What "oddity" do you bring to the hobby?

Easy question to answer. We are exclusively passenger train operations. Maybe odd to some, but not for us.

I think that is certainly odd but very cool!

I've built some basic cars out of lego bricks and mounted them to O-gauge trucks.  They are always a favorite at shows.

GOTTA have some pictures - please?

My wife would say I am quite an oddity.  

 

However, I do like to buy brightly colored freight cars  The children  seem to love all the different cars and colors.  My layout and rolling stock is meant soley to entertain kids. but they will grow to the age where they lose interest.  Then it will be time to build something more realisistic. 

 

Ed

Lately I have been fitting Marx 3/16" cars with S gauge trucks and running them on the new S gauge layout at the mall.

 

I also like "unit" trains and have a train of at least 44 of the six inch Marx cattle cars pulled by double headed K-Line steam engines made from the Marx 333 molds.

I guess my oddity would be my layout's focus on track and trains to the exclusion of scenery and structures. There will be some, but it will be rather minimal.

Like yourself, me.  Beyond that, I collect RPO's, sidedoor, combine, and drover's

cabooses (scratchbuilding and kitbashing to get them...same for assorted gas electrics and railbuses), and avoid diesels and rolling stock beyond the steam era, oreferably pre-1941. I like small steamers in a hobby that lusts after Triplexes, Big Boys, and four truck Shays, and so have kitbashed one steam dummy, have a tiny geared loco kit on the back burner,  with more critters thought about.

Does collecting GG1s count? I'm close to 70 in all scales. Those of you who know me, that isn't really an oddity as much as I am an oddity.  Another oddity is that I got part time work for Sunset / 3rd Rail by participating on this forum and as a result I spend more time on everyone else's trains over my own anymore.  Does that make this operator a collector now? 

My oddity is that while I grew up with computer technology being common (I remember having a computer at age 3 or 4), I do not have any sort of command control. I have an old style control panel with switches and postwar ZW's, usually powering prewar and postwar engines. My layout is also done in Plasticville, Hot Wheels cars, green painted plywood, and paper mache mountains.

Uhhh, well, that might change over time, do you think?  The Brits put it well Big Boy 4005: "It's early days yet."

 

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As for me, the inclusion of so much 'Streets and scratch building of so many of the cars and trucks, for one, and probably a lack of reverance for tradition or hallowed icons (e.g., my beautiful N&W J repainted UP Greyhound) - I realize many do not view this as anything positive, but . . .   

Oddity?  I think not,.....Bro!

 

Moi.....odd duck.

 

(quack!)

 

I have no rhyme or reason for which railroad goes on my layout. If I like the looks of something then it goes on the layout.

How about almost exclusively Steam?

Exceptions: Galloping Geese, Coors Light Silver Bullet train and the Lionel Phantom train.

My layout is 1950's redneck, Kinda what you might get if Ward Cleaver were played by someone like Larry the Cable Guy. LOL

Nothing "odd" about that, my friend.  I spent 25 years in the computer field, and have zero desire for CC of any kind.

 

I guess my oddity would be that I wake up every morning really looking forward to going to work.  Work is 112 feet away from where I sleep....and my work involves what I love to do AND my hobby!!....

 

Alan

Nothing odd about me!

 

 

I do run red and brown box cars like Michael. One green Northern Pacific. Don

Maybe this isn't such an oddity; I am with Michael and Scale Rail - brown red and brown box cars.  Green is okay for REA or some other special cars.

 

I'm with Alfred as well!!

Most would say that I'm all the 'oddness' that is desirable in any hobby. 

I never Run My Trains On Friday the 13th…never
And I wear, at the very least my boxer shorts.

K.C.

Same here.  And I can't wait until my Lionel VL Big Boy gets here so I can double head a train with it and my K-line BB.

 

I also will be filling most of my stock cars with Daleks.  Not only are these LEGO compatible, they are just the perfect size to fit in my RMT cars.

I guess that my oddity is that all my trains are Milwaukee Road and nothing is newer than 1950.  I have to point that out to some visitors but that's the era that I like.  The neat part of having that sort of restriction is that it keeps me from buying stuff that doesn't fit my definition.  No matter how impressive, no six axle, 6,000 HP diesels, no U. P. Big Boys.

 

It still seems that I can spend a heck of a lot on the layout, overall!

 

Paul Fischer

One of my many peculiarities is that I like to collect and run things that are different from what everybody else has. I am, as far as I know, the only person in Southern Arizona who collects Milwaukee Road. I generally avoid the most popular items - I don't own a Challenger, an Allegheny, a J-3 Hudson, a Daylight, etc. I do, however, have an Orient Express, a Swiss Crocodile, and an SP Mogul with a whaleback tender. I also have a substantial collection of Czech tinplate, mostly ETS but some Merkur as well. The ETS includes a Beyer-Garratt locomotive, a real oddball in this country. I also like unusual rolling stock such as a Schnabel car or the chlorine carriers and six-dome wine tank cars made by Sunset/3rd Rail a while back. It's what appeals to me, and the fact that it is different from what everyone else has adds to the appeal. The one "popular" item I do collect is beer cars. Everybody loves beer cars. 

 

I have a couple of group of guys that I hang out with train wise; Tuesday night group and an every other Friday night group, I can tell you that my AGE is my oddity.  Most guys are 20 to 40 years older than me. 

The location of my layout will be between the bar, the guest room, the pool, the tea house and the decks. All on the way to the bathroom.

Oddity;Hmmmm. So many answers.  I guess the one I'll go with is I have to have a caboose on the end of every freight train. Older or modern prototypical or not a freight train doesn't look right to me without a caboose at the end.

Trying to eliminate traction tires from my locomotives and collecting the old Atlas/Pola 40' boxcars.

 

The odd ball

Clem K  

Roy:

You GOTTA post pix of these, please.  Sounds GREAT!!

Pete Trunk, NJ

I ran them at Cal Stewart a few years back and had a few requests to do it again. Next time I bring them out, hopefully there will be a camera around.

 

I also have more than 30 of the supposedly rare UPS cars made by KMT and Franks roundhouse and I run them whenever someone suggests that they are rare. Guess I'm an old rabble rouser.

My bow ties!   

 

Peter

Doc, your bow ties are not an oddity, your just setting a trend... Got my first bow tie the other day.

My oddity - all motive power is New York Central and most of my rolling stock have some point of reference to some location in New Jersey

Actually, I would like to watch that show . . . 

 

 

No RR name, yet... No specific era. If it gets my interest and attention, I'm a mix, not really a match railroad! Terry

I scale jump more than anyone else I know. I've literally changed modeling scales twice in the same day....

 

Jeff C

Nah Lee, I'm very content with the track plan. You have to remember that I'm modeling the real world, so that sort of dictates how the layout will look. Of course I get to pick and choose what I want to include. It all goes back 15 years to the benchwork design, and the goal to maximize mainline length. All the scenes are long and narrow, as they follow the tracks through the landscape.

 

What I'm doing is a little different from what most people here on the forum are doing. Most here are doing what I would call "freestyle", and there's nothing wrong with that.

 

This hobby is all about whatever makes you happy.

 

I have over 60 Vat cars!