by Arthur Limes
While browsing around in the model railroading community on
forums and sites like Twitter I have noticed many adult males ask a particular
question. Is model railroading a nerdy activity that is mostly aimed at
children? To answer this simply, model railroading is a hobby that is suitable
for all ages and can actually teach you many life skills. There are certain
aspects of this hobby that most children or even teenagers just could not do as
they require time and dedication to learn such as wiring up the tracks or
designing a locomotive from scratch.
Designing and building a layout can be straightforward or a
very creative and complicated process depending on what approach you use. The 3
main approaches you could use in increasing difficulty are:
- An “all in one” kit that is ready to run out of the box.
This means that all the components such as locomotives, rolling stock, scenery
and tracks are already constructed. All you need to do is link the components
together on a layout.
- A “shake the box” kit where all the components are included
in an easy to assemble form.
- The last one is either craftsman kits or raw materials that
you use to build the whole layout from scratch.
The more experienced you become the more you will want to
challenge yourself. Choosing number 3 from the list above can involve
woodcarving, painting, electrical skills, machinist skills and possibly a few
others. Learning these skills can be a lot of fun when in the context of model
railroading. Not only can you increase your ability to customize your layouts,
but also learn things that are useful for other areas of your life. Read on to
find out how learning additional skills would be beneficial to you.
I bet you never thought your History classes would come
in handy
The more enthusiastic model railroaders like to build
layouts that are historically accurate such as the “World War 2” era or the
steam train era. Getting the details factually correct can take a lot of
research and attention to detail. This is not only limited to the locomotives
and rolling stock, but to scenery also. In fact when showing off your completed
work to non model railroaders it is usually the scenery that will explain to
people what your layout is about.
When researching for the layouts you will also learn some
cool train history lessons along the way. However a more important benefit is
that your research skills will improve and this skill can be transferred over to
other parts of your life.
Ever thought of painting your own model
trains?
While the mechanical features of your locomotives and
rolling stock are important, it is the visual impact that they are able to exert
that is most important in order to impress people checking out your layout.
Learning how to paint the train models gives you a lot of control over the
design. This higher level of control is beneficial because it allows you to
customize your layout to whatever your imagination is limited by. This creative
aspect of model railroading can keep people making new models and layouts for
many years.
Typically there are two main approaches to painting your
train models which are using spray or a brush. Spray painting more of a
mechanical process whereas using a brush allows for a much higher level of
detail and customizability. However using a brush requires a greater level of
skill and takes longer to learn. Learning this type of painting has other
benefits such as doing DIY work on your kitchen furniture among other
things.
Create your scenery using
woodcarving
Being able to create your own scenery components without
any limitation using wood carving techniques is not only a very rewarding
process, but also allows you to create impressive layouts. Using wood you can
make figurines, buildings and even the whole landscape. Then using your painting
skills you can adapt the scenery components to fit your particular theme. Wood
carving skills learnt during time spent on model railroading can be transferred
over to many other useful projects such as carving out a toy to give to a child
as a birthday present.
Learn how to wire up a layout
Wiring up a model railroad layout is a more technical
aspect of the hobby as opposed to the creative sides such as choosing a
locomotive or arranging scenery components. At first it might seem too much of a
chore to learn the electrical skills. However when building your own layout it
is a vital skill to learn in order to ensure that your trains run smoothly, fire
effects work, switches switch, light go on and off, signals change, smoke blows
and whistle effects work. Even if you choose to get an “all in one” kit to build
your layout there will often be problems of an electrical nature. Knowing what
to do in such cases will make your model railroading experience much smoother.
Electrical skills learnt whilst building and maintaining
your railroad layout can come in handy in a large number of situations. Such as
fixing an electrical appliance in your home or doing some car maintenance that
requires wiring of some type.
Consider building your locomotives from
scratch
The high quality locomotives and rolling stock that are
manufactured by reputable brands such as Bachmann and Lionel primarily use
metal. Learning machinist skills will give you the ability to create models from
scratch. It will not be easy to master such a skill to the point where you can
build high quality model trains. However for the more enthusiastic model
railroader this is a skill worth investing a lot of time and effort into.
Learning machinist skills gives you the added benefit of being able to do a high
number of DIY activities such as repairing a car.
For those of you not interested in completely mastering
machinist skills, you could make an effort to learn some aspects of it as this
will allow you to do some important repair or maintenance work on train models
that you might buy.
Selling model trains to fund your
hobby
Now that you roughly know what it takes to build your own models
and layouts from scratch you can consider doing it for the purpose of selling
them. The money earned can be reinvested into model railroading in any way you
see fit. This will give you even more freedom to build bigger and better
layouts. Before searching for a venue to sell of your goods do the
following:
1. Clean the items you wish to sell. Nobody will appreciate
buying a set of dirty model trains.
2. Next inspect all your items for any damage and repair to the
best of your ability. Any damage greatly reduces the price.
3. Take many pictures, this will increase the sales price
because it will allow people to see what they are buying clearly.
4. Do some research at places like Amazon and eBay to give you a
better idea of what your stuff is actually worth.
The best places on the Internet to sell stuff in a very quick
and safe manner are eBay and Craigslist. Offline alternatives include auction
houses, gadget shops, toy shops and model type shops.
Making the decision to invest in skills
For most people this decision will be based on what it is that
they get out of model railroading. The people that only enjoy looking at the
finished layout in full working order hardly need much investment of additional
skills. Instead buying an “all in one” kit will be the fastest and simplest way
of achieving what they want. Whereas the model railroaders that enjoy the
building and customizability aspect of model railroading will gain a lot from
investing in the skills mentioned in this article. In closing I would like to
say that what you usually get out of a hobby is what you put into it in terms of
effort and enthusiasm.
