What other Hobbies did you get in and Dump?

RC Helicopters - total insanity.... As somebody once put it, like trying to balance a 5 pound ball bearing on an upside dinner plate while flying an upside down lawn mower.

Model cars. Got pretty good at it. Won a couple of contests.

 

Did slot cars for a while, but the tracks were dropping like flies in the 1970's.

 

Building computers for a while, but it was getting to be a pain and too expensive.

 

Then there was my brief flirtation with conquering the world and subjugating humanity. I mean if SPECTRE could do it...

 

Got back into trains to stay back in 1988.

Matt, that "conquering the world" thing. I think I read about that in National Enquirer. But they said you did conquer the world. Is there something you want to tell us? Don

Hot rods and cars.

Got my first train when I was 8. Worked with it until I was 15...then turned to cars was a master mechanic by 18. When I turned 21 went to work with the Pettys in NASCAR. Went as high as I could go in that profession. But when your hobby becomes your profession, it is no longer your hobby.

 

Owned a garage until 1980. Then turned to sales.....much later, 2002 I had my first heart attack. Several attacks later our kids bought our business. Doctor said no more cars, so guess what ?  I am now back into trains and loving every minute.

 

Don,

It seems that you and I are the same age. My grandpa introduced me to Std Gauge at birth it seems. I remember being around him, his trains and his layout nonstop in my very young years. I can honestly say that I've never lost interest in trains. In my teen years it was rock-n-roll, hot rods & custom cars and girls. Oh Yes! I earned my "FAROS" plaque at sixteen. Joined the military, spending many years in the Philippines. I even managed to find Lionel prewar there. Anyway, here I am at a ripe old age enjoying my grandpa's Lionel Std Gauge. I even expanded into prewar O-Gauge about twenty some years ago. I'm one of those who has been lost in trains almost my entire life.

**Don, I beat you by one year, 1943 (anyway we're both war babies)**

RC copters for me, too. Challenging, frustrating, and gratifying all at once, and now we can add expensive to the list. The thrill of taking off, flying around (nothing fancy) and landing in one piece. Even crashing and successful rebuilding is fun. BTW no problem with parts availability. Hobby #2 is a keeper.  Rich

Happy Pappy, I was born in 44. You never were lost in trains, you thrived in them. Vincel, nice studio. I had a friend on the mainland that had a nice little studio. Hated digital. The TV station I worked for was switching over to HD digital and pulling out everything from JBL monitors to 4,8 and 16 track reel to reel machines plus the board. Will filled three pickup trucks full of gear. All free. I think he still loves me. Don

I have kept my TOO many hobbies but I did give up playing on soft ball teams.I love baseball but watching it is way to boring.The reason I gave up is because the games were on a weeknight.You get there 1/2 hour before your scheduled game(was usually around 8 30) and the team on the diamond is only in the second inning.You get out of there around 12 30 1 am and these guys want to go to the bar.It just got way to "stupid" for me.Also there sure are allot of drummers into trains.Been playing forever.Nick

Never dumped them but still dabble, playing guitar, rc cars and aircraft and of course coaching softball which is a hobby to me. Was insanely into racing rc cars, would travel to various tracks to race,  including the Velodrome in Encino, Ca. 

 

 

For 25 years - while I raised and put three boys through college, I scratch-built model Napoleonic war fighting ships: specifically I built a model of every class of warship in the British Navy as of January 1, 1805 (the year of Trafalgar).   All were in a uniform scale of 1:87 (HO gauge).  On all I used Preisser figures painted as sailors and officers and put several hundred figures on larger ships.  It was a good hobby, and cheap, too, but toy trains move and do something and I prefer them now.  I treasure these ships, however, and keep all of them in my study now.  

 

Here is the largest, 41 inches at its longest, the 110 gun flagship of the fleet in 1805, Ville de Paris (named, in typical fashion of the time, after the flagship of the French fleet decimated at the Battle of Martinique years earlier).

 

 

Every ship had some special "thing" I did to make the model a bit more of a challenge to build. On this ship, teh decorated rear end removes, and the rear cabins and interior are drawers (about ten inches deep, that each level pulls out, demonstrating a fact that fascinates me to this day: although we look at this ship as a warship (and it was in some way) it was on a day to day basis a floating office building, with clerks and filing cabinets galore - the adminstrative headquarters of a fleet with 40,000 personnel.

 

My favorite ship was actually one of the smaller ones, the 50-gun Chatham, which I made hollow so you could see inside it, and I made it a model of the ship of a specific day: Nov 30, 1776.  This was the falgship of the British fleet that invaded and took Rhode Island during the early part of the US Revolutionary war, and the tiny figures on board are marines embarking in boats that will take them ashore, etc. 

Hobbies! So many over the years, wife hoping this is my last endeavor. Everything from restoring early Vettes, cruising the islands in our 48' Carver, flying war planes, collecting WW2/Korean war aviation items. Was into "N" gauge, till I stopped in here one day, been hooked since.

My other hobby is brewing beer and I dump it down my throat sometimes while playing with trains. Trains are better, they don't depreciate as much as beer, haha.

When I was a kid I saved everything. I guess you would have called me a packrat. I had 1000's of baseball cards. The entire team s of the Red Sox for 1955-1960. 100's of comic books. 100's of TV Guides from the 1950's. I got married in 1965 & moved to Ct. I came home to Mass. to visit & found out that my mother had thrown all of it out. I'm into trivia & that's what bothers me most. I would love to be able to look at the Guides for example & see what was on then.

I guess her throwing all of that out must have scared me because I save nothing. I throw all the train boxes out, buildings, etc. & have over the last 50 years.

Even though she did this I still have to thank her because she got me into trains around 1957 by giving me my 1st. set (A Lionel Scout) & for that & many other reasons I have great memories of her & loved her dearly.

My aunt bought me a model airplane kit when I was maybe six years old.  I do not

know what happened to it but I was too young to build it.  Then I saw and was allowed

to play with a cousin's prewar Lionel train.  I begged for and received a Christmas set, Marx, which interest is alive and well to this day.  As many kids in the 1950's. I built

models of ships, WWII planes, and in considerable number, model antique cars,

Highway Pioneers and the larger Hudson Miniatures. I then got into HO and packed

away the Marx.  Then, driver's license, and interest in superstock cars, not sated

until later, because school was in the way.  I then saw a rare car at a meet at a

state park and became infatuated with the marque. I found a few of them, wrote an

article on them, published in a national magazine, and tried to get them recognized by the Classic Car Club of America.  Now, 40 years later, a friend of mine who just won

national recognition for his beautifully restored roadster, has FINALLY gotten full Classic status for the later, larger models of the marque.  Along the way I was interested in K-mount 35mm cameras, over a dozen. some very obscure brands, that used the same Pentax family of lenses.  (like Lionel couplers, it just made sense to me that all cameras should be able to interchange lenses) Now, with digital, they are all worthless, so  I no longer pursue those, but do use them.  (Pentax digitals will still

use those lenses)

Not too many hobbies but several interests.

 

Started out building glue together plastic model kits (a few were actually metal).

 

Fascinated with motorcyces.  Had a 50cc moped, then a 750cc Norton Commando Interstate, 850cc Moto Guzzi Eldorado and my last one was a 1000cc BMW K100RT.

 

Dabbled in helicopters, but unlike others above these were the 1:1 models: TH-55, UH-1H, AH-1 and finally the UH-60.

 

Throughout it all I had Lionel trains, a constant.

Been into trains most of my life. Used to like building plastic model car kits as a teen. Got pretty good at it. Even used some of my model railroading weather tricks on a few to make them look like junkers. They're all gone now.

For a brief time while I was a teen I got into gas powered control line airplanes, but never really got the hang of it. Then I went through a brief phase of building small boats powered with the engines from those planes. Built a prop driven little car once than ran pretty fast, but I had no control over it. Worked best in the winter when I could set it down in a tire track in the snow, the tire track guiding the car along. My boys were into RC cars for awhile, naturally I had to get in on the fun too.

Got into shooting about 13 years ago and still doing it. Both "real" and air guns. I enjoy stuff like shooting clays with a shotgun and popping cans with a pellet rifle.

I'm finding that my taste in trains and guns tends to run to the older, traditional stuff.

Footnote to Lee Willis' post:

While visiting the U S  Navel Academy I went into their history museum and found a VERY large collection of 1//4" scale model ships. 

Our tour guide told us that the ship builders  did not use blue prints as such.  Rather they constantly referred to the model and upscaled it's features throughout.

Try to get in to see the collection while it is intact.  A hundred or so all 1/4' to the foot!

When Obama finally closes down the navy we may be able pick the models up at a flee market.

Hobbies: trains, helicpoters,  trains, NHRA race cars, trains, APBA sprint boats, trains, offshore racing, trains, model RR benchwork, trains.......tt

During my time in Chicago, I was heavily into the music scene with that town being the home of electric blues and became an audiophile with a record collection that was enormous. My best friend was a professional photographer for a promoter and so, a regular weekend pastime was hanging out with a backstage pass..then disco arrived along with children. I gave all the equipment and collection away.

Then I became fascinated with both writing and the paranormal and managed to have published various magazine articles and was included in various anthologies on the subject and then I became bored and discouraged with how much b.s was involved with it.

In the midst of all this I was traveling all over as a rehabilitation construction project manager and became pretty involved with historic preservation as a hobby, and then on retirement that interest sort of faded away.

Trains and model trains vanished while raising a family after being a major hobby for me up until my teens, which is pretty typical...only to reappear with my wife giving me an O gauge K-Line set for Christmas..which then exploded into buying "everything"until I got a handle on focusing where I went with it. 

All the other past times came and went but the romance with the rails remained. Why?

I don't have a clue, it must be in my DNA.

I was a Blacksmith interpreter circa 1809 at a Historic House Museum. I stopped when I had a family and moved further from the site. I did fly a tiny model helicopter and never really got the hang of it. I still have it but it has been a while.
Some of my hobbies like kite flying come and go with the weather.