Anyone Like Railways And Model Railways?

I like looking at them but never had my own. When I was a child we had one in our town and a favorite holiday activity was to visit it, especially as there were a few buttons you could press.

Over the last decade and a half onwards... When I hit a series of severe burnouts every time I worked that were separated by a year or two of recovery, I had to hand in my notice on each job I was in and understandably the last four weeks of working and forcing myself to "Push through" was torture and made the burnouts muchmore severe. (If I knew what they were I could have gone to doctors and just had time off but I knew nothing about burnout or autism so never went to doctors because I never knew what to say (I would sort of go non verbal which I called "Mindblank" anyway at doctors but I could free up my mind by talking about something irrelevelt...)

Anyway. That first severe burnout was at the tail end of working a railway job which took me ten years after leaving school to get. 

But my relaxing hobby had gone from buying between a locomotive a month's worth of spare income to zero income... And it was at the same time that the main manufacturers first doubled their prices in a matter of months! So I was left without a means of enjoying new inut into the wonderful hobby of mine which to me was my life (I did have life outside model railways but for me, my life revolved around them! Even my thoughts woule use railway related subjects as analogies to use to think about and talk about subjects that didn't involve trains!)

So I sat on the floor of the bedroom of the little house I used to own and was soo heartbroken... But I looked up so my eyes were looking level and I was looking at a little bag containing a beautiful kit! It was not the 00 scale I usually modelled in but a larger scale that used the same loco chassis as a budget 00 gauge loco which at the time just before thr price increases could be bought new for £12.50 as a donor loco for the kit, but I already hada spare donor loco thwt I had put aside in my spares box in the past. I had previously many years ago actually tried this scale (0 scale on 00 track) when in my early 20's by converting this very loco anddecided to convert it back as at the time I was enjoying 00... And the converting it back was not great, hence it was in my spares box. 

Si I started building this cast resin loco body kit... Tears streamed down my face, as building this loco was personal! The loco was "Mine!" Created with my own hands to my own style! I decided the paint colour. I decided how I wanted it to look! ( Though origionally I copied the kit instructions, I soon adapted it with little coal bunkers and years later decided to make a hybrid of chassis from a lovely rigid Triang chassis adapted with modern Hornby parts. (A massive undertaking to get things to fit!)

But this kit which had me in so many tears of relief and joy as I was building it, sent me into the realm of budget 7mm narrow gauge modelling. (7mm narrow gauge normally modelled using 00/H0 track and is known as 0-16.5 in Britain, 0e in Europe and 0n30 in the USA).

I soon found that I was using scrap parts I had put aside as were 00 gauge cast-offs, such as old broken wagons etc) on the new venture so I didn't need to pay out much to model in this scale. 

I then began to develop ways to make things without spending much money. Making little narrow gauge waggons..  Two most expensive parts. The wheels and the couplings. I have almost halved the price by designing simple ways to make my own couplings that enable trains to go round very sharp curves, look prototypical and are reliable in operation.

That sounds a great hobby and a sense of satisfaction when you have created something yourself.

That sounds a great hobby and a sense of satisfaction when you have created something yourself.

Yes. I make a lot of things rather than buy them. Made track, couplings, waggons etc etc. Half built a simple controller.