Can I still afford this hobby?

In 1960 a Yellow Box Athearn 40 ft. box car kit cost $1.29. The weight was available seperately for sale at 20 cents. Taking the Atlas HO scale 4X6 layout which they called Simplicity & Great Plains and Atlas brass Snap-Track (Reg.U.S.Pat.Off.), I constucted my first HO layout after selling off my Lionel 027 trains to finance my entrance into HO scale.

Now retired and on a fixed income with increasing medical costs I am still sitting in the side track while considering which scale I can afford to model in. I sold all of my HO when I made the move across the big pond in 1976, thus am going to have to start from scratch again. Aging eyes and ten thumbs pretty well exclude any small scale. I have decided to constuct a small point to point G scale switching layout on my outdoor balcony which measures 28 feet in length. It will include a short passing track and each end provides enough spcae to include a small yard and engine servicing facility and an industry or two. Nothing awesome but it will still give me the enjoyment of model railroading.

The prices in G scale vary so I have elected to go with Quality instead of Quantity. The Accucraft 1:29 scale Frisco and Katy PS2-4750 covered hoppers will be the first freight cars to set steel wheels on rails on the re-created Simplicity & Great Plains (with sincere apologies to Atlas). Despite the fact I will have to outsource the work, a USA Trains GP-38-2 will be the first locomotive rostered. Nothing fantasic but the two covered hoppers will still look pretty neat being switched at a red and white Purina Checkerboard Square feed mill just the same! A layout doesn't have to be so huge to fill a building as big as a barn nor bankrupt the pocketbook. The old Model Railroading slogan is applied here: Model Railroading IS Fun!

Auf wiedersehen!

The Trinity River Bottoms Boomer

 

I would go with HO for the price but go with your heart. I took down several model railroads and regreted it. WHAT WAS WRONG WITH ME?? Had N scale but the engines stalled on the switches. Forget that. All I have now is a Athearn Frisco 1500 and it works perfect after 10 years. About 6 cars and a caboose on small layout. Ebay has some items you can "BUY NOW" at good prices. i got 4 LED duarf signals there for $11 brand new. They had the full mast ones for $1 more. Silly me. Keep your heart happy and keep "HIGH BALLING"

 

I did seriously consider constructing the old Atlas 4X6 Simplicity & Great Plains layout in HO again and it would fit the basement of my apartment. I still look at my copy of "Six Atlas HO Layouts You Can Build" with the S&GP and the huge Central Midland layout which was the last layout featured in the book. It mentions in the beginning of the artical that it is loosely based on the entrance to St. Louis Union Station. It was designed for operation and not switching and it would be interesting to figure out the current cost of Atlas HO Snap-Track to constuct this railroad in 2012 vs. 1958 when the book was first released!

I have taken a close look at all scales from Z to G and still have a first love with O scale, as my first electric train was a Lionel 027 set. If Mike can convince Mullet River Model Works to produce a Frisco wood caboose in O scale I will order one and if push comes to shove, will use it as a paperweight! LOL

Friend and custom builder, Eddie Chambers, built an O scale model of a Katy wood caboose years ago. It was the #823 and was the assigned caboose on the Denton Local (Dallas-Denton) in 1961. It was still painted Sloan Yellow too! Rebuilt Baldwin switcher #29 usually powered this way freight in 1961 as well. If Mullet River does produce a Frisco caboose I will buy two and have Eddie build one for each of us and let him have the second model for doing the work. He custom painted for Hall's Hobby House in Dallas for several years. I sure miss "Miss Hall", Dorothy and Steele Craver and the good black hot coffee that was always free and right next to the magazine rack at the rear entrance!

Her hobby shop was more than just a store, it was a Texas institution! Of course, Ed Seay, Jr. (Junior) is still running the M-A-L Hobby Shop in Irving and like Bobbye, will always give you a big friendly Howdy! when you walk in. Not many hobby shops left like these ones anymore. Times change but as for hobby shops, we sure have lost a bunch of good ones the last few years.

Joe Toth

 

I wound up here as a result of my search for "turnouts." "Can I still afford this hobby?" Well that certainly got my attention. I'm in my late 30's. My wife and I are both HS teachers with a family of 4 so my answer is NO; but I do it a little here and there anyway! When I was a kid, my grandmother used to talk about being on a "fixed income." When I got my first paycheck for teaching, I called her up and said, "Mawmaw, my check is going to be the same for the next 11 months as it was this month. That seems pretty 'fixed' to me." My wife and I have been on a "fixed" income ever since. Luckily I've been in the hobby off and on since my parents bought me an HO trainset for Christmas 1980. I've added this and that for over 30 years. That's how I've stayed in the Hobby. If I had to start from scratch... right now..., Ebay would be my "hobby shop." Heck... it pretty much is now. Ha! Cheap and RTR... just the way I like it! No box? Who cares about the box? I don't run boxes anyway. I certainly don't run "brand names" either. I just run trains. Bachmann, Athern, Tyco, Kadee, hook horn, whatever, doesn't matter. When I was a kid, I tied a broken hook horn to another hook horn with a twist tie... yes, a twist tie! Imagine how I felt at age 9 the first time I walked into a hobby shop and saw a bag of 4 or 5 hook horn couplers... and they were on CLEARANCE! It was like purchasing a little bag of gold nuggets as far as I was concerned. I enjoy the hobby, but I enjoy it more when it doesn't break the bank. I also like peanut butter but now I only buy it when it's on sale... and I make sure we don't run out of peanut butter when it's not on sale. Ha!

 

Personally, I don't know how y'all do it. I'm a disabled vet on a fixed income of VA/SSDI, and if I had to pay for the cars and locomotives of today, I couldn't do it. Building all my cars out of wood is so satisfying and inexpensive compared to the RTR crowd, but the detail parts, trucks, etc, are no joke. It's tough, but the Good Lord above watches out over me and helps me every day. I just don't know how y'all can afford $50.00 cars, $450 engines, structures, etc.

 

Sure you can, if you figure a air brush and booth, glue, decals, paint, setting solution, wire grabs, special trucks, brake details, a running board. A few more! Not to mention the kit to start with, tools and soforth.
You are already in the hole. RTR is a lot more reasonable.
Course it is a hobby, so you can do as you wish.

 

Most of us, myself included, can afford this stuff because we have been accumulating it for years. Starting from scratch would be very costly unless you are going small.

GS

 

I have collected close to 200 LaBelle, Scotia, Juneco, Main Line Models, Tichy, and others, so I'm pretty good. If I can pick a kit for $15.00 I'm great. The expensive part has been paint. I'm constantly having to change because of this, that, or other reason. I finally got Tru-Paint's and I love 'em. It's all good. It's just the locomotives and installing the sound. However, I know that if many of you can do it, I can too. It's all relative.

 

(Quote) gstout - "Most of us, myself included, can afford this stuff because we have been accumulating it for years."

Very true. It is also still possible to acquire some other guy's accumulation at fire sale prices.

Add me to the list of those retired on SS and a small pension. Back in the 60's a job promotion, got me thinking model railroading was in my past, and everything was sold. Then got into N and decided it wasn't for me. Sold again. Prices were rising very rapidly in the 70's and I made the decision to thereafter cart everything with me in boxes. Throughout the remainder of my working life, kits went into those boxes, along with bits and pieces of seven different layouts built and destroyed in moves. Those boxes are part of my retirement savings.

My railroad is a Frisco flavor 50's era HO switching layout on a 30" x 13 ft. shelf in an unheated, uninsulated garage. It is constructed of wood salvaged from the scrap piles at building sites. Vintage Atlas Custom Line nickel silver turnouts and flextrack ballasted without roadbed on plywood. Atlas control panel components and turnout motors salvaged off an old layout. No brass, no DCC, no sound. Some model railroad paints, but a lot of acrylic craft paint, applied with a hand brush. Most of the buildings are kitbashed from when plastic was still cheap.

The most recent project was an Alexander Scale Models "Little Hook" - a few zamac castings in a box of stripwood, It sits at the end of a kitbashed Wayfreight Models "Plymouth Freight House" bought many years ago from a dying hobby shop. Stripwood and cardboard.

The only thing you can control in life is your own desires. The hobby is affordable if you stop lusting for the new and learn to find contentment in building, as opposed to buying.

 

For me, I have moved 9 times. About 6 have had layouts, I sell off my kits several times, then buy again but better stuff. I am retired now, so no more moves, have a small layout so for me, it's better to buy the newer stuff with better detail. No need for all the tools and such, I probably couldn't do it any way. Good for all of those who have collected all the years, wish I had that chance

 

Ken, I always knew you had good taste! My flask of Dewers goes with me to every Scottish event!
As far as affordability, I just save, look, and make purchases when everything is in its proper place.Compared to some HO now, large scale is downright cheap!

 

I have started using Mask Island decals where I can, and they are absolutely amazing. They are so thin, I honestly cannot see the edge. I use the micro-sol step as my regular protocol, but, I don't think it is necessary to make the decal "disappear". Currently, he offers five Frisco box car decals, and each sheet will decal two cars. Check out his web site "maskislanddecals.com if you are looking for box car decals--he might have what you are looking for. He also has many decals for other railroads if someone is interested in decaling a foreign road. I agree with Ken about Microscale decals as I have had great experiences with them, also.

Terry