Hi all...my #1 hobby is model railroading...yes, even I am a girl, I love playing with trains. My dad custom painted a locomotive in Pink and Purple, and I run it around the layout. Anyone else like trains?

I come from a railway family so I've had a love affair with things to do with railways and model making for most of my life.  When I was younger I was into very precise fine scale railway modelling, but as I got older, - and my eyesight became less sharp, - I took to working in larger scales and eased back on being such a finescale fanatic.  It's been a little while since I last worked on any of my railway models, but the last things I was working on were 'G' scale sized models inspired by the early 20th Century timber industry tramways here in New Zealand.

I have terrible secret though because I love clockwork toy trainsets and still have some nice English bits and pieces from the 1950s.  When I first became ill some years ago I had to sell a lot of my collection due it taking a long time for me to be accepted onto the Invalid's Benefit and having no income, but I managed to keep back a few things to remind me of childhood Christmas mornings

I absolutely love model trains!!! gender could never change that for me.


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N scale: Boston and Maine, depressed New England mill town ca. 1970.  Industrial waste polluting the river... homeless people under the highway bridge... lots of graffiti... dead cars...

The early 70s were the absolute lowest point for the B&M for revenue and maintenance --  so it's totally realistic when the trains derail.

Another enthusiast here!

I model in OO and at some point in the future, I'd love to model Leicester station. I remember taking the train to my gran's as I grew up and frequently changing at Leicester for Birmingham and observed how things changed throughout the years as privatisation happened and new rolling stock came in. I want to model Leicester throughout those years and also go as far back as the mid-eighties. I've also taken an interest in West Coast Main Line stuff with the push-pull loco-hauled electric sets.

My favourite train has to be the InterCity 125 though.

A partial interest in railways.I  was born in 1957 and grew up in the 60s when Dr Beeching destroyed the UK rail network.3 of my local   stations were closed down. I like local history and I often look at old railway photos.

It just goes to show what a diverse hobby railway modelling is.  There really is something to suit everyone.  I've always been steam era as I'm just old enough to remember the last days of steam on the NZ Government Railways.  Diesels have never done a thing for me, though some early electric locos will quicken my interest.
I started out modelling the Midland Railway and later the London, Midland and Scottish in 00 and then when finescale scratch building took my fancy I modelled the Furness Railway in finescale 'S' scale. No photos survive from this time unfortunately.


When I started having problems with aging eyesight and pains in my hands from the years I'd spent as a heavy truck mechanic I moved up a size again to '0' gauge working in old fashioned coarse scale.  This time it was the London & South Western Railway that captured my interest.  After working in finescale old fashioned coarse scale was a revelation and I soon discovered i was having fun instead of spending hours and hours shaping tiny pieces of brass accurately and soldering them together with tiny tools.
I had to sell a lot of my '0' gauge stuff when I became ill, but I have kept back some vintage pieces which I'm hoping to be able to set up as a layout again.

'In the spirit of' LS&WR loco I built from a pile of left over distressed tinplate loco parts, robotics gears & motor and cast fittings. This little loco is able to haul a surprising number of not very free rolling tinplate goods wagons. The handbuilt wooden coach is very old and is a treasure that I was very lucky to find.  I have other handbuilt wooden models from this era as well. The coach bogie in the foreground is also made from scrap bits and is for an as yet unfinished project.


My first tinplate loco (as a grown up person).  I built this up from a badly crushed Hornby clockwork that somebody must've stepped on. I painted it in London Midland & Scottish colours for old time's sake.


When I first moved to the wee rural town where I now live I had thoughts of building a railway in the garden which I figured was one way to prod myself into taking an interest in gardening.  My health was better then so I was very optimistic about the project.  I wanted to model a timber tramway in the spirit of the timber industry tramways that were so common in the district where I live.
Because I didn't have much money I built all these large scale models using parts from toy trainsets, cardboard and wood.  The cardboard came from cereal boxes and the wood came from the kindling box beside the wood heater in the lounge.

'Emily' - built from wood and cardboard on a toy loco chassis.


A typical tramway side tip wagon.  I'd caught the whimsy bug so my helpful staff was mostly Playmobil people.


A mobile workshop/tool van. It's not at all obvious in the picture but this is a Ewings monorail system item of rolling stock


Ewings monorail loco under construction.  Go ahead and Google the Ewings system it's fascinating.




I think that will be enough from me for now 

Quote from: big kim on December 10, 2015, 01:59:39 AM
A partial interest in railways.I  was born in 1957 and grew up in the 60s when Dr Beeching destroyed the UK rail network.3 of my local   stations were closed down. I like local history and I often look at old railway photos.

Oh yes, I remember the horrible Dr Beeching well   

He also destroyed a lot of historic architecture, there were some splendid stations demolished. Lady Smith you have made some excellent models, let's see more please

Yes, please, Lady Smith, those are some great models! And I love your silly little people -- they sort of keep things in perspective...

Oh well alright then...... 

Before I started on experimenting with the Ewings monorail system I had a go at very narrow gauge in large scale.  I chose a lightweight Baguley IC loco as my prototype inspiration and decided to use an old Triang mech and vintage Triang Series 3 track as a quick way to get started.

A picture of the prototype loco


Making a start.  The little black and white dog is a childhood toy I found in a corner of a cupboard while cleaning up my Mum's house after she sold it.


Usual methods, - wood and cardboard and a lozenge container for the cooling water tank.




The front coupling was cut and filed out of aluminium.








An important visitor


Basic paintwork






Completed model. My timber tramway is named the 'Kotanga Tramway' which is another bit of whimsy and pun making on my part because the sawmill on the line makes wooden coathangers 


Experiments with converting the loco to the Ewings monorail system. (a work in progress)




That will do for now.  Oh and Big Kim I completely agree, - it was shocking what was done to some of the important heritage station buildings during the Beeching era.   

After a lot of hunting about I found some photos of '0' Gauge locos I built sometime ago.  It's bittersweet seeing them again because two of them were sold when I became ill and had no income for around nine months.

This is a Great Western Railway 14xx class loco I scratchbuilt for myself from tinplate and galvanised sheet steel and it was a really enjoyable loco to build too.  This is the only photo I still have of this loco.


This is a L&SWR B4 dock tank engine I scratchbuilt from galvanised sheet steel and some brass offcuts.  Whenever I took it with me to run on the Hornby '0' Gauge club layout at exhibitions folk would always ask me if it was built from a kit.  I suppose that was a compliment in an odd sort of way.  Again this is the only photo I still have of this loco.


I posted a picture of this loco earlier and it's the only hand built loco of mine I kept.  I put it up for sale on the local auction site and then changed my mind.  Having sold so many of my treasures already I decided enough was enough.


I was actually quite involved in the tinplate train and coarse scale '0' gauge enthusiast circles for a while there and while folk might poke fun at adults who 'play with toy trains' I never for one moment was made to feel unwelcome in that enthusiast community because I was TG.

I did get bitten by live steam for a wee while and eventually I was able to find an '0' Gauge Bowman live steam loco which was made in the 1920s.  I'd wanted one of these for such a long time and unfortunately I had to sell it too along with a lot of other live steam loco parts before I really had a chance to enjoy it. 

For such a mechanically simple live steam loco these old Bowmans run surprisingly well.


With this thread having been started off on the forum it's really made me think about unpacking all my surviving '0' gauge stuff and setting it up in my bedroom.  Railway modelling is a good hobby for someone who is an invalid and life is too short not to spend it doing things I like doing.
When I was recovering from my last big relapse I built things in Lego as a way to get my hands and brain working together again.  And yes I did make some railway models which was a lot of fun.  I did think about getting my Lego out again, but I think I'd enjoy myself much more if I built up a tinplate train layout instead.

Lego railway breakdown crane


Lego timber tramway loco




And yes the Lego locos I built really did work and could haul a train.

Those are some really cool locos and dioramas you've created    You possess quite a talent

I've always liked model railroading and had amassed quite a collection of HO scale when I was younger, unfortunately my step father had a habit of hauling my belongings to the dump so all I have now are memories

I miss it quite a bit and sometimes think about putting something together but I don't really see it fitting into my budget at this time

Hugs

Thanks for the nice compliments 

Yes V M it's not a cheap hobby to get into and I suppose I'm lucky in that I do still have some nice items left over from when I had a well paying job.  Making things from scratch can keep the costs down, but then on the other hand you need the tools to do that so you get bitten both ways.

Your stepfather doesn't sound like he was a very nice man    I'm sorry that you lost so many of your belongings in such a mean and destructive way.

He was okay in some ways but obviously a bit of a wank in other ways     I try not to dwell too long because it just pisses me off so I just try to move forward with the now and get on with life

Hugs

Hugs V M I like the way you think.  Life is too short for regrets.

Just a thought though.  All of my large scale 'garden gauge' railway models have been built very cheaply indeed and none of them cost me very much at all to build.  Even 'Emily' my big green timber tramway loco was put together for very little money.  What I did was keep an eye out for cheap plastic Chinese made train sets either on sale in the shops or else picked up at yard sales and the like.  Once I got them back home I would strip everything down and rob the motors, gears wheels & etc and anything else that was useful and use these parts along with wood and cardboard to make my own models.  'Emily' has a radio control unit from a second hand toy car I picked up for cheap and wired into the Chinese toy loco underframe i used as a basis for this model.
Track can be a problem and sometimes the toy trainset track can be used or modified, but I have also built track using rails made from stripwood, - which is quite prototypical for many timber tramways, - or else I stripped the rail off old second hand tinplate train track and re-gauged it on wooden sleepers cut from off-cuts from the local joinery factory.

I will admit though that finding spare money for hobbies can be frustrating.  I was food shopping earlier this week and came home feeling quite depressed and frustrated at the prices of basic food items.  All the Christmas hype that's around only makes it worse (sigh).

I'll have to keep my eye out for a deal on something to get me going on some sort of layout again, I've always had a thing for public transportation, bridges, tunnels and amusement parks

I hear you on the grocery shopping, not only are the prices frighteningly high but you also stand a good chance of catching whatever colds or flues are about   

I fell in love with steam engines when I was little - full size steam engines - and only gave it up for a couple of years after transition (1974). Ever since then, I have been back at it pretty much every weekend all summer long - mostly 1/8 scale (live steam) locomotives and full-sized traction engines.

Quote from: Lady SmithI will admit though that finding spare money for hobbies can be frustrating.  I was food shopping earlier this week and came home feeling quite depressed and frustrated at the prices of basic food items.  All the Christmas hype that's around only makes it worse (sigh).

Yeah, I was grocery shopping last night, and... yikes!  It's a good thing we have a freezer that's well stocked with stuff from our garden and the farmer's market. And the nephew got a deer this year, so there's venison for special occasions.

I was lucky this year, though... I picked up a huge batch of model train stuff, mostly N scale, on Craigslist from someone who just wanted rid of his uncle's collection, and I should be able to sell it on eBay for about 3-4x what I paid -- lots of steam locos, some rare rolling stock, and a big box of building kits. I'll keep a few items, but the rest can fund the hobby for a while -- I've been too strapped to pursue it for a few years.

I truly admire your scratch built locos, Lady Smith, but I don't think my eyes are good enough to do that in N scale -- if they ever were.