Scoots5012 wrote:
As a kid I loved trains, I loved everything about them expect for their god forsaken whistles. My parents fed my obsession with them by getting me a model train sets to play with, and taking me to rail road musuems. In 1985 my dad even built me a small HO scale train set in the basement for me to play with.
I think I was the only six year old in my class who had a real model train set to play with.
Does anything I mention here ring a bell here?
I was six when I had an electric trainset but I was a toddler onwards when I had a pushalong trainset which went on red plastic track. I also liked cars as well, but trains kinda took over because model trains move. When I grew up it was rare for cars to move unless you pushed them or they had friction drive which meant pushing. Stompers came in which were fun but one could not steer them.
Trains proved fascinating as there was history behind them that I could uncover/discover, and I could walk where track once was and see historic photographs... Trains just took over. They were also challenging in model form. Something more then just numbers and names. Oh, I used to remember facts ad could keep going with numerical facts like driving wheel diameters and so on, but this bored people and to be honest, did little for me as I am more of a hands on person and as I matured, I developed more in ways that were practical to me and my hobby. Recalling lists of factual information had no practical relevence to my modelling because one would buy ready made locos and stock where someone else did the calculating of the scaled down dimentions, and if they were out, they were not out by that much. As long as it looked right and worked.... And I used to be into the old Great Western Railway (Wales, UK), but then I went into British Railways because I remember them accurately as a child as the locos were in the smart blue colours even though they were grimy they were smart, and they blue and grey coaches (The grey was closer to creamy white) where the grey was applied across the section where the windows were, and this was so that the dirtier sections which were lower which were blue were less noticable in the dirt while where the grey was would stay giving its lovely creamy white colour better. They did in the past try a reversed livery but the dirt made it look horrible, and many of todays liveries need constant cleaning because they do not use common sense! The old liveries were chosen for their ability to hide the dirt. The previous liveries years ago were usually chosen with this in mind. Darker colours where the dirt hit at the bottom and ends and lighter colours towards the top, apart from the roofs... But often they did have white roofs which years later they painted black, because the white was the colour of the waterproofing material and structure of how they were made. I don't recall the name of the stuff... But they did on some companies like the GWR start off white.... But they would soon turn black anyway painted or not!!
Years later I got fed up of conformity as I wanted to do my own thing and make my own conformity. Also, I found myself in a situation of no income after quitting a really good railway job after my first more serious burnout (May have had elements of milder burnouts in past jobs before that but this was the first one that had an impact on me. I also had divine revelation that it was time to quit so I quit).
The prices of models had doubled just after I quit my job and I was not entitled to unemployment benefits because I made the decision to quit. I was without income, the prices of my hobby had become out of reach... I sat on the floor in my house (I had my own house back then) and I remembered I had bought a little kit of a narrow gauge loco in a larger scale. I did not have anything else that scale and I had bought it because I fell in love with the visual "Look" of it which on occasions happens with me but is rare because it breaks the conventional conformity that I adhere to and enjoy.
But here was something unconventional that had grabbed at my heart, and as I stsrted looking at it and assembling it, the more and more I did to this little loco, the more I fell in love with it, and the more it made sense, as the donor locos used ad the track gauge was the same I had een modelling in but only the scale was larger. So I could use scrap items I had from the scale I was modelling in to make little waggons and things in this new scale and I might add, at very little cost!
The more I followed this route, the more I fell in love, and there was a freedom in this new route because what I made and even the kits themselves (If I used kits) were mostly freelance and they were not usually prototypes of anything. They were more made to look as if they looked the part. I could therefore build my own little railway and let my imagination flow.
Oh, I am and have ALWAYS been a daydreamer and a very visual thinker. This new way of modelling really suited both my almost non existant (Actually non existant!) budget, and satisfy my daydreaming mind, and also I can add my own set of rules and conformity to the picture which is greatly satisfying!
And the more I have gone downthis route the less the large collection of the other models meant to me, and the less the compulsion to buy meant to me... As long as I had materials and knowledge (Which I had) I could build what I wanted and not buy. Oh, I was depressed when I could no longer buy, but this is the answer! To make! And I am creative!
And in the years when I have had funds, instead of buying more models, though I have bought secondhand donor models I can use to convert to this new scale along with more kits to aid to the scratchbuilding I have done, instead of investing in models, I have invested in tools and materials so I can make more stuff instead of buying it... And it makes sense!
I love to design things in my mind. It took me two and a half years of thought and the second attempt worked to make my own couplings. I rehearsed and rehearsed and rehearsed and went over many designs of commercial couplings and how I could make them before I came out with my own design, and I did this because comercially made couplings were doubling the cost of my biulding little waggons... So I came up with a plan to remedy this and succeeded in my plan. Not only do my couplings look the part and are cheap to make, but they operate in a prototypical way! The "Hands on" approach which I was so used to during my time working on the railways, which is a job that even for a guard working passenger trains was very hands on and physical.
So you see, my modelling has matured and grown character with it in a direction I did not expect it to head in, and it is good!
So no. All the past facts and figures of boiler pressures, cylinder dimentions, wheel diameters etc., did nothing for me as a child.
But now I am really modelling! Building my own railway with its own set of rules to follow!
And the real railways were all about rules and following them, and I personally played a part in at least two rule changes which were either too vague or impossible to adhere to for safety reasons, so I knew both why rules were needed and how they were made and came about.... So my little railway is the same. I make the rules to operate it by and develop them as I go along! Just like the real thing!
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14 Jan 2021, 3:37 pm
