Need ideas on how to make a living working on trains.

Sorry to hear about your unemployment. I have had the same thoughts myself, IMHO the biggest and most time consuming obstacle would be building a loyal clientele by proving that your work is reliable and timely, unless you already have the connections.  Also would you have the knowledge and resources to repair new stuff? Would you have to be certified by MTH for decent parts access?  Just some thoughts...Good Luck in pursuing your new venture!

Jeff

First sorry to hear about your job, but do you have all the necessary equipment to do the job right ( i.e. a arbor press and all of its attachments.) If so maybe talk to OGR about a add as in Postwar/prewar train repairs. I'm sure you have ways to get your parts other than EBAY, I know some goto train shows just to get junkers for the parts. Do you have the room for say 1000 different parts, to keep on hand. These are all things I considered when I was thinking of the same thing. 

Sorry for your job loss. There is a way to achieve your goal; if you'd like to end up with a million dollars or so in twenty years.

Start out with two million dollars now.

Sorry to hear about your job loss but I can easily understand why you now want to work for yourself.

First, I think you have to take on repairs for modern trains as well as classic pre-war and post-war trains. MTH used to sponsor courses to train technicians in repair of their products. Not sure if they still do but if they or Lionel still offer certification, I think you need to get it.

Put some ads in OGR or other model railroad magazines to offer your services.

Is there a hobby shop in your area who would be willing to direct some business to you?

Purchase some trains in need of repair, fix them up and take a table at some train shows and offer them for sale. The buyers will come back to you when they need service.

Do the train repair on a part-time basis while looking for another job to keep yourself afloat. Go to full time operation when the business can support it.

There are others on the Forum who can give you better advice than I can. In the long run, I think you could make a go of it - but probably never become wealthy...

Good luck.

MELGAR

Jackson summed it up pretty well. Not likely you could make much of living just working on trains. At the very least you would have to get enrolled in MTH and Lionel tech school. That will give some knowledge as well as access to parts at wholesale.

Pete

Thanks for your suggestions and I definitely got a chuckle on the losing a million dollars over 20 years....I've already spent too much over the past few months!!  As for doing repair work I have pretty much everything that's needed.  Arbor press, wheel puller, small tools, drill bits, taps, wire, wire connectors and a steadily growing supply of old parts that I've acquired.  I looked into becoming a certified Lionel/MTH repair center for the newer stuff but they are no longer holding classes....I would however consider myself quite adept repairing prewar trains.  I can get a broken super motor rewired, cleaned, brushes replaced etc quite quickly.  I'm also good with fixing e units, pendulum reverse units, hand reverse switches, headlight wiring and bild a loco motors as well.  I appreciate the suggestion about talking with OGR to see if I could get my name out as a quality repair man.

It might be a good idea to build your clientele while continuing your 9-5 job until you get a decent business started.    Or maybe  you are ready to retire and have some cash flow from retirement savings.   

I think there is an opportunity there because a lot of people who buy new stuff and collect old stuff don't have much interest in restoration and repair, or don't have the skills and tools.    So once you got a reputation you could probaly build a decent business.   

In 2 rail there are a couple of guys that are doing custom work and seem to be doing it full time successfully.   I have a friend who specializes in painting and customizing models to  specific prototypes.    he started doing it while working and then the company shut down and he became full time.   the last time I talked to him before the lockdown, he had over a year backlog working full time.    And Joe Forhkolb ? spelling, seemed to have a good business doing mechanical repair work and machining on both 2 and 3 rail product.   

A big caution however, once it becomes a job, it may not be a hobby anymore and may not be as much fun.

@TinplateDave posted:

Thanks for your suggestions and I definitely got a chuckle on the losing a million dollars over 20 years....I've already spent too much over the past few months!!

Yeah!  Like most people in the hobby business can attest to, if you want to make a small fortune in the model railroad hobby, you gotta' start with a large fortune!

@TinplateDave posted:

Hello all, I just thought I would throw this out there since I recently became unemployed due to Covid-19 and have spent the last 3 months repairing, refurbishing and restoring my old postwar O gauge and prewar Standard gauge trains.  I spend at least 8hrs a day with my hobby and I don't want to stop to go back to a 9-5 job.  Does anyone have any ideas about how one can make a living with model trains nowadays?  Based on what I see on eBay most people are either selling off their old collections or selling parts but i'm wondering what else is out there?  Any suggestions would be welcome and thank you!

I assume you would have medical coverage from a spouse or Medicare?  If not, illness or accident could have you wishing for your 9-5 job.

Rusty

@Rusty Traque posted:

I assume you would have medical coverage from a spouse or Medicare?  If not, illness or accident could have you wishing for your 9-5 job.

Rusty

Yes I am currently covered under my wife's insurance.  I wish I was retired and could work on my hobby with no worry about income but i'm 41 and still have quite a few working years ahead of me.  I'm just sick and tired of working in corporate jobs and want to make a living doing something I love for once.

@TinplateDave posted:

Yes I am currently covered under my wife's insurance.  I wish I was retired and could work on my hobby with no worry about income but i'm 41 and still have quite a few working years ahead of me.  I'm just sick and tired of working in corporate jobs and want to make a living doing something I love for once.

I'd go for it if I were you.  

I wished I would have done something like that.  Unfortunately, like that famous philosopher Al Bundy once said, "I haven't asked for much in life, and lord knows, I've gotten it!"

But I am too close to retirement now.  It's too late for me. 

I think the comments about gaining a following are key.  Also, there are many hobby shops that need repair help, you might get hooked up with one of them doing repairs.  That would also help establish your reputation and getting your name around.

@prrjim posted:

  And Joe Forhkolb ? spelling, seemed to have a good business doing mechanical repair work and machining on both 2 and 3 rail product.   

A big caution however, once it becomes a job, it may not be a hobby anymore and may not be as much fun.

Joe Foehrkolb is a good friend of mine who lives less than 5 miles from me. I have the very first locomotive that Joe converted from 3 to 2 rail (an MTH New Haven electric) which was the dominant part of his business. As Jim stated, it became a job and Joe grew to hate doing it and no longer does any work.

How much do you expect to make on an annual basis by repairing trains?

You have to consider if that is viable to live on?  Do you think that your business(earnings) will remain the same or grow in the coming years? or will it decline?

Dave

Kudos to the creativity to you are considering. It seems that your mindset is where the rest of us working people need to be. I agree with most of the comments you have already received. The other aspect would be layout building. I'm not sure how your skills are with that. If skilled you could build layouts for people or even just help with a certain aspect of the layout(bench work, wiring, design, scenery, etc.)

I do part-time work for a great guy who does it for a living. He does quite well for himself and has established a great reputation over the years. He travels the entire country installing layouts. As a matter of fact he helped with my bench work and did the majority of my wiring. 

Dave

Thanks everyone.  You all have very good points and have given me a lot to think about.  I surely do not want my favorite hobby to ever become something I dislike or think of as just a job.  My thought is that if you truly enjoy what your doing then more opportunities surrounding that will present themselves.

An item that you may want to consider is self-employment tax. When you work for another entity such as a company 1/2 of Social Security is paid by the company and the other half by you. Same is true for Medicare. Your earnings when your are self-employed are subject to the full Social Security and Medicare tax rates. This is the so-called self-employment tax and it currently stands at 15.3%. It has been as high as 20% in the recent past. The self-employment tax is on top of your income tax. Every dime you make is subject to the self-employment tax regardless of the amount of income. Even though income may not reach minimum taxable levels, that income is still subject to the self-employment tax.  If you earn enough to be in the 39% income tax bracket, you could pay as much as 54.3% of your earnings in taxes,and that's solely on the Federal level. You may have to pay even more based upon the state you live in. 

The nice thing about being self-employed is that anything needed to operate your business is tax deductible. An example would be medical insurance. 

Over the long term, this might be a viable business or a good sideline. Most of the people entering the hobby today are not familiar with mechanical systems or electronics and won't become technicians or do their own maintenance and repairs. There are a lot of O gauge trains out there and more are being sold with every new catalog. In the future, someone will inherit or buy them, adopt the hobby, and need repairs.

MELGAR

IMO, the most significant thing is to have as close to zero debt as possible. The less you owe every month, the less you can make that month and still succeed.

Is your wife on board with this? That's actually more important than number one.

You can charge higher rates for working on expensive stuff than you can working on cheap stuff.

If you are sticking with trains, that means being a top notch repairer of the newest command controlled trains. It also might mean that you can work on high end Standard gauge trains, where the skills are quite different.

Are you generally handy and love to fix things? Maybe you could add smart phone repair. Cases, screens and tools are readily available online from China. You would need a small stock of the most popular parts. "How-to" videos are on YouTube for almost everything that is current/popular/trendy.