Is This A Hobby, Or A Sinister Compulsion?

Lucky you asked this question here instead of 4chan. Some people there consider this a hobby for the autistic. There was one listing of someone gleefully telling about when his dad died,the family threw out his entire collection including brass models. To him the crunch of the garbage truck seemed like music.

Bob, take two aspirin and you will feel better in the morning.

Now that you have confessed, this should also make you feel better as well.

All kidding aside, I am also motivated by color and looks. I am not particular about road names, if the train looks good, that is enough for me. At least your wife knows what you do with your free time and money. That has to be good.

Is there a difference?

Seriously.  Often, I doubt it.

Bob We are always expanding or changing our RR empires.

I have about 10x what I can operate at home and 30x what i can get in the car to run at the club.

One thing I do is that if I move off an item I am very willing to sell it. I know that it will find its way to someone that needs it more than I and at the same time raise funds for my next purchase

Take Brian's Advice, and take a few aspirins

Steve

Well we could have worse vices!

I never come close to thinking of words like suffer, obsession, compulsion or condition when I think about model trains, real trains, train books, train videos or train magazines.  Trains are amazing machines and model trains are amazing recreations of those machines.  Trains are an interest, a joy, a delight.  Love of trains and model trains is just normal.

Bob

I guess that is one way of looking at it.  Some men's wive's have to call the local bar  to

find there husband's, mine had to call the local hobby shop.

There is no problem with this hobby/compulsion as long as you have the funds and are having fun. With that in mind you are really spending your money wisely with your compulsion by adding enjoyment to your life and with it it's benefits. So I enjoy and I try not to feel guilty about whether it is a compulsion or not as it is often a fine line between the two anyway. 

I'm in recovery. Anybody want to buy some trains?

I think any hobby that someone really gets involved with becomes a compulsion.  In the 45 plus years I have enjoyed the hobby, I have switched scales and gauges, bought and sold, but have always enjoyed it.  I started in HO, because that was what was available for me to buy at the time.  When we married, I switched to N to get more into a small space.  Then it was HOn3, HO, On3, and now I have been in O gauge for a while.  I have sold or given away all but my scratch built buildings and a half dozen HO cars that are special to me and an HO PCC car in remembrance of when this country boy went to Electronics school in Ptiisburgh, and almost got run over crossing a street!!

By most standards I have a small collection of O gauge, but it is more than I can operate At a time.  I am happy to sell an item if it doesn't suit my fancy any more, and am glad when I find a buyer who really wants it!  I always tell him so!  My wife is usually supportive of my hobby, I don't say anything about the decorations, music, and gifts for others she likes to buy.  

I do keep roughly to a region and era, Appalachian Railroads steam to early diesel era, so you won't see much color on what I buy.  

Have fun fun and stay within your means.

This is not a lament, but a statement with tongue-in-cheek.  

A couple of years ago I toured a bourbon distillery...expensive stuff, and when it is gone, it is gone.  (dunno if bourbon bottels are collectible like beer cans once were

in kind of a fad hobby that seems to have abated) Many other hobbies such as golf

are expensive, with no solid reminder left, unless you are a pro like Tiger Woods...

same applies to most sports...sunk costs unless people will pay to watch you.  In

this one, you can create, and, at the end, maybe get a little of your money back,

and, of course, get the non-monetary reward of recapturing your childhood, and/or

creating something that did not exist before....

As Barney Fife would say........

'It's a compellshion!'

I think it has to do with your point of view...

To me, it's a hobby.

In my wife's opinion, I am compulsive. 

Nahhhh...It is only you. You need some meds, the rest of us are perfectly normal 100% verified by psychiatrists..

LOL!   I don't care what it is, it brings me pleasure, relaxation, satisfaction, calm, and occasionally joy.  Not bad, a bargain compared to prescription meds!

            "Is This A Hobby, Or A Sinister Compulsion?"      

Bob,

I honestly feel that it is a way of life. Stamp Collecting and Needle Point are hobbies. This thing that we enjoy becomes,"A Sinister Compulsion" when we sneak around buying items behind the backs of our loved one's. Even more so when we dread the sight of the FedEx or UPS trucks when we're not home alone.

I'm reminded of something I saw once. A sci-fi convention was going on right next to a sporting fan event. I'll never forget a guy who was standing in line with other sports fans, painted on 'his team' colors and looked across the way at another line with sci-fi folks waiting to get into their event. The guy had the nerve to look over at someone dressed as a Klingon from Star Trek and declared the people in the other line needed to 'get a life'. The irony was totally lost on him.

I think hobbyists are a different type, just like a historian who focuses on one subject for most of their life, or a sports fan who never misses a game for their favorite team.

It's a personality type, and yes, I'd think it's likely an obsessive type who gets like that.

If it wasn't model or 1:1 scale trains for me, it would be something else.

I have many hobbies, I'm into military history, space history, sci-fi, art and other things (my website talks about most of these). I might be leaning toward one more than the others given the circumstances at the moment. It's mostly been about model trains since the end of July once my On30 layout got started, but my focus will shift through the year depending on events. For example, next weekend I plan on doing my annual fluid check and oil change on my 1944 Willys Army Jeep before the show season starts...

Self indulgent external definition some say.

You can get carried away in any hobby if you are not careful. I bet there are even needle point stamp collection foamers out there.

When I first started in HO scale as a teen, model railroading was my life. Now my trains are a leisure time activity that I enjoy as time permits from real life. For me the hobby is entertainment that at times helps me destress from real life, but it is no substitute for real life.

My favorite Far Side cartoon: A cow at the psychiatrists office laying on the couch, the cow asks the psychiatrist, 'How do you know it's me and not the rest of the herd'?

I don't have any tinplate (yet), but I also love the colors. Just something about those trains. The O gauge boys and girls sets are my two favorites, but there are a lot of others too. The new reproductions with the modern PS2-PS3 are the ones for me. Standard gauge would be very nice too, but too much space is required.

If this hobby is a compulsion, then for me it is a good one.  As one other poster put it, trains are an absolute delight.  I agree wholeheartedly.  If all of the so called compulsions in this world could be as benign and therapeutic as trains I think this good earth of ours would be a much happier place regardless of how much money we would spend on them. 

It is a good, clean hobby. I don't bother anyone with it. I can run my trains any time, day or night and it doesn't bother anyone. I buy with cash so no debt load or guilt trip. It is really relaxing to be sure.

Hobby? Something to do? I have a great time running my trains; really do not mind cleaning rails. 

Convinced, only L&N will be purchased unless there is a Gulf, Sunoco or some other great looking car pops up on the forum.

Brent

Good point. Model trains is something people might snicker behind your back for having a hobby most people still associate as only for kids, but at least you don't get the stuff we get when my group does WW2 displays at shows and military events:

Most people get what this hobby is about but it never fails at any event, someone's gonna come up and demand to know why you have these things and declare there's gotta be a law preventing private ownership of these things and if not, there darned sure should be. I don't mean just the firearms, either. I once had a lady demand I stay at the gas station with my WW2 Jeep so she could get a cop to come confiscate a vehicle I, "clearly have no right to own," (her exact words). I just laughed, hopped in and drove away, leaving her literally hopping up and down, screaming.

At least when I talk about model trains, once I've shown a couple of photos on my cell showing what it looks like, people seem to click with it and it doesn't seem threatening at all. I've very rarely ever gotten any derisive comments and questioning why I do that (most of which is from my wife), whereas it happens all the time with my re-enactment group from people who simply don't know any better.

I know all too well.........  Yes!

Sinister? Maybe.

Compulsion? Absolutely, and it has gotten to the point that I'm not sure that it makes me happy. I have no desire to get rid of everything, but I am getting closer to the "stack 'em deep and sell 'em cheap" place. If I lived in a place where there was a market. 

I seldom run diesels at all - yet: I just bought a nice Lionel NYC black/LS FT AA set (TMCC) so that I can re-decorate one of the units in the so-called "cat's whiskers" freight scheme - and it took forever to find the decals (Walther's, BTW).

Most - not all - of us here have this compulsion, and "tongue-in-cheek" is usually apt, but sometimes it's bothersome. 

Seriously, you don't think that stamp collectors or needlepoint folks don't do this as well? I'm sure they, too, feel theirs is more of a higher calling than a simple hobby.

I think it's common for any person, no matter what they're into, is a way of life v/s a hobby...

For me it is the TOY factor.  I have always been into trains, but as I grew up (Relative word) I was more of an avid toy collector!  Very large collection of original GI JOES, Major Matt Mason, Remco toys (Very big Cold war era military toys), and Lionel postwar "operating " cars became the thing (because you play with them - a toy)

I did get a little out of control with all these areas.  Now I am in my 50s and I had my little epiphany.  I have been selling down the collection of trains...never bought for investment, good thing as many of the early proto1 and stuff are worth less.  Not a complaint ( i have a saving account for financial security) but my house limits my layout, and I realize that I can dream about a huge layout, but it aint happening... So ....

I think the biggest hit for me... I lost my brother to cancer 2 years ago.  He was 58 years old.  He Had the most amazing HO brass collection in the New Haven road name I have ever seen.  Too busy to play with his trains.... so I have sold dozens of new in the box, never run brass trains for his widow - End of the day - life is short- play with your trains.

Have a great day every one.

Sinister all the way.

the Forum is a large influence in adding to my obsession.

Truer words were never spoken.

I currently have twice as many trains as I can ever hope to operate at any given time.

Only twice as many! (I am pretty sure the multiplier is much higher than 2 for most lost souls here)

Go Ask Alice, I Think She'll Know.

Indeed you have only just begun to go down the rabbit hole called O Gauge....

Model Railroading and all the sidebar issues, like Railroad History. Bring it all together.

Gary

Some folks, and their numbers are dwindling, may just want to forget war and all it's accoutrements.  Then there are others that just don't want to acknowledge that this has been and probably always will be a part of our life, good or bad.  And then there are others that just don't like anything they don't understand.  Personally, I don't see any problem with re-inactments of any war, with perhaps one exception, but I won't get into politics.

A little bit of both.

I actually think that the sneaking around buying things behind a loved one maybe a hobby all by itself for some.

A friend told me a that the the last guy with the most trains loses.  Nearly everyone has a compulsion.  For women it may be jewelry, hand bags, shoes or dolls.....   For us trains guys it is trains, trains and more trains.  There is nothing wrong with any of this.

Go play.   Joe

With P38's posting of reaction to a collectible vehicle and his enactment group, I wonder if the Civil War reenactors, with black powder guns and horses and cannon

get the same tunnel-visioned:  "I am not interested in that, so you are not allowed to

be" attitude. Civil War reenacting goes on a lot of places, certainly at Gettysburg, but

I have stumbled on it visiting minor battlefield parks.  I read about a northern Ohio author, a professor at Wooster College, who had the habit of firing off an old cannon on the Fourth of July at his home overlooking an uninhabited valley outside of town.  He got the treatment P51 got. And, of course, continued to do it.  I am sure there are some that would be horrified to know that there are fast draw contests, cowboy action shooting, and other interests  not in the mainstream out there.  I have read about all these hobbies....you wonder why others haven't?

I grew up doing Civil War stuff. It wasn't so PC-induced when I was a kid (Dad has a 6-pounder field gun he built himself) living in the deep south. Confederate re-enactors are getting a lot of kickback from the use of the flag now, due to how that same flag was used in the 1950s and 60s during desegregation. People are taught a very simplistic view of the war now, that is was all about slavery. Any real student of history will tell you that really wasn't the primary reason at all but we all know how a PC mindset warps stuff.

Haven't worn a civil war uniform since about 1999 or so, but yeah, it's tough on the guys doing civil war re-enacting as well.

The problem is the weapons. Nobody seriously attributes percussion muzzle-loading rifles and artillery with crime, but the viewpoint changes drastically when you start putting Tommy guns or semi-automatic rifles into the equation for the WW2 guys...