Playing with trains-stress relief

brr, you hit it on the head. I loved my job before I retired but worked my a** off. Sometimes I would come home at two or three in the morning and go to my layout and run trains. It totally let me unwind. It put me back into the 50's. Everything was just FINE. Nothing else would do that for me. Don

Running trains has always been my major stress reliever.  Back when I was working as a traveling salesman, it did not matter when I got home from work (if a lot of travel was required, it could be as late as midnight),I would come in very stressed from the day..  It got to the point that my wife would give me a kiss and hug and after 5 or 10 minutes suggest I go run trains for a while. Usually within 15 to 20 minutes, the cares of the day just drifted away.

 

What a wonderful hobby.  People will say it is an expensive hobby, but to me it is "priceless".  A good hobby may be the least expensive therapy one could find.

 

I am glad you have found the magic de-stresser also.

 

Happy railroading,

Don

My view, is below.

It's hard for me to place enough emphasis on that aspect of the hobby. When I wake up in the morning I run trains for about 20 minutes over coffee before work. Then after work for a couple hours and usually about 20 minutes or so around midnight before sleep. The night sessions are my favorite.

Don really nailed it for me. I loved my job, but most weeks I put in 70 hours plus with a lot of travel. During the last eight years of my career, I was commuting from home a very long distance to work and did not always have the benefit of the availability of the layout within reach. Just to read about O-Gauge trains and do some planning was a terrific diversion.

 

Believe me, trains are a lot better to relieve than anything else I can think of. Good subject.

Running trains is a great stress reliever for me as well.  Sometimes a few minutes before hitting the commute.  Often in the evenings.   Really helps me to relax and keep the days events in perspective.  

Yes!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

My trains help me "de-compress" at the end of a day.  I come home with my mind filled with the crud of work - this problem that won't go away . . . that decision we have to made . . . that project is behind schedule, etc.  But I go up to the train room and just start the trains and let them chug around the layout on their own, then get involved for even just a few minutes in whatever project I left off with the day before.  Pretty soon I'm not thinking of work at all.  And that is the whole point.

Yes Sir......I read OGR and CTT before going to bed as the subject of trains relaxes me, otherwise I will toss and turn.

And on the weekends, when I work on my layout and/or run them...its like the weight of the world is off my back.

Cheaper than a psychiatrist and results are better and instantaneous.     Don

If my memory serves me right, (maybe someone else remembers this) I believe there was some medical report of which MTH took advantage of on their website, stating that model railroading was a stress reducing pastime. Medical disclaimer: I suppose some people who have technical problems, warranty or repair issues or are contantly unhappy with what they already have and are waiting for the next obsure prototype to be made in 3-rail will not have the same results.

 

I'm the odd man out on this forum. I don't care about precision prototypical accuracy, and I will never use a digital control system. My trains are low cost which many here call junk, and yet I have never had a major repair issue or something I couldn't easily fix myself. I have a simple, yet complex small layout with 027 track. Every thing works. Everything runs. I enjoy the trains I have and if I want something that hasn't been made, I do it myself. The majority of my collection are now custom repaints, but I have small 027 trains in my favorite roads!

 

And I do find running trains to be relaxing. Sometimes before I am off to work, I will run the trains, even for just a couple of minutes, and I find this helps make my day a little bit better (that and my faith in the Almighty - but that's another story, thank you Lord).

 

Sometimes when I read the this forum and see how some folks just seem to be continually unhappy with what is or isn't made, or list prices, or whatever... I think at times these folks need some other hobby to really help them relax. It's not worth getting upset about.

 

I personally run trains for fun, not frustration.

Amen Brian.  Most of us got into this Hobby By the introduction of a Train set at Christmas.  It is with the most fondest of memories that keep me interested in Trains to this day.  I still  have almost no room for a permanent display so I put up Carpet Railroads to do maintaince and Repair work.  All the sets that I have are semi Scale except for 2 which are MTH Premiere.  Scale Looks and Rivets are not where the Fun is.  Watching the expressions of the visitors to my Christmas layout is my enjoyment.

 

For me when i am having a bad day or something really is upsetting me I pull out the Real-Trax and a Transformer and find something in the closet to put on the track and Power it up and Run it.  I will get lost and I find my happier child of my youth with no worries as I watch in wonder as the little engine chugs happily around its track.  I still am able to watch this model run for hours and hours as my cares slip away to nothingness.

Ditto that running trains is a wonderful stress reliever. As Tom McComas says, "It's magical." I can't tell you how many times running trains has put me in a better frame of mind and body, but the number is extraordinary.

Still working on my 3 layer layout but close to be able to get 1 train running again, I have missed running trains but just working on the layout whether designing on RR-Track, hand laying track, cutting plywood for the track, wiring, or whatever, as long as I'm doing something on it I feel so much less stress. Have to thank my former doctor ( now retired) and my wife to encourage me to get a hobby to relive stress and getting me back started with trains & putting up with me having them in the living room.

Thank god for the wives who will allow us guys to take up part of their living space for trains

I am somewhat new to this hobby. In my brief time with my new layout(July) I have found ups and downs of stress. Nothing serious but yet I feel anxious when all of the sudden one of my rolling stock somehow derails. Or maybe some other mundane issue that may arise. Must say when the layout is running, and running good it's such a nice way of forgetting the outside world for a bit. Like I said I am a rookie to this wonderful hobby. Me and my kids are enjoying it very much-the wife not so much at least for now. I think the biggest enjoyment I get is expierencing a problem and troubleshooting it and ultimately fixing it. I am enjoying the aspect of the potential I see. I really enjoy the ideas and advise I receive from the members on this site. As much as I may ask a really ignorant question or how many times that ignorant question has been asked before me, I get a response and a respectful answer. It's piece of mind. That's all your looking for.

Brian, you certainly are not the odd man out. Your reasons for enjoying O-Gauge trains are basically the same for all of us. The size of your layout, what track system you use, conventional or command control, and the types of trains you prefer have absolutely no bearing on the personal quality of our train experiences.

 

Thanks for your post.

JJ, welcome aboard! I am also a rookie, having started the hobby less than a year ago. Part of the fun of any good hobby is problem solving. Not all problems are of the fun variety like track planning however. There are also the "why won't it work" and "now what" variety and I tend to react less than gracefully to those. Early on my problems were mostly Atlas switch and wiring related -- two problems I solved nicely via the knowledgeable veterans on this forum. Example: 22 awg solid wire is not a good solution for 3 rail trains. LOL, and I thought I was so clever when I bought $50 worth of that stuff.

Someone once told me (and I have read the same) that stress stems from the way we choose to react or are in the habit of reacting to circumstances.  I sometimes have envied the mellow fellows that skated through life like they didn't have a care in the world and were content to wait for the world to come to them.  Unfortunately, all I could do was envy them, because I am wired differently, but, yes, trains provide a welcome distraction at times.  I probably am alive to write this because of the refuge the trains provided in some of the toughest times of my life.  The comment below reflects my desired, not actual, state of mind.

 

 

 

 

What, me worry? 

Sometimes I go to the "train room" to just sit and look at the trains- without even running them. Seeing the old trains my parents me bought for Christmas and birthday gifts in the 50's and 60's, and the ones I bought for my two (now adult) sons in the 80's brings back a lot of fond memories of my youth, and theirs. The stress and cares of my adult life seem to magically disappear. 

I agree...unless you discover something not working, as I just did.