Variety - the spice of life?
Tue, Jun 2, 2009
Posted by: Martin McGuirk

One of the dangers of building a large model railroad is boredom. It's entirely possible that you will become sick of spiking track before you finish tracklaying.

This weekend I felt lousy (you may have been able to tell I was just recovering from a sinus infection and head cold if you heard me on Model Railcast Show #66). That, and the fact that it was a rainy day meant that I had time to work on the railroad - but didn't feel like doing benchwork or track. Wiring, which involves crawling around on the floor, was right out.

I have a desk, a Dutch or Danish modern thing (ask Christine, to me it's an "old desk") that serves as my model-building bench. I'm a southpaw, so it's nice that the drawers are on the left - it feels very natural to me. I had even managed to clear off the desk a few weeks ago so Saturday afternoon the desk was ready and I was able to spend a completely enjoyable few hours working on a model. It was nice to pick up scale 1 x 4s using a tweezers instead of the full-size versions that I've been working with on the benchwork! 

What was the project of choice? I dug out the Diamond Scale turntable and worked on it. I figure I'll spend some time trying to get this model to work - if it works great - if not, the Walthers table will serve as a backup!

Progress was good - I'm modifying the Diamond Scale table to look like the one in New London. That means I had to line the pit walls with ties (and some round timbers). I managed to get the pit walls finished, assembled the bridge frames, including the metal bogie trucks. I even managed to cut and stain the stripwood for the bridge. I haven't built a wood model in years and found it was enjoyable to revisit this old material.

I even dug out the New York Railway Supply PTC III controller before the cold medicine kicked in and I called it a night.

Railroad time this week will be spent finishing up the turntable to the point where  I can test it - if it passes its OPEVAL we'll install it on the railroad - then get back to subroadbed and backdrops.

So, even if you're building a layout give yourself a break from benchwork, track, and wiring and sit down and build a model.
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Posted by: RyanA on Tue, Jun 2 2009     www.ModelRailcast.com
Marty... I have those days/weekends also. I get burned out on one thing or another and typically for me, the best remedy is to sit down and spend a couple hours on a model. I was never really a model builder of any kind growing up, just a coder (programming), but since joining the hobby I am amazed at the results of spending some time on a model:
1. possibly a good looking model
2. Clear head for working on other projects and to dos
3. Some nice quite time to concentrate on nothing (except the model maybe).

:o)
Posted by: ChrisNH on Wed, Jun 3 2009     model-railroad-hobbyist.com/blog/chrisNH
Tony Koester wrote a piece years ago about following where one's immediate interest in model railroading is. That is.. when you feel like laying track to lay track.. and when you feel like building box cars lay box cars. His point, put much more eloquently, was to not focus too hard on doing what should be done at the expense of doing what we feel like doing right now..

I have tried to follow that and to allow myself a variety of tasks to do so I can always enjoy my hobby even when I am not really enjoying the most immediate task at hand..

Or, put another way, I agree with Marty!

Chris
 
 
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