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My wife fully supports my activity in the hobby, loves the layout in the basement, giving the OK to consume a large portion of it with the layout, fully enjoys our sharing it with guests, is proud of my efforts at FAO Schwarz, and she has gifted me with the majority of my scale-locomotives ( dozens.)

She likes to party and to play - what can I tell ya' .

FrankM

Beyond her and the few women who have added their voices to this forum, I only know of a few in this hobby because they have stopped by my booth in the Orange Hall at the TCA Meet @York, PA, to accompany their husbands or to make purchases themselves for their husbands who had layouts.

Last edited by Moonson
Moonson posted:

My wife fully supports my activity in the hobby, loves the layout in the basement, giving the OK to consume a large portion of it with the layout, fully enjoys our sharing it with guests, is proud of my efforts at FAO Schwarz, and she has gifted me with the majority of my scale-locomotives ( dozens.)

She likes to party and to play - what can I tell ya' .

FrankM

Beyond her and the few women who have added their voices to this forum, I only know of a few in this hobby because they have stopped by my booth in the Orange Hall at the TCA Meet @York, PA, to accompany their husbands or to make purchases themselves for their husbands who had layouts.

All I can say is your blessed.

palallin posted:

My Wife is the President of the Narrow Gauge feeder line on our family layout.  The On30 is all hers.  She has plans to indulge in relettering the rolling stock and aiding in the scenery and buildings, but time is at too much a premium right now.

Narrow gauge is pretty cool.Here in n.c. we have tweetsie railroad.I bet she would love it.

seaboardm2 posted:
Moonson posted:

My wife fully supports my activity in the hobby, loves the layout in the basement, giving the OK to consume a large portion of it with the layout, fully enjoys our sharing it with guests, is proud of my efforts at FAO Schwarz, and she has gifted me with the majority of my scale-locomotives ( dozens.)

She likes to party and to play - what can I tell ya' .

FrankM

All I can say is your blessed.

True that! Thanks for noticing! And that blessing of her extends far beyond this hobby in our life together. I can't think of anything to which she does not bring wisdom and joy.

FrankM

Last edited by Moonson

I’m not the one who has the great layout, but I’ll gladly sit and fiddle with rusty side rods or old wheels and the like.

The Carnegie Science Center layout is mostly a woman’s work and she scratch-built Fallingwater and Forbes Field. 

Jan Altizer was as active in the NMRA as her husband was. 

I notice a lot of women are more into buildings and landscaping than operations. That doesn’t apply to 1:1 scale—a lot of us older women grew up wanting to work on big trains, towboats or planes.

seaboardm2 posted:

I know there are a lot of men in this hobby.But I think there are wemen out there who have their own trains and layouts.So is your wife in the hobby or your sister?

Why? Lookin fer one to hitch up with?

I can see your personal ad now:

"NICE male looking for a woman that loves model railroading, layouts, attending train meets, and has her own layout. Please send pictures of layout."

Andre

 

Last edited by laming

You could say that my wife is in the hobby as when I was going to York she always accompanied me. She likes seeing my layout run and enjoys going to Trainstock.  If you do a search you will find several women on this forum. The last remaining train store in this area was run by a woman by the name of Jan.  Then there is Angela Trotta Thomas, and  also a girl who does restoration work on trains but I can't recall her name . Lets also not forget the women that run model train businesses with their husband.

I am very proud to say that I run trains and that I own several.  I am also one of 2 in the Pacific and Eastern Railroad O Gauge Model Club in Indianapolis IN.  (Part of our layout is on page 18 of the current issue I might add.  Thank you editors.)   I come from a long line of railroad workers many of whom started as young men on the line resetting the rails by hand, and then working their way up to engineer.  Ironically, all of them worked for NKP and were all on 765.  I can happily state that I have preserved all of their lanterns, licenses, Gandy Pole, retirement watches, and Brotherhood of Railworkers Ribbons.   I know from hearing my grandfather talk that each family successor was handed the controls from his family successor.  Father, Brother, Son, Son. 

Lisa Suiter 

Scrambler81 posted:

There is a woman in here, but she is more active in another forum, and she does incredible work on her layouts. I believe her name is Becky, but don’t quote me on that.

If you didn't mean Becky from Becky, Tom & Gabe Morgan (who replied earlier), I think you may mean Becky who goes by PENNYTRAINS?

She has done a lot of really amazing work on her Disney park related scenes (just the few pics in her profile are great examples).  I think she scratch builds quite a lot, and others she may do lots of improvements to paper models that are out there.

-Dave

Dave45681 posted:
Scrambler81 posted:

There is a woman in here, but she is more active in another forum, and she does incredible work on her layouts. I believe her name is Becky, but don’t quote me on that.

If you didn't mean Becky from Becky, Tom & Gabe Morgan (who replied earlier), I think you may mean Becky who goes by PENNYTRAINS?

She has done a lot of really amazing work on her Disney park related scenes (just the few pics in her profile are great examples).  I think she scratch builds quite a lot, and others she may do lots of improvements to paper models that are out there.

-Dave

Yep, that is her. I just saw some pics of a standard gauge layout she is running this Christmas. Her stuff just blows me away.

Don...(3Rail2)!  My wife of 21 years, Deb, is our household CFO, too!  Also the York 'manager' in this house.  Sometimes even outspending me!  On our first date, sharing interests, experiences, etc., I mumbled something about 'trains, hobby, life-long', etc.....and her eyes grew big as proverbial saucers.  That's ALL we talked about thereafter on that date.  Seems she was somewhat jealous of her older brothers' train gifts at Christmas.  She received the usual 'girl gifts'....dolls, Barbie/accessories, etc.   Then, when we attended our first York meet years ago, her badge number popped up for a door prize....for which she beat the crowd and selected a Lionel Christmas train set.....currently set up under the annual tree!  Says it was an omen.....hard to argue with that!  So, yes, I'm blessed beyond measure to have a hobby-sharing spouse!

But, WRT the topic at hand....  A couple years...or more...ago I posted an inquiry on this forum about a young lady celebrated in the Lionel 1996 Accessories catalog....Sara Pennington.

1996Accessoriessarastrains

As Sara's story bar on page 10 states, "...I'm also into Lionel trains and modeling, which, as you can probably guess, isn't all that typical for most 16-year old girls."  So, I've often wondered whether Sara, now probably closer to 40, married (another lucky guy!?), kids (also into trains????), and perhaps having a different last name is living this hobby?!  At the time I posted the inquiry, I received no responses.  I was disappointed, of course.  But perhaps there's some new recognition this time around???  Anyone???

The reason this catalog, Sara's story, is so important to me is because I've made excellent use of it at the store (LHS) for many years, particularly at this time of year!  Holiday gift shoppers in the Trains Dept. sometimes express that "Trains aren't for girls...something that girls would be interested in!".   To which they get "Au contraire!", I retrieve this well-worn catalog from my file drawer, turn to page 10 and invite them to consider Sara's story....and my wife's support/interest/participation.  It doesn't always change their mind, but it's fun to celebrate the fairer sex's sharing of this hobby.  

In truth, though, when I first saw this thread title several days ago, my reaction was more like "You're kidding, right?"  Our Trains Dept. has a most capable/knowledgeable young woman on our staff....MTH certified tech, club member, large/beautiful home layout.  Several of our best customers are female.   It seems more and more women are actively participating at the York meet.  We saw Susan Deats' layout several years ago when attending the National TCA convention in Denver.....absolutely awesome and inspiring!!  The occasional articles in any one of several hobby periodicals showing the artistic and/or technical skills of the gals participating in this hobby are amazing.....IMHO!

And so forth and so on....

OF COURSE we know women in the hobby!!   I live/love every day with one of them!

KD

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Susan Deats posted:

seaboardm2, see for yourself.  Check out my Run Room and website.
"I don't do scenery.  I just run trains and keep them running."

When Dad had his layout, I had two brothers and a sister.  When I wanted to run trains, Dad said, "Girls don't run trains.  You can set out the bushes and buildings."

I wonder why he said that to you? It would be interesting to understand his point of view. My daughter was my train buddy til highschool. She ran trains better than my adult friends.

tncentrr posted:

There used to be a scale modeler named Carmen Webster. She built O scale model locomotives for clients. She was a guest on a show called "To Tell The Truth" that was hosted by Gary Moore. She was also written about in Model Railroader Magazine. I don't know if she is still living.

 

I doubt she is still alive as she would have to be 100 if not well over that. She was the owner of Model Railroad Equipment Corporation at 23 W 45th Street in New York city - the finest model railroad shop I was ever in. As you went down the steps to the shop you faced a large photo of the front end of a PRR M1. This was in the very late '40's through the '50's.

Coal Cracker posted:

Janis Roguskie has a bunch of Youtube videos of her attic layout.  I believe she started out years ago with postwar and MPC but has since added other manufacturers motive power and equipment to her roster.

https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=kNQ0Svij5RU&t=28s

 

Bingo. I was just going to mention Janis.

When I was starting out on my Lionel Postwar Style Display Layout build I ended up over on YT and saw several of her great layout videos. 

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