Why do you do it?

[pete12345]

What attracts everyone to model railways as a hobby?

I've always been drawn to steam traction (Thomas is partly to blame) but I'm not old enough to remember steam engines 'in the wild'. So for me a big part of the hobby is historical research into my chosen subject. That goes for fictional history as well as factual- like any author, where you're not recreating something exactly, your worldbuilding has to be plausible enough that the reader (viewer) accepts the existence of fictitious elements. Exact accuracy is less vital to me than the overall atmosphere- and that includes the imagined world beyond the boundaries of the layout: where did that train come from? Where is it going, and who's on board?

I also find it rewarding when the envisaged plan begins to form where there was before just an empty space. Also those smaller construction and detailing jobs on the workbench where you turn bare raw materials into something resembling the real thing.

As an engineer, I also enjoy making the whole thing go! Whether thats the mechanical parts of track, wheels and baseboards, or the electrical and control systems.

What about everyone else?

[Bufferstop]

Exact accuracy is less vital to me than the overall atmosphere- and that includes the imagined world beyond the boundaries of the layout: where did that train come from? Where is it going, and who's on board?

That sums up my approach pretty well. I call it modelling with a broad brush! I wonder if being an engineer (of sorts) has something to do with it. We usually know what the limits of accuracy and feasibility are and actually have to decide how far we are going to take it.

[Mountain]

Uhmmm. Is a "How long is a piece of string" question. (Actially they differ as each string is different)

[BrightonMan]

Exact accuracy is less vital to me than the overall atmosphere- and that includes the imagined world beyond the boundaries of the layout: where did that train come from? Where is it going, and who's on board?

That sums up my approach pretty well. I call it modelling with a broad brush!

I'm with both of you on this, atmosphere is everything. Also my railway, although completely fictional, has to have a place in the real world..if that makes sense?! That's why I chose to place Wandle Park on a railway that did actually exist so the trains arrive from and to depart from real destinations.

[Chops]

Nostalgia.

[sishades]

Its the playboy lifestyle...the women, the glitz and glamour, celebrity parties, and hob knobbing it with the rich and famous.

[pete12345]

I'm with both of you on this, atmosphere is everything. Also my railway, although completely fictional, has to have a place in the real world..if that makes sense?! That's why I chose to place Wandle Park on a railway that did actually exist so the trains arrive from and to depart from real destinations.

Rev. Awdry probably did this first. Although Sodor has somehow evaded cartographers, he thoroughly researched the island and its people, so that he knew all the relevant details when he came to write.

GeraldH's BNR layout is one of those on here which is totally freelance, but you accept the existence of that world as the 'story' makes sense.

[Dublo]

Hello all
Why do you do it?
That is a great question, I do it because I like miniature items trains in particular. Although my railway is different from most it gives me a sense of happiness. I like producing things with my hands, coming from a background in the Arts I like the image that I am creating . I see my trains running through a landscape much like a stage set.

[jimstang]

i did it as something to do for my son to keep him from getting in the wrong crowd [ mid 80s]
he later joined the army - the idea turned into a hobby for me and is so todate

jim

[Bigmet]

Fun and relaxation, with a little challenge to it. And I specifically enjoy the end of the steam age that I saw when young, for the historical span it displays.

... coming from a background in the Arts I like the image that I am creating . I see my trains running through a landscape much like a stage set.

The little theatre on which the trains as actors make their entrances and exits, as a well known modeller (who's name escapes me) once put it. It took me quite a while to learn that all I need is the trains and track, my mind 'paints in' the setting satisfactorily. (I also enjoy a stage play rehearsal in a bare room quite as much as the fully realised production with sets and costume, and I don't think that is coincidental.)

[captrees]

What attracts everyone to model railways as a hobby?

It was an itch I needed to scratch fifty years later, when time allowed. I remember the absolute delight in discovering electric trains as a kid. When I asked for a trainset for Christmas, I got a clockwork one. I never forgave my parents for this hideous mistake, and it may have been the reason I left home early.

As a hobby now, the immersion in the history and detail, the research, is the driver behind the modelling and the track laying. The skills involved are almost incidental.

[Firefly16]

Nostalgia? Perhaps. With ever more accurate models, being able to appreciate the finer points in the design of locos and rolling stock in a way that was impossible when confronted with the real thing has a lot to do with it. This is especially true of buildings, both railway and what I think of as 'lay' structures - houses, shops, pubs, churches, all of which as pete 12345 says, more than accuracy, perhaps even more than the railway itself, help to give a layout its atmosphere. I don't have room for a 'proper' layout but, architecture being one of my passions, I get an enormous buzz from imagining locations and trying to make buildings that give a sense of them so real they might actually exist, perhaps in some parallel universe.

[Phat Controller]

I was born in the wrong ERA. Would love to be back in the 50's again, all that hat wearing and trench coats, smokey railway platforms, aroma of pipe tobacco mixed with stale perfume in the carriage compartment, the simple life camping beside a brook or sitting in a deckchair with shrilling seagulls overhead ..................... oh the romance of it all!

[Dad-1]

Something to do - Almost a simple as that. I'm a fidget and can't watch TV without having a book
in my lap. Perhaps that's because TV sends me to sleep, I need activity, mental & physical.
So from building roads and tunnels in the garden as pre teenage ?
Then teenage with an air rifle shooting vehicles & soldiers on those old roads
Through cycle racing
Through rally driving
Into scale aircraft modelling
Into railway modelling at retirement

I suppose working in miniatures of the real thing gives a degree of artistic interpretation, plus
some engineering. Better to blow a few grand on having a railway than spending it going down
the pub each night ?

Geoff T.

[Firefly16]

The 50s weren't all you imagine them to be Phat Controller - I found a lot of it frightening then. But here's the thing, there were compensations, things that gave life a kind of zing that the present day just cannot provide, among them, the ACE gliding through Clapham Junction.... One could go on!