locomotive drive and in pristine condition.  It is just as good as 'City of London' is likely to be when it comes out and I paid around £70 for it a couple of years ago so it is worth looking around for good quality second hand items whether you can afford new items or not.

[phil_sutters]

9 hours ago, Phil Parker said:

 

 

. The Hornby Peckett (for example) is a lovely model, but would make my kit-built locos look a bit rubbish, so I'd not run the two together. And I love my kit built stock, because I made it myself.

I kept the S&DJR stock I built or converted from r-t-r stock back around 1970. I am now building a diorama based on Highbridge Wharf, less than half a mile from where the models were built. I would love a nice blue Bachman 0-4-4T and some of the new SDJR liveried four and six-wheeled coaches, when they turn up, but a. I can't justify the expense and b. they would show up the standards I achieved back then. I am enjoying researching and modelling the wharf's buildings and collecting cheap second-hand goods stock, which should one day get painted into appropriate period liveries. I have yet to lay any track - except the wider crane tracks for the three steam cranes I have knocked up. I give credit to this renaissance in interest to one book - Chris Handley's The Maritime Activities of the Somerset and Dorset Railway and the 2mm scale line drawings of the S&Ds coasters in it. Sometimes it takes looking at the hobby from a different angle to kick start a new modelling era. I appreciate that everyone's interests, skill sets and resources of space and finance shape what they can aspire to and achieve, but if you can, stash away what you have, or your favorite bits - I sold off my GWR stock - keep in touch with the hobby and see if something sparks off a renewed interest. 

Best wishes for 2023 and I hope that, if you do finally reach the buffers, you find something else to enjoy. 

Edited January 1, 2023 by phil_sutters

[jjb1970]

The hobby doesn't have to be that expensive, nor do models need to be handled like Fabergé eggs.

 

If the issue is cost, as has been highlighted there are all sorts of options. Second hand can of course be a bit of a minefield for the unwary, it can also be a treasure trove of great stuff being sold for very reasonable prices. I have to say my experience of buying second hand model railway stuff has been overwhelmingly positive, in fact I've found many private sellers take great pride is describing stuff accurately and wrapping it up well so it is safe in the post. If you are in a position to visit shops then it's amazing what you can find sitting on the shelves of toy shops and second hand stuff shops. 

 

If it is about the fragility of modern super detailed models (which I suspect may be more of a worry than price for some) or you don't want the pain of adding lots of parts then buy older models which are much simpler and can stand a bit of handling. Quite a few of the slightly older Bachmann models look excellent yet are still robust enough not to give people anxiety just getting them out of the box, and the Hornby Railroad items are very simple. And that's before going further back to pre-China models.

 

I crossed this bridge a few years ago when prices of OO went North. I decided to concentrate on collecting HO North American and Japanese (with some Chinese) brass models. Now you may say 'hang on, you're whinging about prices and then say you decided to collect brass models, right......', but I am very selective and if you are patient and happy not to get sucked into the 'I must have that!!' mindset people might be surprised what becomes affordable if you are selective, buy less and are patient. I've had some beautiful factory painted Tenshodo models which were hardly more than current OO models. For running trains I have a box full of N gauge Unitrack and my N gauge Japanese models, it's amazing what you can get in Japanese N, prices are not so expensive and they're both durable and superb runners. I appreciate that my approach only works because I am interested in North American and Asian trains but it works for me and I don't spend that much. I still get the occasional OO item, such as the Accurascale Deltic. 

 

Make the hobby what you want it to be. Remember - nobody 'needs' a model train, we want them but that is not the same thing. Keep that in mind and do your own thing and you might find solutions to the things turning you off the hobby.

[AY Mod]

If we were to be honest I would suspect most of us could carry our hobbies on in some form or another until we croak without needing to buy anything else at all.

[RedgateModels]

1 minute ago, AY Mod said:

If we were to be honest I would suspect most of us could carry our hobbies on in some form or another until we croak without needing to buy anything else at all.

Ah, you’ve seen my projects list then 🤣

[Legend]

I’d say don’t do anything hasty . Sit back and reflect on it . I think we all lose our mojo at times . What you don’t want to do is sell your stuff then in two years time wish you still had them because you are interested again .

 

It is a broad church .  I quite often just set up my Tri-ang  Hornby trains from boyhood and watch them go round . Not super detailed at all but very relaxing hearing  the clatter as they go through diamonds . My layout actually looks more like one you would see in an old catalogue rather than some of the beautiful models you see like Dean Park or Everard  Junction . 
 

But you have to do what you enjoy.  I get the frustration of getting the latest model and it not running well , derailing or sounding like a cement mixer . But for every disappointment there’s usually 4 of 5 good ones  that restore your faith 

Edited January 2, 2023 by Legend

[john new]

On 31/12/2022 at 14:33, fulton said:

Sorry to hear, I sometimes get fed up with the hobby, I then give it a rest for a few months, and then come back refreshed.

Done the same several times. If ‘hobby/interests hopping’ is a thing then I have it. Modelling on hold currently as I am doing research prep for a talk I’m giving in late February to the local history group on early railways.

[phil_sutters]

It can be quite a good thing to try another hobby for a while. Having shared the building of a layout with my father when I lived at home, I didn't have the space for a layout when I got married and had children at home. I painted wargames figures for quite few years and actually earned a few bob from it. Then came a photography phase. That led to giving what could be termed slide-shows with commentaries. What was good about that was it focussed the photography onto a subject for a year or so. The first was on public artworks, based on my photos taken over a few years in my previous home area of Southwark. The second was almost exclusively photographed within the year after the first. That was about stained glass windows, mainly in churches. I was working up one, on the way the railways were crucial to the development of seaside resorts, and another on south coast fortifications, when the organisation for whom I was fund-raising for changed their focus and did not want that sort of general interest subject matter. So I am back to building bits and pieces for a railway model.

[The Johnster]

17 hours ago, Peter Kazmierczak said:

I'd be afraid to even breath on some of the highly-detailed modern stuff.

 

Nowadays I like to keep things simple (and cheap). Detailing an old, though still reasonably accurate secondhand model, is more pleasurable to me, than just opening the latest super-doopa item and planting it on the layout.
 

 

 

Agreed.  An older tooling that it to scale or near enough can be worked up, but some of the very old models, Triang or Hornby Dublo, are not worth the effort even if they are to scale; the amount of detail work, especially on the chassis, is considerable, and you have to replace wheels and buffers as well.  A worked up model has some of your time, thought, skill, and effort embodied in it, though, in the same way as a kit or scratch build, or a kitbash, and this generates a pleasure and satisfaction in it's own right.  All of my currently running locos and the majority of my stock is RTR, but none of them are as they were when I first removed them from their boxes.  All have had some working up to various degrees, even if it is only a minimal weathering wash to take the 'new' off, so they are all 'mine' in that sense.

 

I have a few 'factory weathered' models, but these undergo my own weathering process as well.  What's the point of buying factory-weathered RTR then, Johnster?  Well, if it's cheap on the 'bay and I want one, I'll buy it, but the factory weathering does not satisfy my requiremets.  It is usually a watered-down spray-over of an approximation of brake-dust colour, and can be effective enough; a Bachmann factory-weathered LNER fish van, for example, gave a very good impression of a van that had seen use on one of those express-timed ECML fish trains in some foul weather.  But Cwmdimbath is in the South Wales coal-mining valleys, and there's a lot of coal dust in the air everywhere, and it gets everywhere, so a wash of thin black and very dark brown goes over everything by default.  Minerals get a heavier dose of it of course, as well as being dipped in the coal bin to load them which auto-weathers them, but even ex-works vehicles that venture into the area will pick up a layer of it, and that's before you make allowance for whatever steelworks, coke ovens, phurnacite plants and other filth-spewing apparatus they're exposed to on the way.

 

I realise that there are many people who would be horrified at the idea of taking a pristine wonder-model out of it's box and promptly making it look dirty, but to me this is a core essential part of modelling.  I have no regard whatever for the resale value of a model, I bought it to use it, not to sell it on.  I never sell anything on, it's like selling your children, though I do sometimes give stuff away to good homes. 

 

Same goes for RTP and kit buildings.  It personalises them as yours, because they are different to what came out of the box and is on hundreds of other layouts. 

[johnlambert]

On 01/01/2023 at 13:58, AY Mod said:

If we were to be honest I would suspect most of us could carry our hobbies on in some form or another until we croak without needing to buy anything else at all.

Very true, apart from paint, glue and other consumables.

[slow8dirty]

Been there, done it, was frustrated with DCC issues at the time, looming job and income issues and rising costs all made me think at the time I couldn't afford to do it and sold everything up. Turned my back on the hobby. 

I was lying to myself, as even on the strictest of budgets several electric guitars ended up in my possession during my wilderness years.

Needed the model making still though so turned my attention to wargaming and plastic kits. My eventual return to the hobby was on the cheap, N gauge US switching plank, single single 2nd hand GP40, selection of wagons. I haven't actually completed it yet, but it got me back to the hobby. I learnt I need a creative hobby whatever I'm doing and appreciate this one all the more for some time out. I had become a bit of a collector before I gave up so even now only buy the new shiny stuff if it has a justified existence on one of my projects (well, mostly) and my kit stash is much larger than before.

[fulton]

2 hours ago, johnlambert said:

Very true, apart from paint, glue and other consumables.

Agree, when I had a spell unemployed, the hobby kept me going with very little cost, my Fulton Terminal layout is a result of that time.

[Bernard Lamb]

3 hours ago, johnlambert said:

Very true, apart from paint, glue and other consumables.

Nah.

Pinch them from SWMBO.

She has a good stock of most things.  The only thing I will need to buy is solvent for plastic card.

Bernard

[Free At Last]

3 hours ago, johnlambert said:

Very true, apart from paint, glue and other consumables.

I have recently found in my loft some Precision Paints Company paints (some unopened) I bought in the '70s.

A good stir, a ball bearing put in the tin and shaken and they are good to go.

[tomparryharry]

2 hours ago, Free At Last said:

I have recently found in my loft some Precision Paints Company paints (some unopened) I bought in the '70s.

A good stir, a ball bearing put in the tin and shaken and they are good to go.

I like the ball-bearing idea. Nice!

[33C]

8 minutes ago, tomparryharry said:

I like the ball-bearing idea. Nice!

L shaped piece of wire in a Dremel for super fast, super mixing! (Piece of card over the top, with a small hole in the centre for the wire to go through, if the tin is new, stops any splashing.)

[tomparryharry]

I've still got my model railway stuff here. That said, I personally diversify from a couple of different projects. If I stayed with model railways, I'd probably wouldn't enjoy the return. Right now, it's house  renovation, a vintage car, a shed (which I still haven't finished) plus a thousand & one other things that come my way. 

 

When the weather brightens up, I may take up rough shooting. Bag a few serfs wandering about the grounds, don'tcha know! 

 

The thing is, don't lose faith or act rashly. I know one chap was thoroughly disheartened by the performance of one model locomotive..... one locomotive... If I gave him a call, he's probably running trains.... Just like before....

 

Stick with it! Diversify!....... And..... happy New Year!

[slow8dirty]

56 minutes ago, tomparryharry said:

The thing is, don't lose faith or act rashly.

 

Stick with it! Diversify!....... And..... happy New Year!

Absolutely! With hindsight I allowed myself to be rash and get rid not just of the layout but some N gauge stock that could have tided me over until better times. I learnt and honed new construction and finishing skills from plastic kit modelling and painting skills from wargaming miniatures that are a boost to my enjoyment of this hobby. I still do plastic kit modelling as a diversion from railway stuff (as do many it seems). I knew a brilliant modeller, who modelled everything and anything, rail, military,air, fantasy, sci fi, architectural. All of it. You can overstretch yourself but equally you can pigeon hole yourself as well.