Going down the Rabbit Hole in Model Railroading

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“The godly may trip seven times, but they will get up again.
But one disaster is enough to overthrow the wicked.
Don’t rejoice when your enemies fall;
don’t be happy when they stumble.
For the Lord will be displeased with you
and will turn his anger away from them.
Don’t fret because of evildoers;
don’t envy the wicked.”

Proverbs 24: 16-19 NLT

[NWR_astrotrain]

Something I don’t see a lot of people do, but I really appreciate when I do see it is the storytelling of a layout. especially on freelance layouts when someone has an idea for the community of a town or the history of an industry they make places look really unique

[georgebono]

Oh boy, mine is weathering! Nothing drives me crazier than to see a long stirng of locos and cars that are "bright and shiney." Not in the real world do you see that very often unless you are parked outside a paint shop. This is the one thing that will amp up a layout or for that matter just your trains. Go rusty and dirty.

[PixelPusher]

Hey Jimmy, your videos are one of my rabbit holes! Love your channel, and always looking forward to a new videos!

[rathbaster]

Hand laying track can become a hobby within the hobby. 🙃

[mattprobst]

My Rabbit hole has a tunnel that connects to another rabbit hole. The 1st hole is realistic scenery (as you mentioned). The 2nd is finescale modeling aka craftsman kits. So when you go thru the one hole, thru the tunnel and into the next hole, you pop up with a scene that tells a story and when photographed is hard to tell the difference between models and real life. I don't always succeed but the fun is all in the attempt. Tons of resources are out there on both "holes" to assist!

[RayBoebel]

Recently for me, its been 3d printing. I havent designed anything myself, but I have found some unique models and layout add ons to help me going forward

[jonathanjones]

Hi, Jimmy. This was a fun and informative video. Thanks for making it and for all you do for the hobby. FWIW, my rabbit holes are probably scratch-building and layout design. I always seem to end up making things myself, and I love design—I can draw forever. Thankfully, my home layout is designed to accommodate all of my rabbit holes. Keep up the good work.

[frankjennings]

Got to say mine is prototypical modeling of scenes….dating to 1957….several years before I was born 😳! I LOVE the research but oh boy, it can eat up an afternoon. The other is YouTube - your channel; any videos about DCC; archival film of “my railroad” in action, etc. At some point, you have to turn off the Tube and get to work! (Of course, that doesn’t mean not watching your channel 😉)

[obiwanjacobi]

I just started this hobby and I feel model railroad in general in one giant rabbit hole. Anyway, I am currently in the electronics one, trying to automate my layout without DCC. I am using Aliexpress electronic modules with an Arduino Uno as the brain. I am writing all the software myself (no Arduino framework) - bare metal. In the end I will probably make my own PCB with all I need to manage 16 blocks or so. I am working with test setups for now - I want to know how I am gonna solve problems before gluing down my rail...

[cbirailroad]

I model in n scale. My rabbit hole seems to be the need to purchase and run on my layout passenger or freight trains that I have seen in person. Last year my wife and I did a Viking cruise to Alaska, so naturally I had to have an Alaska SD70MAC and a couple of Ultradome cars manufactured by Colorado Railcar. Took a while to get this consist. And then last summer I made the mistake of buying an excursion ticket on the UP Big Boy between Roseville CA and Sparks NV. Now I have the Kato 4014 Big Boy with sound on my shelf, and a 7-car Kato excursion set of passenger cars on order. None of these have anything to do with the area I model (northern Illinois) but they sure are fun to run. 😀

[NJEsperantist]

I think my rabbit hole is Borden's and Lackawanna Milk cars. Borden's used a particular tank car known as a 'butterdish' which, aside from brass models, is only available as a resin craftsman kit. Our club logo has a butterdish car in it, so I've been acquiring a butterdish car in each of the scales. My G scale butterdish is still in progress.

The Lackawanna Railroad used a particular kind of wooden reefer which pretty much must be scratch built to get close. I like to run 1940-50s milk/passenger trains, though I have excuses to run other roads and consists including freights up to 1960.

[andycrawford]

Rabbit hole - motivation. I come and go to my layout, start something, then get distracted on something else, then start watching MR videos and feel inadequate and repeat.

[tonypetts]

Train consists have become a recent interest of mine. Here in the UK it's things such as the use of barrier wagons in trains with flammable/imflammable loads and correct carriage formations including correct numbered 3-4 car sets.

[markanthonyfrench]

Realistic weathering that adds the depth of time to a scene or piece of equipment. It illustrates the use and history of the object.

[RichyN]

I enjoy operations but my biggest rabbit hole is locomotive repair lol. I cant resist buying a cheap "untested" or "not running" locomotive, tearing it apart and cleaning it up and fixing broken stuff, replacing broken gears or repowering a model if needed.

[davidf]

Great video Jimmy. I spent the last few months laying down scenery on my new layout and I recently upgraded my DC system with a Samsung tablet to run engine throttle. So my next rabbit hole is going to be figuring out to consist locomotives and learn all of thefunctions on the sound decoder. And your channel is definitely a rabbit hole. I often find myself going back-and-forth between the newest videos and the older ones. It really inspired me. Have a great day happy Ray rolling. Can’t wait to see the next video.

[ShukakuTheCrazy]

Ive been on a scenery kick. Practiced with a basics kit, and now i cant wait to do more. First i need to get a track plan made to my satisfaction

[DarkroomZombie]

I tried a little bit of everything over the years. I began in the hobby at 8 years old when my father worked for kaulbach publishing and had the model railroader magazine at the house. Every since I tried a little of every new thing I learned about the hobby. Now that I am in my 40's and become a cad expert I make many custom buildings that I print out with 3D printers. I really enjoy that because I can make things not available for my scale. But I still like kits too. If you're ever interested I sometimes share a few videos on my channel, come take a look.

[EightbyFourRailway]

Getting your old Lima train set down and out of its box for the first time in 40 years... Lets just say that things have escalated rather exponentially from there in the last two months...!

[fuzzyworld]

I've ended up in the "you like trains, here have my old ones" rabbit hole. While many said trains are old Tyco/Bachmann and the like, and REALLY don't fit into my preferred modeling scheme, I have upgraded many of them to more modern couplers (and sometimes trucks), and run them occasionally with some of my other "heritage" equipment from model railroading of my youth. I've even added some more modern models to run with these...