GreenDiesel001 Posted March 5, 2011 Share Posted March 5, 2011 Hello. Does anyone feel they would like to discard all there collection of model railway items and begin again? I have been interested in model railways since, when I was about 8 years old, I first saw a small TT gauge layout in the window of a model shop in Peterborough in the early 1950's. I didn't get it for Christmas but it did make its mark and whilst I have had other hobbies i.e. model boats, model aircraft etc I have always come back to the railways. The first model we had was a Trix Twin 0-4-0 tank loco with a couple of wagons and black bakolite track. It disintegrated when it was powered directly from the mains. Why I didn't go up in smoke I'll never know. My present layout is as far as I have ever got despite starting other layouts in N, 009, 00, 0 and TT gauge I have never been satisfied with my efforts This has been made worse when one sees the results of other modellers layouts. I do enjoy looking at good well built and realistic layouts which is why I always wanted one of my own. However, when one sees fine scale layouts, and I mean not narrow gauge like 00 gauge, but something that looks prototypical it puts my modelling ability into perspective. So here I am with a load of TT gauge, bought for nostalgic reasons, some 0 gauge locomotives and goods stock, bought because it runs so much better that 00 gauge and a mish-mash of 00 gauge stock and wondering is all my effort worth while? Do others have this frustration at their ability and wonder what they should do to satisfy their needs from the hobby? Jeff Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
Kenton Posted March 5, 2011 Share Posted March 5, 2011 Do others have this frustration at their ability and wonder what they should do to satisfy their needs from the hobby? Spend even more time on RMWeb and less time worrying about it. Its an easy life sitting back and appreciating the work of others who are more focused. Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
rob D2 Posted March 6, 2011 Share Posted March 6, 2011 I hear you Jeff, It's very hard to narrow down what you want - considering there is so much stuff about in so many scales.My example may be worse than yours: 1980-1985, OO HST set a few wagons, dad's N gauge stuff 1998 restarted modelling, got a large collection of lima 2003 bought some contemporary N gauge 2004 sold N gauge, sold alot of modern image and bought more Bachmann/Hornby 2005 Decided bored with contemporary stuff, sold most of it. 2006 invested heavily in BR blue era 2007 Repurchased contemporary stuff (I blame chris nevard for that !) 2008 Inherited dad's N gauge stuff 2009 Bought some O gauge track, and some wagons.Bought some sectorisation era stuff 2010 sold sector era stuff. It's cost me thousands in indecision and changing my mind. I am now firmly either early 80s or late 90s and go through alot of soul searching before I buy anything ! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
RMweb Gold tractionman Posted March 18, 2011 RMweb Gold Share Posted March 18, 2011 hi Jeff and Rob, I have the same dilemma, having started in the late 70s as a young modeller with a motley assortment of mainly Hornby steam and diesel, now largely still packed away in my dad's loft, though I kept the 009 stuff out and periodically built a coach or waggon kit in the 1990s with the intention of doing something serious in 009, right up until comparatively recently (well 2005!), when in a nostalgic whim instead I started buying up (off EBay...) various OO gauge 25kv electric locos in BR Blue, cos they reminded me of my youth. However, I then also got besotted by the new Hornby Southern Railway releases, thinking I might start a late inter-war SR layout, but yet more BR blue locos found their way onto my shopping lists (and even a few LNER steam locos too!), so now I am little further on, except that I do now have a small plank 'layout' in the making - the ubiquitous D&E TMD! - having left for a rainy day my plans for setting out a loft-based roundy-roundy... Now, with the TMD project itself somewhat stalled by indecision, I have been eyeing up 5.5mm narrow guage (3-foot, ie. to run on OO track) as a parallel project, but this is still at the drawing board stage... and lately I have even started to look at N gauge locos - BR Blue of course - thinking to myself, if I work in a smaller scale there is a chance that my miniscule plank might actually turn into something concrete... but would it? I doubt it - more indecision ensues, and more forum musings instead of getting on and finishing something! Oh well... such is life. all the best, Keith Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
GreenDiesel001 Posted March 19, 2011 Author Share Posted March 19, 2011 Hi Keith. Many thanks for your posting. I think it is just that we like railways, in nearly any form. I say nearly any form because for some reason I am not a lover of preserved railways believing they are pseudo-railway. I expect that will get a few comments! I can't focus on whether I want an end to end, an end to fiddle yard or a roundy roundy layout? The answer I suppose is one of each or one layout incorporating each aspect, and then to add a narrow gauge line I have Michaelangelo aspirations but with zero ability. Oh well, back to the layout. Regards, Jeff Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
PGN Posted March 19, 2011 Share Posted March 19, 2011 I did this a while ago, and very satisfying it was too! I have always been an N gauger. When I was younger I was firmly in the LMS camp. And why? Well, because in the 1970s my father had got a 1973 Graham Farish catalogue to see what all the N gauge fuss was about, and having studied the range of wagons on offer most carefully, he wrote "LMS has most choice" in the margin. And to my impressionable young mind, that meant that LMS must therefore be better (the idea that wagons ran across system boundaries never having occurred ...) So I grew up learning more and more about the LMS and its constituent companies ... and collecting LMS stock to the exclusion of all else. Then when Minitrix folded I rapidly gathered in a collection of Minitrix models "just in case I ever want to do BR steam" ... but it gradually dawned on me that actually I wasn't remotely interested in BR steam. Nor even LMS steam. It was the pre-grouping constituent companies that interested me. So I sold off the ENTIRE collection (apart from a handful of locomotives which I kept for no better reason than nostalgia ... although they will probably be going shortly too) and turned my focus ENTIRELY on pre-grouping in N (hence my login: PGN = Pre-Grouping in N). And not just LMS constituent companies, either. ANY pre-grouping. As the newly refocussed collection has been growing, I have begun to plan what layouts I will build to run it on. At the moment I am building a portable experiment layout, to make my mistakes on, which isn't necessarily pre-grouping at all. It is going to depict the ficitious Ouse Valley Light Railway, giving me a chance to play at being Colonel Stephens from time to time. And I'm laying down plans for a permanent "generic pre-grouping" layout in my railway room, to allow any pre-grouping stock a chance to stretch its legs. Then I plan to build some or all of the following: 1. Shalford Junction: the stretch of line just south of Guildford, where all three of the Southern Railway's constituent companies ran their trains over the same metals, passing through the North Downs in the Wey valley. 2. A layout (location yet to be determined, and probably a composite fictitious location) depicting the ROD in France in 1918 3. An NER location near Stockton, where I can run both Judith Edge electrics and steam traction 4. Garstang & Catterall (LNWR and Garstang & Knott End) 5. Stanley Junction (Caledonian and Highland, to portray the "locomotive crisis" period in 1915 when the Highland had to run 20 "foreign" locomotives borrowed from other railways in order to cope with the wartime traffic demands) That should keep me going WELL into retirement ... but if I end up with time on my hands, I have this ridiculous notion that I might one day attempt a model of Carlisle Citadel. Which gives me a reason to build Glasgow & South Western stock, even though the layout will probably never be built. It really has given my modellign a new lease of life; and I would recommend that anybody who is feeling that their modelling has lost its focus a bit to sit down and analyse what REALLY interests them, and then to refocus their modelling on that! Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
TT3 Posted March 23, 2011 Share Posted March 23, 2011 Nice to see another TT fan. Upon careful reflection, I have come to the conclusion I have not done any 'proper' modelling at all.. 1970s - traing 00 train set layouts 1980s - N gauge and an almost proper terminus/fiddle yard effort 1986 - 1992 Triang and dublo nostalgia style layouts, 1999 - 2004 Traing/dublo collecting and no layouts 2004 - 2011 vintage 3mm (traing/bec/k's) and a semi proper layout 2011 - who knows, should I keep going in 3mm? Trouble is modern 00 offering are just so nice, 3mt, 7f, class 15, cravens DMU... Link to post Share on other sites More sharing options...
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