Did you add trains to your existing hobbies or did it replace one?

Best of luck to you in your new endeavor.

Not for me, no other hobbies in my past or present. O-Gauge trains have been a wonderful way to spend our spare time. There is not room in many ways for any more hobbies.

Yes, I added trains (O guage) to photography and they, as you can imagine, enhance each other quite well, particularly in the real train world.

Only hobby ever. Enjoy this hobby almost everyday, problems and all.

 

Brent

Yeah,  I can see a huge benefit being involved in both.  That's great!!!

For me, trains were the original interest and I still have the first set.  Others have come and gone, and I guess the only other I've retained has been autos - real/model/diecast/toy.

It was and is my only hobby. Had to work and support the family and did not take time for a hobby. Pulled out my LIONEL train set from 1954 and several thousand $$$ later I have one GREAT HOBBY.

Yes when I was younger I enjoyed many hobbies men seem to gravate to. I tried photography but the only thing I wanted to photograph were the ladies, the wife said I had to get rid of all that hedanistic stuff and find something else.

I pulled out the old Lionel one Christmas and I found my new hobby. Now that hobby has turned me into Joe Doakes the wife says.

There is just no pleaseing some folks.

Trains have been an interest since I was 3-4. But boats/offshore fishing was a bigger interest for 40 years. Age and depleted crew makes that an increasingly difficult pursuit and, with retirement, I have more time to spend on trains.

 

My son and his cousins used the boat last weekend while we stayed home and got some RR things accomplished. Leaving AM for Hatteras but taking train stuff to work on... after we fix what broke last weekend. Trains don't break like boats.

 

Fortunately my wife enjoys both.

I used to do antique cars and gave that up. I was also a stained glass artist and gave that up. I collected,restored pinballs and juke boxes as a business and hobby. I got out of that years ago but still kept a number of machines. I used to have hundreds,now I just have maybe a dozen and I have room for them. As far as money tied up,if you consider the money I made in the hobby restoring,I got all the machines for free. A few have sentimental value and were in the family a long time. One of the reasons I got out of the hobby was bad health, lack of time and the entry of some not so nice and dishonest people into it. 

 

As far as pinballs,they have historical,art and collector value,depending on the game. I guess what you like to do determines where you spend your time and money. Right now,I have just finished restoring a school building,a project of 12 years and am building a layout in it. I put an old skeeball game in it and 2 bumper cars. Financially I will never recoup the cost but it was fun dong and learning.I do not have the goal to die with money in the bank. But we spend our money prudently.  Go where your interests take you but be aware as you get older they may keep evolving. If any hobby is no longer fun,get out.There are some posters on the Forum here who always seem aggravated,so I am not sure why they remain in it. 

 

Dale H

I started with trains very very young and everything has branched from that.  Mostly collecting based (coins, memorabilia from my different organizations, general "old stuff") , but I got into building set stuff like legos and erector.  actually my collecting almost replaced my trains.  I had to put the trains in storage when I left for college, so my collecting efforts went to smaller items.  now I've been picking up some more trains in hopes that I will soon have the opportunity to set them up again.

Hardware,

    Welcome to the best hobby in the world.  The great thing about our O gauge hobby is you can make it as big or as little as you have room for, and spend as much money on it as you feel comfortable with.  There is no right or wrong answer, just keep in mind this hobby can become very very expensive if you let it.  The truly great thing about his hobby is the people you will meet, from all over the world.  In my case I was born into a Railroad type family that loved O gauge trains, especially at Christmas time.  In my era most all Pa families had O gauge Trains running around their Christmas trees, it was just a way of live at that time. It's major part of our family tradition.

PCRR/Dave

I love hearing stories like this.  I'm positive it was worth the wait.  Glad to hear this Roger, You deserve your hobby!

I'm still laughing.

Great topic!

 

Trains have always been an interest of mine, particularly model railroading. Only recently have I had the time, space, and money to indulge. (about 4 years)

 

Model RRing has not replaced any other hobby yet, but I can see it remaining as others fall away. For example -  I will someday lose interest in getting up at O-dark 30 to sit in the freezing cold to hunt deer. Likewise, if my hearing deteriorates a lot more then my dabbling in  three or four musical instruments may wane.

 

 

 

Nice change of pace from Pinball machines, good for you.

 

Me......... always been into O gauge trains (Lionel around the Christmas tree as a boy,   like many here).   Love the cross over into the real world and watching the real thing when I can.   So many aspects to this enjoyable act of model and real train activities......

 

Mark

I am into O gauge trains, Toys from the 60s (like gi joe) and all those big Remco toys of the cold war, I collect military medals, other military stuff, boy scout patches,

Historic military firearms, and accessories......

 

What was the original question again?

It hasn't be so much replace a hobby as a change in emphasis.  I am spending more time and effort with the model railroad hobby.  I have begun getting rid of stuff and concentrating on a more focused approach.  I still have my 4 aquatic habitats for the fish, I still own and ride 8 different bicycles up to 4K miles per year but where I used to take summers away from this hobby I find myself drawn to the basement to continue to try to improve things.  

I decided to get out of cowboy action shooting when I got back into model trains for several reasons:

1. I couldn't dedicate an entire day each month to it
2. It was getting exponentially more expensive every year
3. Work was making it really tough to get time off to shoot
4. The weather here is crummy for being outdoors about half the year
5. I was getting sick of almost every other pastime I have requiring other people or scheduled events

So, I decided to sell everything but my matched set of six-guns ammo for them. I used all that money for the layout construction, supplies and rolling stock. I've not regretted this at all. I suspect that Forty Rod who posted above might be the same one who is well known among cowboy shooters (Rod, if you're the same guy, I used to be known as Captain Lee Bishop in CAS)

I have many different hobbies that I still enjoy...

 

Military History, mostly displaying and taking part in WW2 living history events. I'm considered a known authority on war correspondents in WW2 and have consulted for books, TV and movies on the subject over the years. I have a few WW2 knick-knacks, including a 1944 Willys MB Jeep.

Space program. I tried being an astronaut. They didn't take me. So I go to the adult version of space camp every Fall I can get to it, and do public outreach work for the center in Huntsville

Art and cartooning. I've done lots of work for magazines, books, and other things. I'm currently in talks with the NMRA to get a monthly cartoon into their magazine.

 

Sci-Fi. I just love it. I used to go to conventions but they're hard to get time off for. I have a decent collection of screen-used uniforms, props and such from various TV shows and movies... If you ever watched the Battlestar Galactica series from a few years ago, you'll surely recognize what's behind me here:

Each of these interests rotate through the 'upfront' position in that at one point, one of these will be my primary focus at one point.

I have found that generally, once I re-embraced model trains after long time out of the hobby (I have never stopped chasing 1:1 scale trains, though), it's stayed well in the forefront of my thoughts. I do so badly like the idea that it's my layout, something I don't need to schedule or deal with other to enjoy, and it's not weather dependent (other than if a winter storm knocks out the power, that is). I left the hobby in disgust after a horrible experience with a HO module group in Florida in the 90s, and I will never repeat that experience again with a module group. I do, however, very much enjoy op sessions with an informal association of local layout owners, who have accepted me in their inner circle for the most part. Those great guys really steered me back to the hobby, something I'll forever be thankful for.

Trains from 58-66.....Then high school/college/med schooland they stayed in the closet except for an occasional floor set up in my bedroom over the Christmas holidays.

I was in Baltimore doing my residency in 1980 when I saw an ad in the Baltimore Sun for a Greenberg Toy & Train Show  at Towson State.....I went and I was hooked again. My next trip to the Bronx saw me collect my PostWar trains from the closet....and brought them back to Baltimore. 

I started going to swap meets and frequenting French's Trains in East Baltimore and Antique Train & Toy World on Falls Rd. In 81, I saw Ron Hollander's book....bought it, and it was all over......been doing trains continuously ever since.

 

Peter

I'm in the position to prioritizing hobbies. Model Railroading are a sideline for me right now.  

Wargaming is my main activity and will likely remain that way for some time because it involves bi-weekly hanging out with my friends.  Unfortunately it also takes up a HUGE amount of space in storing the minis, terrain (the biggest portion), model supplies, model kits, etc...

 

However, that leaves me with two activities that have been rather inactive.   I used to be very active in LEGO, LEGO-based community service and LEGO railroading, but wargaming has slowly pushed that out.  I have a strong feeling that LEGO move more to the fore when my 4 year old is a couple of years older.  In the meantime, however I have a half a room dedicated to LEGO and a club I visit maybe twice a year.

 

I've also got upright and electric bass.  After actively playing in bands for over a decade I've got 9 instruments, most of which I've significantly customized or even built and various other music gear .  It's not as much a LEGO, but they also take up a notable amount of room and play from time to time, but not nearly as much as the space they take up would suggest.

 

I'm not sure what I'll do.  Next Month we will be switching our LEGO/Crafting room and the guest bedroom.  That will give me alot of time to sort through what I've got and will also bring me into contact with all my music gear.  No real advice to offer, just to say I know what you're going through.

 

The wife was happy to see me give up on drag racing and road racing in favor of the train hobby. Costs a lot less and she stresses a lot less.

 

I'd bet. A pal of mine was into dirt track racing and decided to get into running a restored WW2 Stuart tank he'd recently bought instead. He said, "It's a lot cheaper," than the racing was, which caused my jaw to hit the floor with a loud clang, considering how much a running WW2 tank costs today!

My wife and I started out with Christmas villages during the holidays and we bought a train station for the village.  Well, a train station needs a train doesn't it?  I found a 70's era Lionel freight set on Craigslist and was immediately HOOKED.  Although I don't have the budget I'd like for my trains, I do have a year round layout now and am very much enjoying the hobby.

Trains were a part of my childhood, but unlike many, I was a spectator. My older brother got the trains, and even though told to share, I was always a bystander watching him run them.

I always enjoyed them, and as life took me through high school, college, military career and raising kids, I began collecting pieces for when I could make my own layout a reality.

I have always been involved with fun cars, building a 1936 Dodge sedan, refurbishing a 1969 Ford XL, and currently redoing a 1050 Chevy 5 window pickup and 1936 NASH.

I enjoy shooting, reloading, ATV riding, camping and traveling, so trains were added to these hobbies. Flying used to be a large part of my life until injuries and age took over, so now my other hobbies take front stage.

Trains came first. I got my first trains when I was six years old and have had trains in various scales (I have three scales now) ever since. I have several other hobbies currently that I have had for many years. I was briefly into R/C planes and collecting die-cast stock cars, but decided to cut back and got rid of them. I will always have trains. 

They have always been a part of my life. I grew up loving trains, full size and small.

Over the decades, I've had many hobbies and collections (music, art, car and truck cartooning, models, "electonics").  Trains real and model-related and train station architecture have waxed and waned in the background over the years. But the family post-war AF set was long gone, so out of sight out of mind.

 

Then recently I decided to investigate LEGO as a way to recreate the fun I had as a kid building houses with American Plastic Bricks and other architecture/construction toys I had. That got me into using them to design sculptures but I found it to be more frustrating than fun.  I'd sometimes use software to do a design, only to discover the parts were't available or not in the right color.  And it was getting expensive with little to show for it.  But my short-lived obsession got me back into seeing and observing the world around me in great detail! which was an important step to model trains.

 

As posted elsewhere, I kept eyeing the LEGO trains but worried I'd be equally frustrated with them. Then one day Amazon told me that I needed a Lionel PRR Flyer train set and coming from a PRR/Dravo family, I readily agreed. So, trains replaced LEGO but trains tie in so many of my prior hobbies, that it's great. All those jeweler files and paints and hand tools etc. are being dusted off and used again in wonderful and creative ways. And, although I'm not CARtooning anymore, having cars and trucks on my layout ties back to my interest in mechanical things.

 

TRRR

Model trains replaced hot rods which are still my lifelong passion but I'm now inactive.

Its a lot easier to work on your layout when you get up there a bit than cars.

I added trains to other hobbies.  I have also added a few hobbies since I got into trains.

 

Jeff Davis

I replaced abother hobby.  Was heavy into collecting 1/18 scale diecast muscle cars and NHRA cars representing the '60s and '70s.  Also collected 1/64 scale Hot Wheels.

I have always liked trains and living not to far from the old sal now csx.And going to the school which was real closse to the tracks.Ever time I hear a whistle I would look out the window to watch it go by.This made the teachers kind of mad.Whats funny is when I tryed not to look.I used to be into ho trains.But I could never run a long train.Saw a ad in a magzine for old lionel trains.I have always wanted a lionel steam locomotive so I brought 1.There was another   ad in the magzine for mth railking trains.An erie berkshire I was impressed with its pulling power.I was hooked I started buying locomotives and other rolling stock.I never looked back.

Impossible to say. My hobbies have always been in a state of churn as I have moved from one place to another and my ADD has shifted focus. At one time or another I've done mountain climbing, underwater photography, wildlife photography, scenic photography, various things involving firearms, woodworking, gardening, motorcycles, ski racing, and a whole lot of other things. I have closets and shelves full of equipment for various hobbies. I've changed hobbies according to geography - Scuba diving is a great hobby in Fiji, in Finland maybe not so much. Trains have been on and off. I'm currently tapering off and will probably be selling a lot of equipment in the fall when demand picks up. 

Added to existing hobbies -- computers, model cars, tinkering with a 1:1 car (still in the dog house over doing a Solo-1 competition). Then trains pretty much supplanted the other hobbies.

I had always been a model builder. Tons of cars and airplanes. I dabbled in H0 30 years ago, not as a train hobby, but as an extension to model building. My loco's  and rolling stock were almost all Roundhouse kits, or scratch built. All the structures were kit or scratch built also. I had no real interest in the trains as a hobby, just building a model landscape with a purpose. As the kids got older, the space was needed for other things. The model train bug only came about with the grandkids. They couldn't get enough of them. So 15 years later, they aren't particularly interested, but I am.

 

Steve

I guess I just like to make things with mine own two hands. Trains are just another thing that I can make along with the stuff that goes with them.

 

Don't get rid of the pinball machines.About 15 years ago I was going to sell off my train collection to buy more pinball machines.One of my Dad's friends said"why not do both?"It was very good advice for me.I have been enjoying both hobbies since.

Dan

Model trains was added to my list of hobbies.  I always loved model trains and my dad had a small HO layout when I was little that he pulled out only during Christmas time.  It wasn't until I brought my son to Charles Ro. that the love for the hobby hit me hard and have been going strong for the past 3-4 years.  

 

The other hobby that I absolutely love is firearms.  Unfortunately this hobby is very expensive and time consuming so that makes model railroading that much better.  With trains, I can just go in my basement anytime I want however many times I want.  With guns, I need to plan the trip to the range, and with 3 little kids its not always that easy.  I don't think I will ever abandon guns, but I certainly could see myself selling some for train money.  

 

 

Grab a drink and popcorn this aint short

(I'll cure you of liking like stories)

I seem to make a hobby of most everything I do.

But trains? 

I was born into it.

  The 2037 was mine from day 1.

 Great Grandpa collected Kusan/Kris/AMT/Auburn. 56 years at Fords, he would work doubles 7 straight, till he could take a month or two off to fish from Gulf of Mexico to the Tahquamenon river and everywhere between.

  Grandpa was a hardcore Lionel collector, and bigger rail fan.

 Dad just fished. And only the North.??

My other Grandfather, he was a machinist, woods craftsman, inventor, boater-real and in bottles, oil painter etc. A real artisan. He had me drilling brass for him like a trained monkey. Before school!

 

 I did it all, with them all, but trains were best!

Me and my brother, we ran our trains to death, and they supplied more.

 We couldn't kill those cast steamers though My brother gave me his Sante Fe Hudson when he went MTH. I have those, and a "few" other things from "way back" (20-30pc?).

 

  I had two, under the bed pullout layouts at times.

 Christmas and birthdays, they were a good chance to drive Mom nuts again.."Can I?.. Can I Mom?.. Can I?"...

 

 I had enough track by 6yrs old to run a bent dog bone from my bedroom to the kitchen table with 2 block pins & a KW.

  And enough hot wheel track and stacks of silver age comics, to go beyond that and into the basement.

 Comics came along again later. Bought them. Sold them. Got bored.

 Hot Wheels? Kept a couple. Bought "a couple"**

 

 Hand crafted gliders, diorama building, and plastic model kits ate up time growing up. 

  When I was 16 my step dad won a VW Bug in a poker game at work. He came home and said "Heres a car kid"..OK.

The excitement was short lived as I looked out and I saw it.

 It was a nasty looking bug. We worked on that with paint some. Then discovered it had a race motor in it, that with some tweaking, made most cars look silly in the 1/8th mile. It only did 90mph ...Bugs, they started me into CARS. But over years, they found me because I was the guy that had a few fast ones. I couldn't say no to the deals, and fell deeper and deeper.

 Working on a dune buggy, I needed to level a dirt floor garage to do it.

   Leveling the floor found me my Grandmothers Marx Commodore Vanderbilt set, buried in the earth floor

 RC cars came into play after a while. My electrics were no joke. An accident meant many many broken pieces .  I got bored. The street scene went dirt, the motors went "gas"(still beat most). It got boring. At least trains are boring and fun. Looping is like watching a campfire. So getting bored, one day I just bought a few train cars, and a Lost in Space model instead of batteries to match up.... I really should put some old servos to work on the layout.

 

 Building cars became building hotrods, leading eventually back to its core, the "rat rod". Hot rod junk art with a group of pals while waiting on parts came next. Those pieces, done for fun, ended up selling for "lots more go fast fun" Wrenching aint easy*.   

 

**Bugs meant Bug toys as nick knacks, and gifts.

 Hundreds and hundreds of VW toys. I stopped counting at about 700 total, 500 non-duplicates.

  It reached a level I needed a ceiling shelf that wrapped around a bedroom just for the big die cast, 2 high, 2 deep, 1/2 staggered.

After Christmas one year, the engines got put up there, in the gaps in front of the Bug boxes.

Then I put them on some track for looks.

Then I powered the track for passenger lights.

Then I moved the Bugs to the closet, and the gandy dance was on!

Two little shelves, and an AF truss bridge later I was pleased. But not done

 Running 2 lines, blocks, sidings, passing sidings, tunnel, and a grade as a permanent home for an E-33. And more .

 

  At about 90% done, I hurt myself in a way making it impossible to reach the shelf. (till more recently)(*cars had to go too, no torque). Work up there? It is over I think. Its ok, I just wanted more. They run without issue, and I got it lit first at least.

  But all was not lost after the injury. From my couch, I sold & traded many things that I decided I shouldn't use anymore, and I went from 6 to 18 pre-war to tmcc locos in about a year.

 Then I re-injured myself worse riding a bike, (another dropped pastime).

I would ride 15miles after work, wrench till midnight, and then ride home. 

 Anyhow, injured again, bored out of my skull knowing Id be stuck at home crawling for another year, but getting well enough to start crawling around, I still had enough old track to put some on the floor, at a handful of track a day pace. I could only lift an AC/DC MPC dockside conversion. But evolving over time from "just a simple oval around the coffee table", that my pal finished pressing together to this below. It had automatic block control too. Two trains, no command, no collisions. 

    

 In hindsight, that coffee table sure was fun. No shame felt for the messes that's for sure. My elevated yard, and my work bench. I wasn't strong enough to scratch it.

 

  After I could stand and lift both of my arms better, I got some help, and built a 4.5x9 table to play around with.

 And I also put an 0-27, "perfect" circle loop down permanently on a 27"x27" drawing table, to keep me busy during upgrades and changes, since I know they take me so long. (remember that, a "carpet layout" while you build a table layout, scratches the itch to run while leaving you free to build).

 One day, I hope to get to at least lay track on my Grandfathers "abandoned" layout, but physically I can't use it, or rewire it, like it was.

 

  I'll have to settle for a big, top wired, dog bone- vs -a 4 main line, 2 spur loops & a big yard.    

  

Got any of that drink left? I'm parched.

AhhhhII told you a long one was coming