Writing on the Wall? Losing Interest

Sorry for the double video.

To me this is somewhat natural and normal.  I have been in and out of the hobby all of my life.  I have lost interest for long periods of time (many years), but have always come back to it eventually.  Don't be too quick to get rid of your stuff.  You may feel differently in time.

 

Bill

I just viewed the new Lionel catalog and there was nothing I want.

Most of us go thru this faze. This too will pass.

I understand your frustration, or feelings. Kids are some reason, or excuses to run trains. They grow up, and their taste change. But there nothing more relaxing then turning the power on, sitting back and listening and watching the trains go by. Good therapy for those days when the blues hit. I know it works for me. After a while the the only thoughts left, are of the train.

But also Christmas is a time when they will be looking forward to the train.

It happens with any pasttime.

I have plenty of interests, and they're in a race with each other. One invariably takes the lead for a while, then falls back.

It's only once you one day look around find one of those interests has ended the race and is going the other direction, that you need to consider giving up. I recently gave up with a non-train-related pasttime I haven't done anything with in years. When i realized how long it'd been and how I didn't miss it at all, I decided to sell off the related stuff. I used that money to build my dream On30 layout. I feel no twinges of regret for getting out of the other hobby for good.

So, sometimes, it works out.

But give it some time before you make up your mind...

I think it's common for folks to get disinterested in different hobbies from time to time. I vacillate between trains, ham radio, and riding BMW motorcycles across the US and Canada. Having more than one interest is good and having different seasons for them, I think is convenient too.

The grandkids are into their own things...occasionally they run a train...mostly not. It's ok. They were exposed to them, maybe someday they will respond to memories of the trains and come back to them in a few decades like I did.

It happens.  I'd do what you want and not worry about it - its natural to have ups and downs in enthusiasm. 

You need to change everything around on an annual basis. If it has been the same thing for 10 years, it will not be exciting.

 

Andrew

Take what you have a make a small holiday layout, like a twice around the tree or carpet central.

 

Then build a new themed layout and get the grandys to help. Teach'em some new stuff, tools, wiring, planning, measuring. perhaps something that they would design or help design. Test the waters with "Do you any ideas for a new layout"

 

You planted the train interest seed, now learm 'em some stuff they won't get any more. I still treasure the time spent with my grandfather helping with projects. I learned much more than the skills for the task at hand. He became a friend and mentor as well as a grandfather. Passed on some wise tidbits of life and values. Just like the trains, they'll use it and appreciate it later in life. "teach your children well" as Neil and boys sang. 

 

What am I talkin' about...sell it all off and go get a lap dance when you think about trains

Lots of good advice here, Vern.

 

I guess my advice would be to ask yourself A few questions...

 

1. What could possibly be in that new catalog that would get you excited again, and could you possibly build that magic item yourself?

 

2. Is it possible that this layout was mainly built for the grand kids And not for you? If they've lost interest is there a chance you can build a different layout that is more about satisfying your interests?

 

3. Is there some other interest crowding the trains out of your life? If so, go for it! Life is too short to wait around--better to scratch that new itch now (Hopefully we aren't talking about a 22 year old cheerleader )

 

Jeff C

I agree with the "seasonal adjustments" as others have pointed to.

 

But I have another thought, and this might just be me. The phrase "The Magic of Lionel" has been used for decades as observation, fascination and advertising. To me, that magic was your imagination: visualizing that your trains are REAL even though they aren't.

 

Today the hobby has changed.  Until recently, 3-rail trains were toys, representations of the real thing, not precise replicas. Today, the 3-rail train realism is more accurate and even the more traditional types of trains have realistic sound.

 

But for me, it all kind of kills the magic. Are the new features impressive? Yes. But they leave little to the imagination, and that was the real magic.

I've never embraced the digital control nor the sounds. I have a single MRC sound unit and that's good enough. And I don't get bored with it either. The magic is still there as it was when I was a kid... imagination.

 

If I needed or wanted the more accurate realism and variety, I would have gone to HO years ago. I wanted to capture a moment in time from my youth, when life was a little bit more simple. I prefer trains like that, and I still have fun with it too. And I've never been bored with it in 25 years now that I've been back in the hobby.

 

Many things or hobbies are like a roller coaster with many ups and downs. Mine was for almost a year and a half. But this past year I have done more to work on the layout then in the past two years or more. I have five grandkids and none of them are that interested in the trains. Each new generation that comes along has different tastes as to hobbies. But that doesn't stop me from enjoying what I have. I still enjoy the arrival of each new catalog but for many it is just look. That could be that I have bought so many during the years that I have run out of room. Also my layout is not done by any means. Maybe that makes a difference so I haven't got to the point of just running trains just............. Paul

I too go from hobby to hobby over time. Periodically I go back to one that has been dormant for several years..

Fortunately for my Train hobby my new Granddaughter likes the trains running so I'm getting a boost this year.

I trying to hold back from buying her a Polar Express set, she's only 8 months old !

If her parents were into trains it would be no big deal but they are not interested.

I may decide to get the Polar Express for me and be done with it.

I'm a freight guy but I do like that movie, Every time I see it.

Still warm outside.  Wait until the snow flies, or at least it gets cold enough to where you don't want to sit outside.  Your "hankering" for the trains will come back.

 

Paul Fischer

I've redone my layout 7 times. It drives my wife a little nuts that I finish just to start over but to me building it is the fun part & running trains is the boring part. If all I did was run the trains I'd be out of the hobby too.

I have a similar problem.  In my case I think it is that when I am "into trains" I am 110% into it and after awhile I get a little burned out.  I have other hobbies then that take up the slack until the same thing happens to them.  But I have loved trains all my life and have always came back with renewed enthusiasm.

 

Art

I found I felt this way a couple of times when I built early layouts.    I had this grand plan with everything automatic and 2 trains running and etc etc.

 

But once it was built, it got boring.   

 

Many years ago I got interested in "operation" and came up with some ideas myself and then I got invited to friends HO layout that was big and was operated with a purspose.    I found I was having much more fun and looking forward to each operating session (they are all different) and thinking of ways to incorporate more into my layout.

 

Look into one of the car card systems or switchlist systems for sending cars to industries and consider building a layout that has a bunch of places to ship and recieve cars.   Actually you not need many.   

 

When I first started I about 15 cars and 5-6 industries.    One industry was an interchange with the C&O from my shortline.    My operation was to take a loco from the engine house (it was a 2 stall not a roundhouse) and a caboose and run to the interchange on the other end of the layout.    There I would pick up the cars on the interchange and assemble the train with the loco and caboose at proper ends.   Each car on the interchange had a little tag on the roof routing it to an industry on the layout.    I would then run around the layout and switch the 5 or so industries on the layout.   Each car at an industry had the same tag, only it was turned over routing the car to the interchange, or in rare cases another industry.    I ran point to point even though the layout could be continous.   When I got to the last industry, I had a run around track in the "town".   I would rearrange the train for the run back to the interchange.    There I had to run around again and shove the cars onto the interchange track.    This usually took me about an hour to do.   It was fun.   

 

I made different tags for box, gon, tank etc so they to appropriate places and I made more than I could use at one time.    I kept them in a small box with separators on my workbench.    After the train wsa done, I would flip the tags on the cars and pull all the ones on the interchange cars.   I would then put new ones on the interchange cars.   I tried to pick the new tags randomly.    Voila, I had a new run ready to go.   And if the tags had variation, it was guaranteed that the run would be different than the last since the cars and tags would be different creating different destinations.   

 

Eventually I added a second small interchange track for the PRR too.

 

Every run would point out problems to fix on the la yout that gave me a worklist too.   

 

Just a suggestion about adding something different to your running, but it might mean a new track plan.

Vern,

 

    This happens from time to time. As for the grandkids they will come around. A couple of years ago my eldest grandson asked me what puberty was and would he go through it and when. My response was all young people go through it at different ages. You will know when you start because you will be enterested in a lot of other things and will forget about playing trains. He promised me he would never stop playing with trains. I am not going to hold him to his promise, he has'nt been down in the basement in about 6 months.

 

Bill 

I am glad in a way to see this post. I have been working 60-80 hour weeks since end of May. I sometimes just look at my incomplete layout and say "Hi" to it as I walk by. I just asked my wife last week if she has looked at the trains lately and she looked up at me and says...Sure I do every time I walk by the layout, why?? I told her I miss working on the railroad like I did last winter. She reminded me that when its nice out we work out side..Winter is coming and she is also looking forward to get back to adding more trees and roads to "our" layout.

Glad I am not the only one that felt like I was feeling...

Glad to check in here also. It's been a long time since I was here.

Be back soon enough.

 

Like others, my interest in the hobby has waxed and waned over the years. And my kids have aged out of assisting me. Sometimes, I've found it's a good excuse to change the layout theme and start working on something fresh. That also works because I enjoy working on the layout and built it so it's easy to redo. Over the past decade, I've gone through 'Wild West,' circus, Thomas the Tank Engine, and trolley-themed layouts.

Sometimes a whole new angle will rekindle an old interest.

 

Digital cameras gave me a whole new interest in photography. The instant downloads and computer editing capabilities enhanced what I could do.

 

I got into O-gauge by sheer chance acquisitions of items that I wasn't specifically looking for. It has been an interesting diversion from HO and N modelling.

 

Or perhaps you are ready for some other diversion away from the hobby. Life is more interesting with new opportunities and new adventures.

Vern,

I have a mild case of waning interest, too, for various reasons. Now that the Munoz Lines is largely finished and our goals have been mostly achieved, I am longing for more challenges. I will always love trains and there will always be trains in my life but now they run when we have visitors and I have not done any serious work on the layout for more than six months.

 

The Munoz Lines will be disassembled and new homes found for the characters and their hangouts next Spring. We hope to celebrate the railroad this Fall and then begin the process of moving on.

 

Scrappy

I had a couple layouts, got bored- took them down. Now I think I may have found my niche. Our Community Seasonal Layout. We start planning it in early summer, start building it in November, Start running it in December & tear it down in January. We love thinking about it all year, and the planning. Each year it is different & we try to figure out how to work our new purchases in. We go to different shows & try to snag different ideas. It doesn't get boring. Now granted, we don't super scale it or even use ballast. It is all about fun, and let me tell ya- it is fun. 

Bill, are you saying some of us have our hormones "trained?"  The older I get I can be satisfied just looking at things I still like enough not to sell or throw away.  

This year I promised myself to sell one of the two motorcycles I haven't ridden in a while.  I went out to the garage where they're kept a month ago and cleaned them up and got them running. Heck, I sometimes just enjoy starting them and listening to them idle.  A rational person would admit he's perhaps too old and worn out to ride them.  That's probably true, but I'm not good at cleaning up.

 

As for the trains, cooler weather and York are my winter hobby Viagara.  I should be up by Thanksgiving.

I don't think that the lack of interest in any catalog is a fair barometer of interest in our hobby. You will know when it is time to move on.

 

Hopefully, I am a long way from this.

Ebb and flow of enthusiasms is normal - in activities, and often in relationships. Many of us have come and gone with both over the years. And sometimes we revisit them.

I've been building my layout for at least a dozen years.  It is always there when I want it but I do have other interests.  I mowed the grass this morning before it started to rain.  Then when the rain came I worked on the layout.

.....

Dennis

 

Getting there wasn't half the fun. It was all of it.   

I have been mostly inactive as regards my small round-the-room attic layout since 2010 due to age and health issues. But I still enjoy the Forum and still occasionally purchase something for the layout with full intention of getting back to work on it in the future. 

Maybe never but I am not of a mind to quit yet.

 

 

Must admit I went through that stage at the end of last winter into spring.  I don't even think I turned on my layout for more then 1 hour for three months.  I was a little burnt out and the funds kinda dried up with me taking the family to Disney World.  My I got myself into it again when a locomotive I ordered finally came in.  I was in awe of it.  So now I am going at 120MPH into the layout.  Looking at ways to expand.  Of course my taste is limited.  I try to acquire mostly LIRR equipment.  My only outside interest of the LIRR is cool looking husky stack cars. Basically like everything else I have too many outside interests.  My wife wants me to choose.  All my hobbies are expensive so she might be correct.  Right now I am content.

I have had this happen to me to.Like sometimes I will check out a catalog.And the prices of roling stock such as boxcars.That turns me off but I started to look at the 2 market.And I have just walked away for a bit.

I think when guys like us get a little older we all struggle to find ways to re new the excitement in things.It is not easy to maintain an un corrupt mind and attitude.But it can be done.Get out there and get to know other people with layouts.You may see them very excited with a layout that is a mere fraction of what you have.Perhaps they can inspire you.Nick

I just got into toy (model) trains about five years ago, although from the trains I had in childhood, I was always interested in them and thought someday I would have at least one toy train.  Now I have not one, but three power units and matching end of train devices.  But that's all I'll ever have - can't build enough track and scenery to accommodate them.

I have flown airplanes since the 50s (as a hobby and not professionally), but my interest in that has ebbed and flowed.  I used to fly at least 100 hours per year, and now it is down from 50, 40, 30, and due to health reasons 5 this last year.  I never liked just to bore holes in the sky, but flew to go somewhere.  Now that I have been most places I wanted to go, the excitement has dwindled. Not so with trains - there are still a lot of places I want to build.

Sorry for the long epistle - tried to be as succinct as possible.

Vern, don't get discouraged, since I retired my purchases have not been additional engines or cars, have enough, I am in the process of building the layout, expenses now in lumber, wiring, cork roadbed and possibly another box of Gargrave track. You may consider upgrading your engines to directional lighting, lighting of classification and number boards, changing the passenger car incandescent bulb light to led's,etc. these projects are relatively inexpensive and information is available on the Forum for these projects. Also, what you are experiencing has happened to many of the Forum members including myself.  

Yeah having a layout is sort of 2 dimensional... without out colleagues to share it with things become dull.

I would suggest joining a club, or hosting a get together at your place to liven things up.  

 

Thank you for your input and insights, everyone. Good for me to absorb these different perspectives. I'm going to leave the layout as is for now and see what transpires over time.

 

Very much appreciated.

Maybe think about hosting a neighborhood open house one Sunday afternoon. Put fliers in your neighbors' mailboxes, bake some cookies and put on the coffee pot. I find introducing new people to the layout and our trains to be pretty fun.....

Do something else for a few months, then see how you feel. You might feel like playing with your trains again, or you might decide you've found something better. Especially spend more time outdoors - it will elevate your mood. 

 

Personally, I keep wondering if I shouldn't have used my train room for a home gym instead.