The Telegraph Article "Why Do Men Love Model Railways?"

Good article. Noted the element of ridicule attendant to railroad and model railroad activity. For me both have provided an entire lifetime of joyous experiences, happy memories and goodly number of friends. As the late Joe G. Collias observed, train enthusiasts look upon non-enthusiasts with that cruelest of human emotions: pity !!

Interesting. Not as much ridicule as I would have expected from a British publication. Yes Railway modelling is very popular here and there are many Exhibitions of all sizes right around the Country, but for most 'outsiders' it's still a hobby to be ridiculed as one populated only by nerds and social misfits.
Hornby is the big name here that people would recognise, but they are synonymous with train sets, which is what non-belivers will think you are "playing" with if or when they find out you model trains. Show them a decent model train with DCC sound, in a realistic setting, & they'll be amazed!!!

I find that people involved in model railroading, are all creative folk, and model railroading isn't there only creative outlet. There involved in other creative ventures as well. Its not always understood as a hobby, and so the ridicule at times, but kids all love it!! Its my five year old daughter that fills her room with her wooden trains and track, and my oldest daughter, who did the same in her tender young years, and that makes sure my grandsons have trains to ply with.          Love It          cTr...(Choose the Right)

Ridicule is fair, to me....what is good for the goose, is good for the gander...what I

remember on this subject is P-51's posting on here about Star Wars, I think, fanatics

made up in those costumes and ridiculing model railroaders going into a show.  I, of

course, am sneering when I see on TV spectator sports fanatics, with bare bodies

painted in colors (not Borneo tribesmen), sitting in the stands, with performers below 

collecting millions, including their money.   If there was a "game", somebody else played it, and was well rewarded.  Said spectators woke up hung over the next morning

with nothing to show for it, that I can see.  Uh, why did the Roman emporers have the

games in the Colliseum?  To distract the populance....current gladiators are paid better..

.......the Star Wars fanatics remind of why I never wore an engineer hat to any railroading event!

There once was a time (long ago) when I made an effort to keep my model railroading interest somewhat to myself. That time is long gone, and I am now quite open to conversing about it with anyone regardless of whether they need to poke fun at it or not. The results has been satisfying and several new friends who also have the same passion. The fun pokers sometimes become question askers when they see I am completely serious about it.

 

As Mark noted above...it has been one of my most rewarding pursuits for the last 50 plus years. Go work on your railroad and get completely absorbed in the magic of it all....go now, have fun.

 

Bob

Think the fun-pokers are rather hollow people with no imagination - kinda zeros as people. As a friend in college observed, "fanatics" are fun to know - they are deeply interested in things and tend to be interesting, over-all.

Close. What happened there was that I was in a line of folks waiting to get into a sci-fi convention and the line was right alongside people waiting to get into an football-related event at the same time at the same venue. A person painted in colors for a certain team look across the hall at someone dressed in a Star Trek uniform and yelled, "Good grief, get a life, man!" and the painted guy truly didn't get the hypocrisy is that statement. Even his own buddies made comments to him on about ridiculous it was for the guy to tell the sci-fi people to get a life...

There'll always be someone who doesn't get another person's passion for anything and want to poke fun at it. Worse still are those who have an equal passion for something else and don't see how crazy it is to throw stones from atop a glass house...

I've got two strikes against me.  I model railroads and play in a Bluegrass band.

 

I'm keeping my head down. 

 

Cheers

Piffle.

Here are my Geek factors:

• Science fiction
• I've been to space camp three times as an adult (and will be going back next year)
• Used to draw my own comic books and actually got interest from the publishers right before I got my LT bars in the Army, but realized there's no money to be made doing that for a living

You can see stuff about most of this on my personal website links...

Hmmm.....  let's see.

Beanie Babies

Comic Con/ Star Wars/Lord Of The Rings/Super Hero whatever

Stamps

Paintings

Gambling

Vintage Clothing  (maybe you can wear it)

Dishes     (maybe you can eat on it)

Jewelry   (maybe you can wear it, or all of it if it is bling)

Tattoos

Knives

Automobiles  (do you risk driving it?)

Thimbels

Door Knockers

Stained Glass windows

Guns   (yeah probably useful)

Antiques

Shot Glasses

Beer Mugs/Steins

Sports Memorabilia

Post Cards

T-shirts

Shoes  (can you really wear that many)

Big Game Trophies  (get famous like the dentist in Minnesota)

Off road/ mud running

Fantasy Football/Baseball/Hockey/Racquetball/Badminton/Horseshoes

Books/Magazines

Civil War re-enactment

Larping

Movie star worship

Base jumping

Soap Opera magazines

Riveted to the latest Walking Dead or Madmen whatever episode

Doing chemical substances or alcohol to escape

Video Game champion / highest level / whatever

 

should I continue on ?

 

I may have stepped on some toes in that list, but really everybody in the USA probably has some attraction that others might find unusual, weird, or harmful.

 

I personally have never had anyone make a comment on my trains as a hobby.

Well almost nobody.  My wife has made some comments like, why do you need another one of those?  Isn't one steam engine enough? etc.

 

Heck, we should just be happy that in this country we have the time, resources and thanks to our veterans, the freedom to pursue any of the categories listed above. 

 

A lot of people in the world are just focused on getting some food. 

 

I can understand them looking at us like we are crazy.

Great read! Thanks for posting.

 

Melbourne, Australia 1950.

Well I love model railways and I'm poorer than a church mouse.

I've liked railways all my life because I was always travelling on them and grew up with them.

This was in the days when working class people used public transport only wealthy people had cars. My parents never owned a car.

Lots of railway stations then (60/70 years ago) still had small freight yards for heavy stuff and delivered parcels to the station, lots of industries had private sidings delivering coal, raw materials and picking up finished products, railways were the go and I was fascinated by them which led me to modelling them.

And it cost nothing to hang around sidings and watch the switching even explore some of them illegally just to see where they went.

You could even travel all day around the suburban system on one ticket dodging the ticket checkers just tell them you got mixed up and caught the wrong train!

The factories with sidings were my favourites sure it was great to see a big steamer pumping down the mainline with a dozen coaches behind it only to be gone in seconds but to me the fascination was industrial sidings don't ask me why but they were, and for a long time they were always there, not gone in seconds.

And now 60 years later I have Industrial sidings in my house in model form and have never lost my enthusiasm for them.

So that's why I like/love Model Railways I suppose, maybe my mind is wandering to much in the past..... what were we talking about again?

Roo. 

Something I find interesting.  The general type of crowd in different group activities.

 

When I go from a train show to the pits of a powerboat race to the Merion Country Club to a computer show to a quilting show to a professional ice hockey game to the Philly Union League to an NHRA drag race to the state farm show to church and a union meeting.  WOW! we are a varied people! 

 

The stereotype of any crowd dissipates as you engage one on one with any individual.  In my work I interview folks for life and health insurance coverage.  Generally speaking, we all have very similar cares and concerns when it comes to family security.   It's all good folks.

I have noticed that many (if not most) of the train fans I've encountered have often been into the following as well:

• Sci-Fi
• Airplanes (old, new, civil or military)
• Military history
• Highway trivia and knowing which road goes where, almost anywhere in the country

Guilty.  Actually any transportation, from intelligence traversing wireless, fiber or copper, to intra and intergalactic transit, to everything inbetween.

 

And studying military history makes you believe luck is a very real thing because of the raw incompetence of military leadership throughout time and place.

You will also find an above average percentile of those men place somewhere on the autism spectrum.  Most with either HFA (high functioning autism or Asperger's Syndrome).  The obsession with one of those topics listed above is very common with others like myself.  I also know of a girl that was also most likely on the spectrum that I was friends with as a young child.  She to had an amazing HO model railroad, she loved my Lionel set up even more.    Mike

Another parallel I have  found.  Hot rodders of the fifties/sixties/seventies had a cross over to model RRing.

 

Case in point:  Nicholas Smith on the second floor. K&G speed shop on the first floor.  Chris and I were hot rodders back then.   We both were into trains b/4 and after cars.

 

Also Joe Hayter of Weaver and Loco Louie, both Hot Rodders extraordinaire. 

Also guilty. Used to build and fly model planes (loved those Gullows kits). Have an on-again/off-again interest in WW II. Have an obsession with Route 66 and plan to drive as much of it as possible when I move to Texas. Sci Fi nut as well (stayed up late last night to watch/re-watch season premier of Star Wars Rebels) and got into computers because of Dr. Richard Daystrom (look it up, guys).

I had a sales table at a model train show last weekend, and there were alot of guys wearing Route 66 (the nearest stretch of Route 66 is probably 1000 miles from here) and car show stuff.

The guy at the table behind me was a nice guy and we talked a lot about military history and plenty of people came up and joined in these conversations for a while (and all of them were pretty well versed on the subject, no eye-rolling foamer types). A few of them were former military like myself. When I was still an Army officer, I ran into plenty of people in the service who were into trains. I was in a UH-1 'Huey' chopper from the National Guard I caught a ride on from Edgewood Arsenal, MD (I was stationed at Aberdeen at the time) and the crew buzzed the NE corridor. I was later in a Chinook at the Yakima Firing Center in WA and that pilot buzzed the old Milwaukee Road bridge across the Columbia at Beverly, and followed the old grade up through the saddle Mountains. I got crummy photos of each, but it was cool that I rode with train fans more often than not in Army aircraft.

I got into an epic situation with some Conrail Cops near the NE corridor once, on Army land (they didn't know this at first) with the assistant Provost Marshal of the base with me (they really didn't know that). It's a long story involving heated words, a huge misinterpretation of jurisdiction and loaded weapons in everyone's hands. When I later told the story, almost everyone I encountered in uniform said they loved trains and understood why I was watching them from that location...