For Better or For Worse by Lynn Johnston for May 24, 2019

So is LEGOS (whether train category or some other category like town, fire department, police, outer space, underwater, Star Wars, Marvel, Ninjago, medieval, pirate… the list goes on).

And so it begins… .

Electric trains are fascinating. I had a Lionel train when I was about 8 years old; spent many hours with it. I don’t know what happened to it; wish I still had it!

A boring way of life.

Looks like John is going to go off the rails.

Model railroads are not much fun if you only have a one track mind.

Hubby was into HO interurbans. He was fascinated with streetcars even as a child. Just sold the last of his Red Cars to a museum. He would have been proud to know his name will be on the collection.

A way of life is right. Just a short time ago these fine fellas had their lives torn for them. This terrible act brought some grown men to tears, seeing their life’s work destroyed forever: https://www.justgiving.com/crowdfunding/market-deeping-mrc?utm_id=108&utm_term=RMWYVDBJR&fbclid=IwAR0kw06_2vpFB8K5doH_GpzCxpazr7ydHo6zyXyreUuR9I9LHBSEEzQ3XgE

Comments show that nostalgia still has impact, but the numbers of model hobbyists probably has fallen way off because of the fascination with social media. Takes sharing interests between parents and children to develop the love of a hobby and that happens less often now than in decades past.

My father-in-law loves his railroad. Personally not my thing. But I appreciate his love. I used to love collecting sports memorabilia. To each there own if it isn’t harming anybody.

Haven’t we seen this thread before?

The train is just the seed of the world you build around it. It can be quite a time and space consumer but so worth it when you can show the other kids in the family.

This is what happens when your model train hobby becomes an obsession. This guy started out with a layout in his basement. When he ran out of room to expand it, he built an extension on his basement, then another, then another. He’d let the local volunteer fire company do public tours to raise money once a year. Finally got a large building to put it all in, now charges admission. The photos on the website don’t do it justice:

https://northlandz.com/

I was always interested in model trains, because I love miniatures, but I have never yet got a set. You pretty much need a room to dedicate to it and some money. I have visited some amazing setups, though! (Nobody knows where my interest came from. My parents never cared for it, which is why I never had one as a child)

My great aunts had a set and we could literally make the sparks fly, especially when we created head-on collisions.

And so it begins……

It is true, they are addictive.

How true!

Next time you visit San Diego, go to old town and tour their model train museum. They even have a drive-in theater where the train winds behind the screen (while it is running a movie)! I’ve only been to SD once, but really loved it!

I was reading the paper when this first started and could follow it.

My cousin was a train nut when he was young, and that morphed into an interest in transportation in all its ground-bound forms. A friend of his owned a full sized railroad on his very large property and I was privileged to ride it once when I was about 10. I found out many years later that those trains are now at the Orange Empire Railway Museum in Perris, CA.

As for my cousin, he went on to work in rapid transit, both in San Francisco and Los Angeles. He owned his own charter bus for a while and later in life was a member of a railroad preservation group, a supporter of Amtrak and the LA Metro trains and and a crew member for the Lane Victory WWII cargo ship that is in Los Angeles harbor and goes on excursions to Catalina Island during the summer.

Trains did not work out well for Bobby Baccalieri. Stay away, Jon!

I would love to get into model trains, but I know I would go overboard. I live in a 635 square foot apartment and would end up filling up the entire place if I got started. So I settle for going to see the large displays whenever I can.

And so … it begins.

And so it begins…lol

If I recall correctly, John ends up with something I had never seen before, and don’t understand how or why it’s done. He keeps his trains outside on the lawn.

The guy in the train store is just the sort of seller John needs to talk to.

Ellie’s gonna freak out when John shows up with that hobby!

I think I will go up to the closet and dig out the HO trains our son left here…..

My little brother got an electric train one Christmas. The people in Daddy’s office wore out the engine before Santa had a chance to deliver.