Train Addiction?

There is no known cure.  Luckily, it's not usually fatal (unless a spouse does you in for your addiction! )

-Dave

I "think" the spouse is onboard.  She stopped and took a picture of the Wabash heritage unit coming through town a few weeks ago....without me.  I'm taking that as a good sign!

Keep up the good work.  We all say we are not going to buy much at a show.  You know how that goes.  I just went to York with Dotty with nothing on my radar.  That always goes bad.  We took the small car and had to work very hard at getting everything in.  It seems that every show I have gone to in the last few years keeps yielding more passenger cars.  Last summer I went to TTOS in Buffalo.  I had the big car and came home loaded with more passenger cars.  

I have a super advantage.  Dotty covers one side of the shows and I the other.

I am happy to be able to live the dream.

I can see that in my future!  This was my first trip to TCA.  I didn't even need that Scrambler.  It doesn't even fit on my layout!  LOL

My first memory is of coal trains running through Ashland Ky.....Been into model and real trains since. Many many worse things to be infatuated with......so happy to be so with trains. Taken me to many great places all over the country. 

Sorry, but it's TERMINAL! 

I can quit any time i want

While my interest has waxed and waned oner the years it has never gone away.  There were other hobbies that got in the way for a time.   R/C cars, bicycles, real cars, Girls.  Still seems I come back to the trains every time.  Maybe I need an intervention?  

This made me laugh!

 I love to run and bicycle as well.  I can see girls getting in the way.  I'm passed that point in my life!  LOL.  However; my children are getting older so I fully expect my boys to give up trains for girls very soon.  

P97,

Sorry, but there is no cure and one you have the addiction it continually gets worse.  I tried specializing in Pennsylvania RR to limit my purchases. I sold off most of my trains. I now have much more than i ever did and I'm still looking for a few pieces to add to my Pennsy collection. 

My high school girlfriends, now wife, father was into real and model trains. His father and most of his family worked for the PRR out of Altoona. He always had a Walthers O scale kit on his work desk even though he didn't have a layout.  So girls and trains went along fine. 

Like most things your train addiction will run its course and subside after awhile but there is no cure. I never had a really good place for a layout until about 2 1/2  years ago. I traded off most of the antiques we had collected for old Lionels then built a medium sized layout in my dining room/ living room.  I have enough to satisfy my lust but looking for "special" items now. Great hobby- you can do anything you want at your own speed. A supportive wife is a major plus.

My wife doesn't mind my toy trains at all....thanks goodness.  She doesn't really want to mess with them but supports me in my hobbies.  However; I've noticed she has been tracking the real heritage units on the website and likes to see the come through town.  I think she likes the different paint schemes more than the actual trains. 

I liked toy trains since I can remember - at least age three.

As a kid I loved the Warbonnet F3s, Santa Fe Map-Slogan cars, and big UP steamers I saw growing up in the west.  I still do.

I thought this was normal.

In addition to all the good comments, let me add that you can try to suppress the railroad spirit, and it will work for only a short time.  You can sell all your models, your books, lanterns, timetables, etc....and then the dam bursts, and you will find yourself reacquiring collections, and reading O Gauge Forum at idle moments throughout the day.

Enjoy the addiction, it only better with more train and train stuff you have.

Brent

My wife the shrink says I need a twelve step program. I took a sedative before I went to York, it did not work. I can blame it on the AGHR guys and peer pressure. The credit cards got maxed,  the cash went first, then  the checks in the check book. the poor wife had to sit on some boxes on the way home, that or I had to tie her on the roof racks.

BTW, ignore the wanted poster with a likeness of me on it for robbery of liquor stores in the York area, It was not me.

A charter member of the Joe Doaks train society.

Really enjoyed your comments. You could not find a better way to spend your leisure time or spare dollars than our O-Gauge hobby. There are many folks out there that are frustrated and have no plan on how to have a good time. At least, you have found the way. Enjoy the ride.

I have many addictions.This one is not so bad and its one of the most in expensive.At least I have plenty to show for it...Mine comes in waves.Sometimes I get it into my head that I am way over invested.I begin selling a few pieces.(you know,need things for the house other hobbies, etc etc)Then it hits me again and I start buying.It's ok though,sometimes a little "strange locomotive" on the layout is good for a man... lol.Nick

Once you're hooked, you're hooked.  I am trying to get rid of some stuff but they keep saying keep me.  So I do.  Then I purchase something else?

My wife has little to no interest in my trains.  I've even put jewelry boxes on cars and brought her up to show her my latest work on the layout and it takes a few loops around the layout before she notices a Jared's box on a flatcar.  But when she does SHE'S INTERESTED!  Her friends are more into it than she is.  Everytime they come over they want to see my "train room".  

This is comedian Dave Chappelle.  He did a funny skit as a crackhead.  I can just picture him replacing "crack" with "O Gauge" and being some of guys in this forum.... me included.  Always craving a "fix" or "hookup"!  Ha ha.

I think I enjoy buying a train-related item and imagining what I will be able to do with it the most. Then I sell an item or two and it frees up money to buy something else so the cycle starts again, even if I "lose" money. I consider lost money just money spent on enjoyment, something we all do all the time. So someday I'll make it to York (with or without my wife) and be prepared to really "enjoy" myself.  

Panther97;

It comes and goes, don't worry about it.

Try to decide exactly what you want on your layout before you spend a lot of money, it helps.

My wife is absolutely not interested in any of my hobbies but she tolerates me adding slowly to the empire.

Lee;

That Is Normal.

Welcome to a healthy addiction! You'll meet good people and a few characters.

I like your layout. Here are two overhead photos I took of Reading & Northern 425 departing Jim Thorpe on the Lehigh Gorge Scenic Railway

This replica of a Civil War 4-4-0 rolled out of [David] Kloke Locomotive Works in May, 2013. The Reader Railroad in Arkansas built wooden passenger cars for her that summer. This train runs under the auspices of Steam into History on the historic Northern Central Railway between New Freedom, PA, and Hanover Junction south of York, 6 miles west of Exit 4 (Shrewsbury) on I-83. President Abraham Lincoln rode on this line and changed trains at Hanover Junction when he delivered his Gettysburg Address. His funeral train ran here during its sad journey to Springfield, IL.

A custom painter can fill a need that manufacturers have not. Christine Braden posted some photos of her work on her Facebook page (CJB Custom Painting and Designs). They were beautiful! They reminded me of a gap in my roster. Walter Matuch was having a sale on his RMT streamliners (formerly K-Line). I bought 4 cars. CJB painted them to match my 2348 Minneapolis & St. Louis GP9. These are her photos. When I get a chance I'll couple them to my Geep and post photos.

I've been addicted since the early 50's. I've daveled in other hobbies space race, stamps, girls [jr., sr. high, post high and til my wife and I owned our own house], Colonial/Revolutionary History; but the lore of trains was always there. When it was GIRLS I had my own den upstairs, the trains were in a chest I used as a coffee table. You might say I was in remission during this time But I've relapsed. I'm lucky as my wife tolerates the trains though she says it's the most expensive hobby (really?). Last week when I saw a good deal on my favorate steamer (which I have wanted for a while) and mentioned it at the dinner table she said "that deal my never come your way again - better not pass it up [I whent right to the computer and made the order after dinner (hopefully it comes today). I am buying items I see for my future lay-out.

You could spend money and time on far worst things i.e.: cancer sticks, drinking too much etc. one advantage if you are in the train room or shopping for your train hobby your wife knows where you are!   

If it's an addiction, it's a nice one.

Great idea!  My wife turns 40 next week.  That's a good way to deliver the present!

I appreciate all the posts.  It's very encouraging!  One thing I learned from the Railfan and toy train world.....it's a group of very friendly people!

All I know is that over the last five months I've spent more time than reasonable buying/studying model trains

I love that engine, I hope someone does it someday.

Reads as if it is a different answer for each of us as one might expect.........  for me,  first train was a Lionel 2026 freight running around the 4x8 Christmas tree like so many.   That was back in the 1960's.

Fast forward to 1995 when I stopped by chance at a hobby shop in Daytona Beach (Roundhouse South at the "old location") and saw a just released MTH Protosound Premier EMD-60 in that sharp Blue / white paint scheme.   I bought it on the spot and it was a re-birth of sorts.

I bought fairly steadily for the next 10 years and stopped......... ran out of room.  Protosound 2 switch over was brewing and sold off a bunch of Proto 1 locos.   I leveled off quite a bit and have slowly re-purchased DCS replacements for those I really missed which has worked out great.  

Present day,  just enjoying the roof loop layout around my office (no basements in FL) and running trains with my Grandson.   Still buy some, at a much slower pace.  At some point may dive in and try Legacy.  As much as I enjoy DCS,  I am sure some of the Legacy stuff would be fun also,   it just needs to be reliable.

That's my story.............. an addiction of sorts but I would guess like all of us,  limits on space / time / $$ will help you manage things.

Mark

It's really kinda fun.  Put the present on a car and run it around til she sees it.  Ha ha.  My wifes face is kinda (oh yeah this is good honey) bored but trying to look interested. Then when her eyes catch the little box, it lights up like the cat's when she hears the can opener!

Don't call it an addiction.  It's the secret to eternal youth, especially if real children join in the fun.

What, me worry?

addiction? naw not me i can stop at any time i want! well right after 1 more locomotive or maybe 1 more passenger train or a few freight cars. ok just a few pieces of flex track that's all i need. how can this be called an addiction???

my x wife sent me to a shrink for help and after talking to me he is now an O scaler!

John P., you have good taste. This one's for you:

I can stop anytime I want to, also.  I just don't want to!

I don't understand what is this addiction thing you guys speak of?

Scott Smith

Yes it's been trains for me as long as I can remember.  The guys that get bored in retirement; unfathomable to me.  There are so many ways to enjoy trains, no matter what scale or gauge, models, toys, or 1:1 scale.  I have so many ideas in my mind of a layout to build, items to buy, and trains to see.  Sometimes I go to the Greenberg show, and spend almost nothing except on a hot dog and a glass of pop.  I spend more time watching the modular groups' layouts and talking to folks I have met here or at previous shows.  Even if in poor health I can think of ways to enjoy trains, just like I did when I was a child and had no money.  I listen to them out my window and imagine I am trackside, just as I did as a small boy.  Watching trains from the shopping center parking lot.  Even if you can't get around there is so much on the Internet to see and listen to.  The men at the Seniors Living Center my aunt lives at have a train room with an HO layout, plus reading material and comradery.  Yes it's the world's greatest hobby, and I will have the addiction the rest of my life.