Do Model Railroaders Have Other Hobbies?

Bad Order,

Nice Tesla coils you have got there. I built one when I was younger and the coil would throw almost 3 foot sparks. My hobbies include building old telephone switching equipment and collecting and restoring old phones. Also heavy into computers, smart house control, photography, and electronics.

Of course they do!

1. Fly Fishing

2. Wine collecting and tasting

3. Photography

Matt

My other 2 Hobbies are Collecting Aviation related items from WW2, Korean war, and Vietnam. Collecting pocketwatches. I had over 300 at one time, down to a few 100 now.

Built a 737NG cockpit with a lot of working knobs and switches that function. Grand kids love playing with it. Runs on 5 networked computers and 8 monitors. A lot of add on software and Microsoft Flight Sim 9. Main PC runs 2 video cards for the forward views. The other PC's run all the glass instrumentation.

Too many, honestly and for now work keeps getting in the way of all the "Fun".

Summer is Boating and Golf

Fall/Winter Hunting and Trains

Cars fill in the gaps year-round.

Nelson, that's a really nice aircraft cockpit you've built!

Gilly

guns,aerospace, trains, scale metal cars,national defense,paleontology,drum playing,cooking, model building, collecting old missile models,photography,rocketry,rocket and missile history, airplanes.

A VERY NICE JOB ON THE COCKPIT

Bob C.

Way too many, and way too expensive.  Railroad history and model railroading, modern and vintage autos, photography, and travel...and all seem interrelated,

and there is not enough time or money for any of them.

I have a theatre pipe organ that I built and installed in our home.  The console is from a 1927 Wurlitzer.  The pipes are from various manufacturers.  I built a roll player attachment that plays the organ from piano rolls.  When I get tired of working on the layout I work on this project.

1927 Wurlitzer console

Some of the pipes

Tom

WOW, Guys...I'm Overwhelmed!

Here's my home-made hand-cranked 300,000-Volt Electrostatic "Bonetti" Machine.

A pair of 25" diameter counter-rotating acrylic discs generates the charge, which crashes between the copper terminals when the Leyden Jars let go.

BAD ORDER

But of course.....

Nice cockpit. This was mine for many hours.

Love the Cockpit.  Used to fly gliders.

Trains in the winter, cycling in the better weather (at least 4,000 miles per year)

Fish keeping, fresh water tropical, fresh water african cichlids, gold fish pond, koi pond, smaller marine aquarium.

HEY CHOO-CHOO BOB,

Those are not Tesla coils...what you see is ONE Van de Graaff Electrostatic Generator, which I designed for a yield of 1.12 million volts, which it never achieved due to excessive corona leakage.

The 30" sphere is now a backyard garden ornament.  (The metal spinner charged me $300 to spin the 2 hemispheres)

The other 2 devices are simply ground terminals to give the discharge a complete circuit. 

I stopped building Tesla Coils years ago when I realized that the primary excitation voltages were lethal...they could KILL you!

The super high voltage secondary discharges are harmless, because they're high frequency, which does not penetrate the body, but flows over it externally. 

It's the much lower 60Hz primary voltages that are dangerous...like an electric chair!

BAD ORDER

BTW...in the early 1950's I worked as a dial central office equipment installer for the General Telephone Company.

I installed the old Stowger step-by-step electro-mechanical switches...Line Switches, Line Finders, Selectors, and Connectors.

Ham radio, photography, reading, and spending time with my family.  Sometimes I can even combine them.

Cycling and Running to stay in shape (so I can chase the little one!).

Cruisin' pickups with my pops (mine is the 1972 -- he drives the 1954)

Camping in our restored 1961 Serro Scotty Sportsman.

HEY SINCLAIR,

I'm ex N6CEY

73, BAD ORDER

Just a few{too many!}-

-pair of old Kawasaki sleds in the mother-in-law room{covered trailer}

-what my wife calls my other wife{she's in for new glass seals and interior-not the real wife, the car!}

-a few models for retirement{I should start a hobby shop-really}

-a few restored old tonka trucks for my son{more not seen}

-my Burlington Route collection

...I think that's enough...and in my spare time I play with model trains!!!

HEY JOE,

I always liked Thumpers! 

Here's my 652cc Suzuki Savage "Big Single" and my 1950's era Whizzer Motorbike:

BAD ORDER  (At 77, too old to ride anymore!)

As in my profile, I have a couple other interests, here's a sample:

That's a nice looking Gibson SG there!(?)

On my 40th bday I got a 40th Anniversary Stratocaster from my wife.

Where to start.

Tent Camping in the woods with family.

Computers, Flying Model rockets (Big Ones), Remote Control Planes Jets and Helicopters, Guns, Live Action Role Play with Medieval Armor and weapons (I have a suit and many weapons), Reading, more.

See my website for pictures

HEY OVERLAND,

Ahhh...a Gibson!

Just learn your Major, Minor, Minor 7th, Diminished, Augmented, 6th, 7th, and 9th Chords in all 12 keys (96 chords), and then sit down and have a nice cocktail while listening to Les Paul!

BAD ORDER  (Playing Bass in a Senior Citizens band...they weren't very good, and

three in that picture are now deceased...the Pianist was 98.) 

At at the risk of being picky and technical, there are really only 3 diminished chords--when you consider the actual notes being played. There are four inversions of each chord. 

Jeff C

Collecting potato chips that look like Elvis.

I never understood how someone can only have one or two hobbies. At one time or another I have been involved in:

• Radio Controlled Aircraft, Boats, and Cars
• Slot Cars
• Video Games
• Fishing
• Boating (Speed, Cruise, and Sail)
• Hi-Fi Audio and Home Theater
• Plastic models
• Camping
• Archery
• Kayaking
• Hiking
• Railfanning
• Sports cars
• Motorcycling
• Bicycling
• Model Rocketry
• Computers / Hi-tech

And probably others...

So go renew your ticket.

73, W7OYA

Guns, Shooting M1 Garand, M1 Carbine 1903A3 and 1911 including reloading and camping with the wife and hopefully this summer the new granddaughter. Forgot about collecting diecast trucks and autos used the excuse they were for the layout but have way more than I could ever get on the lay out if it is ever finished.

Ride the bike and hike.
Pittsburgh to DC bike ride.


Salisbury viaduct.

Grand Canyon 2011 Son Matt/daughter-in-law Emily.

Hike between Cottonwood and Bright Angel Campgrounds.

On our way from the river to the South rim.  Break just before Indian Garden

Vermont/Mount Mansfield last summer.

THAT'S RIGHT, JEFF!

There are only 3 diminished chords, BUT they are known by 12 different names! 

With augmented chords, there are 4, also known by 12 different names!

QUIZ:

What is the so-called "Devil's Interval"?

BAD ORDER

Oh yeah, many other hobbies.  I've been shooting since I was 6, and nowadays it's all military weapons, M1 Garands, M-14's ect.  In the warmer months I water ski, boating and so on.  And I am a big John Wayne fan...not really a hobby but what the heck.

HEY MIKE,

Ride the bike and hike, you say? 

Will this one do?

  BAD ORDER

Whoops! Forgot one ham radio N2XSU

Old orphan cars, especially Studebakers,

 restoring antique radios and round screen televisions,

singing acappella, both barbershop and doo-wop,

rebuilding/restoring/converting old car radios for pocket change

being retired and goofing off.

Woodworking (furniture), guns (especially Remington 722 & 721 bolt action rifles), reloading and boolit casting, and target shooting. I also read a lot (historical fiction).

As of course O scale trains, 2R & 3R (for the grands).

Malcolm

Absolutely !!!   Target and Skeet shooting... Gardening,  My Vol Fire Co, my Doberman Pincher and.... oh yea My 1965 GTO Convertible.. 

Since I don't have a layout I don't know if I qualify as a model railroader, but other hobbies, heck ya!!

1)

2) There no 2. 

I have a few:

Genealogy

Stamp Collecting

Photography

Real Corvettes

Art

Gee, a friend of mine's brother was regularly riding his big Honda bike from Washington state to Toledo, Ohio, and then eastern Tennessee and back to Wash. past his 90th birthday, but now he uses a motorhome, or was last I heard.

I could not get those Grand Canyon photos to open.  The mule ride to the river was on

my list, but I never got around to it, and I only did a short raft trip in the lower canyon, not even one of the long camping ones.  The mule ride requires(d?) far in advance reservations, and I was reluctant to lock something in that far ahead.

Certainly a WIDE variety of interests...I did not want to bore people with details

about some of mine....so much for us train people being treated like computer geeks

with narrow interests and tunnel vision.