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What attracted you guys to model railroading?

I am not completely sure why I am so attracted to model railroading. Maybe it's my romantic attraction to bucolic America: American ingenuity, adventuresome, indomitable, chivalrous, Teddy Roosevelt (my second favorite president), fearless (steam locomotives know not of fear), John Wayne (a man's man), Audie Murphy (America's hero), Mt Rushmore (where Ronald Reagan, my favorite president, should be); all of these represent American railroading. Maybe I yearn for the era when Americans were of the image of Founding Fathers; when we were rugged individualists, when we solved problems and not created them.

What do we all have in common???


Take care,

Tom
 
i think whats attracted me to it is knowing when you create your layout you can create your own little world. a couple years ago i had no room what so ever to have a layout so i started by making scenery. i made two tunnels, about twenty trees and i found i was pretty good at it. so tonight i ordered some flex track and will slowly start my layout which im extremely excited about. i think model railroading has so many possibilites that one could never get bored. so thats my opinion....
 
The concussion in the air as the steam evacuating from the cylinders also draws air into the fire box, creating a thumping in my head. The valve motion, the heat as the boiler passes by, slick with wetness. The engine towers above me, and I get vertigo, feeling as if it will fall over onto me...I am that close. There is a constant roar, and flanges squeeling.

Now I have it all in a confined space in my basement. Kewl.
 
I like the concept of creating my own little world too. In a world where I can really control so little, as least my little people still do what I tell them and my trains (most of the time) still go where I send them. :)
 
Railroad dreams

I guess because I grew up in a railroad town where we had 6 E7’s idling all night only a 100 yards from my bedroom and the far off sounds of a New Haven freight struggling up a mountain grade made me dream of being a railroad engineer. Then when I became one and found out how many hours you actually spend on these engines I thought maybe some day just having a model railroad will be enough.

NYC_George
 
The Dreams of building your own city, your own railroad, your own forests & never getting bored doing it. I've been doing this for many many years & the only thing I find bad about building my own little empire is; There's not enough hours in a day or days in a week or weeks in a year to accomplish everything. Seems like U just get started on something big & it's time to eat breakfast, lunch or supper or it's time for your doctors appointment.

Larry
 
Foe me, I have just always loved trains. Found them to be fascinating in every way at a young age and I have always wanted some "hands on" so MRR seemed pretty natural. I guess in a way it helps me to stay in touch with the kid that is still in me. The hobby itself is also one that needs patience and I find it soothing to be working with models in any way whatsoever.
 
It has to be because of the women!

I have been interested in models for years.
I've studied them in the Sears catalog, PLAYBOY, Walthers and many other sources.
It is only by working with women in HO scale that they are plastic to my will.
I can position them any way I want and they never complain about the color or style of their hair or clothes. They never complain about lapses in attention and being left alone for periods of time.;)

I have had very little success with the other women in my life not complaining about something and frequently.

And if I want my wife to hear that, I'll tell her myself!:D
Mikey
 
I have always loved trains and having my childhood during the late 40's and 50's, proved a spectacular time for watching the steamers huffing and puffing and even seeing the curious dullness of the newer diesels without moving thingys on their sides. My little friends and I loved talking with the train crews and any one else around the tracks. There was also a positive influence in railroads, in that my Grandparents ran a rooming house for train crews in Princeton, Indiana, and the crewman sort-of adopted me and answered all my zillion questions about the choo-choo's. However and above all, I must say that my childhood memory of a huge Lionel layout is what laid out the framework of my hobby today. It was setup in a large department store in Terre Haute, Indiana and was at Christmas time. I never will forget the many trains running around in all directions; smoke and whistles; the animated gizmos moving, loading, swinging; the control of it all by some magical entity. How about the smell of ozone from the sparking of the motor brushes.

Like many young boys, I had my little Lionel setup and played and crashed trains for several years. However, it wasn't until the late 60's that I ventured seriously into the hobby. I was living abroad and items were hard to come-by, but none-the-less I managed to have a fair 4x16 layout. I continued the hobby after our return to the United States for another couple of years, but the lack of time, space, and money became overwhelming and I sold out.

Time for retirement: What is a good hobby? Well, I thought of many things that I liked to do, but realized that many were either too expensive or that I would soon become bored with them. What I needed was something that had plenty of endless projects to do with different areas of skills being used. What in the world could this possibly be? This was a big concern as I knew I needed something; rocking chairs were definitely out. Then one day, from out of nowhere, the memory of model railroading came to me. This is it! This is what I want to do. So here I am, a happy modeler, a happy retiree.;):)
 
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I grew up in a small town, and there was a spur directly across the street from my bedroom window... It served an LP gas distributor, two grain mills, a lumberyard and a coal yard -- so almost every day, I got to see a GP-7 or GP-9 switching. If I went out into the front yard, I could see the main line running through town. A southbound train could be heard about two or three minutes away, while northbounds could be heard as many as ten minutes away -- so I always HAD to watch the trains go by!

And of course, going to the "big city" to Christmas shop with Dad and Mom... and we always went to the big department store with the huge Lionel layout set up in their "toyland"!

The clincher was that my Grandpa had worked for the railroad... Christmas, when I was four years old, I wanted a train set so bad! Dad and Mom said "No, you're too young" -- but Grandpa thought otherwise, and I got an American Flyer "S" gauge set that Christmas!

Two years later (as a first-grader), Dad and Mom got me an Athearn HO-gauge set, completely "sealing the deal"!

Ah, good memories...

Regards,
Tom Stockton
 
I like the idea of controlling a world, building an empire, and bringing destruction amongst the heathens.

Ok maybe not THAT far.

My mom and grandpa used to have a model railroad, and never got rid of the stuff. So when I found it in the attic years and years ago, I decided to play with it. I have been interested all the time, just haven't had time or money to do anything. Hopefully that can change.

Good thing I am still a teenager that knows everything about the world.

So is Chris, but that's another story for another topic ;)

edit: the Chris part is a reference to being young.
 
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