Combining 2 favorite hobbies


TRAINFAN9510

TRAINFAN9510

Member
Obviously I/we (girlfriend) love model railroading or we wouldnt belong to this forum lol. Like many of you model railroading is just one of many fun hobbies we have. Another favorite hobby of ours is video games, in particular, the Halo franchise for the xbox 360. The other day at Target I found out that they make "micro ops" halo toys. The box claims they are close to 1:100 scale, but the first thing I thought of was how close to HO they look. So of course I had to buy one. One of the things we are having on our layout is a military base, so a quick talk with the gf (she loves halo as well) and a comparison of the scale of the toys to HO scale (veeery veeerryyy close, one thing to keep in mind is that they are super soldiers that average 7.5 feet tall), our military will now be futuristic and from the Halo series! Attached is a photo. Yeah it might not be everyones cup of tea, but we are both excited about it and now have one more thing to "play with" on our layout haha. This got me thinking, have any of you combined your other hobbies on your layouts?
 
TRAINFAN9510 said:
Obviously I/we (girlfriend) love model railroading or we wouldnt belong to this forum lol. Like many of you model railroading is just one of many fun hobbies we have. Another favorite hobby of ours is video games, in particular, the Halo franchise for the xbox 360. The other day at Target I found out that they make "micro ops" halo toys. The box claims they are close to 1:100 scale, but the first thing I thought of was how close to HO they look. So of course I had to buy one. One of the things we are having on our layout is a military base, so a quick talk with the gf (she loves halo as well) and a comparison of the scale of the toys to HO scale (veeery veeerryyy close, one thing to keep in mind is that they are super soldiers that average 7.5 feet tall), our military will now be futuristic and from the Halo series! Attached is a photo. Yeah it might not be everyones cup of tea, but we are both excited about it and now have one more thing to "play with" on our layout haha. This got me thinking, have any of you combined your other hobbies on your layouts?
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My other Hobby is taking things apart, like Computers, Printers, hardrives, TV's, sound equipment, VCR's, DVD players & anything else in electronics. I use a lot of the small parts out of these units on my layout. I use Capacitors(10 diff. sizes) for fuel & propane tanks, Motor parts for flat car loads. I also use all of the plastic screens out of monitors for making buildings & to scratchbuild Flat-cars. There's no end to items that can be used out of these items. I also make money from all of the scrap metals. So, it's a win-win hobby.:D
 
Oh yeah I have seen a lot of your cool looking flat car loads from various computer parts :D I have actually used some of your ideas for our own car loads.
 
I think a futuristic layout would be stellar!!! You could model a maglev type train, dilithium crystal mines and cold fusion packs in a boxcar. Not to mention all the mirco Halo action packs and figures.

Where can I get a girlfriend that loves model railroading and plays Halo on the Xbox360? Naaa...I love my wife (but I do love model railroads and Halo :rolleyes: )
 
I used to build 1/72 scale model airplanes, so I used to hang them over the layout. Yeah, 1/72 is a little large for HO, but when hung from the ceiling over it, most folks probably couldn't tell the difference.
 
NSHO said:
I think a futuristic layout would be stellar!!! You could model a maglev type train, dilithium crystal mines and cold fusion packs in a boxcar. Not to mention all the mirco Halo action packs and figures.

Where can I get a girlfriend that loves model railroading and plays Halo on the Xbox360? Naaa...I love my wife (but I do love model railroads and Halo :rolleyes: )
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We have actually thrown around that idea! We were thinking of some rust colored martian like ground cover, and scratch building all of the buildings to look futuristic. We could use some neon green paint for the rails and lots of green LED's. As for the wife, ask her to play some halo with you! You never know she might really get into it

cct70 said:
I used to build 1/72 scale model airplanes, so I used to hang them over the layout. Yeah, 1/72 is a little large for HO, but when hung from the ceiling over it, most folks probably couldn't tell the difference.
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We will be doing the same thing lol. I am a private pilot, so of course we have to put in a 2x10' airport for the layout. We have a few Beech craft Bonanzas and I am trying to find more planes, but the HO selection is slim for modern small type ones, so we have some of the 1/72 cessnas too.
 
ianacole said:
Wow! I didn't think the Warthogs would scale that big. No Covenant?
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I think the scale is really close, keeping in mind how big the Chief is, and it is a decent sized military vehicle. It fits on the roads and keeps in one lane. The Falcon looks really to scale next to the bonanza. And they do make the covenant banshee and ghost, but we havent gotten any of those yet. We were thinking of having a covenant invasion and suspending them from the ceiling or something lol. And series 2 is coming out sometime in january, and it will have the tank and some other vehicles as well
 
cct70 said:
I used to build 1/72 scale model airplanes, so I used to hang them over the layout. Yeah, 1/72 is a little large for HO, but when hung from the ceiling over it, most folks probably couldn't tell the difference.
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I have about 30 planes hanging above my layout. 1/72nd isn't a bad scale for planes.:)
Most of my planes are WW2, VietNam & all points west. P51's, P38's & etc.
 
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Ive combined cars, computers, flying things, trains, heck I even too a computer and combined it to my layout (in planning stages at the moment) so once I get it set up I can just hook in my computer and hopefully control my trains and do what I want with it.

lets see aside from those hobbies....I took destruction of things...(making scrap loads), I figured how to "deform" train cars to make them look like they were in a wreak and reuse them for derailment purposes...lets see, I love to just take train pictures period...need I go on?

oh and im already digging up some Covenant forces for my layout as I was toying with a similar idea, more along the maglev style set up with LEDs that progress with the train for an interesting effect...
 
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I've been a school bus enthusiast since I was 5, and now I'm a part time school bus mechanic so buses have always been in the mix for me. I spend hours detailing and lettering HO buses, sometimes modeling exact ones that operate in my area, so when my layout is built there's no doubt I'll put a Blue Bird Body dealer on there to showcase my work on those.
 
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I am a model railroader in fall winter and spring, an RC airplane builder spring, summer and fall and a leather carver when I'm not doing the other 2. They have all made me a better model builder. Thanks to model railroading I now have the skills and tools to superdetail my planes. I use Monokote covering material in black and yellow for tiedown straps on loads. It has a heat activated glue so it sticks to itself or pretty much anything else. You can put it around a load loose and shrink it to make it drum tight. I now use leather dye to color all my wood. Some of the tools from leather carving have become usefull for both RC Planes and model railroading. Next thing I am going to try is using leather carving to make patterns for modelmaking. I think it might work very well.
 
TRAINFAN9510 said:
I think the scale is really close, keeping in mind how big the Chief is, and it is a decent sized military vehicle. It fits on the roads and keeps in one lane. The Falcon looks really to scale next to the bonanza. And they do make the covenant banshee and ghost, but we havent gotten any of those yet. We were thinking of having a covenant invasion and suspending them from the ceiling or something lol. And series 2 is coming out sometime in january, and it will have the tank and some other vehicles as well
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Oh, I don't disagree that the scaled down right ... I just always imagined the Warthogs being the size of a open top Jeep or a buggy of some sort. I forget that Master Chief is huge.

With some of the electronics out now - flashing lights, welding look LEDs - you could make a pretty good battle scene. I think it'd be quite cool.
 
I guess I'm the wierdo. Model railroading is it on my layout. Now if I could figure out how to integrate some ES Skyrim things I might be better off.:D Jim
 
Neat! Since it is your layout, you can add whatever you wish to it. I really love Walt Disney World, I think it's a great place. So, I have a Disney Transport bus on my layout, along with characters like Goofy, Donald, Minnie, and Mickey.
 
HOexplorer said:
I guess I'm the wierdo. Model railroading is it on my layout. Now if I could figure out how to integrate some ES Skyrim things I might be better off.:D Jim
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Ooooooo....maybe I need to figure out how to include my dragon from the Skyrim CE on a mountain top ... "EPIC" comes to mind ;)
 
Sounds like some pretty sweet ideas in here. I have never played Skyrim, mainly because that is exactly the kind of game where I would play and nobody would see me for a month lol, but it does look really sweet. A dragon on a layout would be pretty cool, never thought of that. And yeah at times when looking at the Warthog compared to a train, it does seem a tad on the bigger side than the smaller (although they claim to be about 1:100), but like with the planes in 1/72 scale, only we really know, and it doesnt make that much a difference anyway as long as you are having fun :D
 
Fazoo said:
These are some great ideas...especially the futuristic set-ups. Would love to see pics of those!
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Working on it! Work has been crazy these past few months, 70+ hours a week so the layout has been put on the back burner. Layoff isnt that far out, so for now (while I have money rolling in :D ) we have been stocking up on accessories and vehicles and such. Ill build up the Halo army and put a pic up sometime. The problem for us is that our layout has a lot of fun areas and scenes we want to do, we dont know where to start!
 
There's a Man & his Wife that comes to the Plant City, Fla. train shows in March every year or almost every year & they have a Modular layout that is about 20ft long & 6ft wide in HO scale & they have some weird stuff that happens on the whole layout. Earthquakes, big buildings on fire, buildings being demolished, war zone, Space ship attacking earth, flood, large train wrecks, train hitting a semi, dinosaurs attacking a city & a Dragon w/fire shooting out of his mouth. All of these are mechanical operating all the times the trains are running. The layout really looks like crap, but, they get a lot of people taking pictures & the kids love it.:eek::eek::eek:
 
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