The
Warning Signs: You might be a Model Railroader if…
- You walk into your
favorite hobby shop, and the employees immediately say, "Hi, [your name], we'll get the boss for you."
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- You've ever plunked
down half your paycheck for equipment in your favorite scale, and then wondered what it would be like to model
in a different scale.
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- You've ever sold
a perfectly good freight or passenger car, only because the new superdetailed one you just bought makes the old
one look bland.
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- You really agonize
over decisions like, "Should I buy flowers for my wife or turnouts for my new staging yard ? or Do I need
to buy flowers to get these turnouts in the house?"
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- You talk about
your favorite scale with the zeal and fervor of an evangelist promoting his religion.
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- You see a piece
of plywood, and your first thought is to imagine what kind of layout could be built on it.
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- You haven't let
your son play with "his" trains since last Christmas.
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- You honestly feel
that, if your wife buys a new video tape, that entitles you to buy a freight car, and a new outfit for her means
an engine for you. Fair is fair.
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- You've ever gotten
into a debate over whether Kato is pronounced "kay-to" or "kah-to."
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- You've ever worried
about spelling the coupler "Kadee" or "KD."
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- You name the places
on your railroad after your wife and children.
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- You've ever traced
the route of a wire under your layout by pulling on it.
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- Brass isn't something
you polish, it's something you paint and weather.
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- You spend more
on your model trains in a year than some Third-World nations spend on the real thing.
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- The latest issue
of 48/ft, O Scale News arrives on the same day as your federal tax refund check, and you open the magazine first.
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- The latest issue
of 48/ft, O Scale News arrives on the same day as your state tax refund check, and the only reason you open the
check first is so you'll know how much you can afford to spend as you read the ads in the magazine.
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- You lobby to reorganize
your O Scale club as a not-for-profit museum in a vain attempt to write off some of your hobby expenses as a charitable
deduction and possibly receive a tax refund check one day.
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- You've ever bought
a freight car you had no use for, just because it looked so nice, and then bought more just like it, so it wouldn't
look out of place.
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- You've ever been
tempted to send flame e-mail to someone whose only wrongdoing was outbidding you for that special engine on eBay.
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- Your spouse gives
you a some old newspapers, abag of foam and a box of Hydrocal for your birthday, and you're speechless with joy.
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- You hate watching
The Addams Family because of what Gomez does to those gorgeous trains.
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- You've ever suggested
that your wife's ceramic Christmas village needs a train running through it.
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- Someone says she/he's
finished their model railroad, and you sadly shake your head and say they've missed the point of the entire hobby.
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- Your model trains
run closer to schedule than CSX's do in real life.
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- You have a manila
folder in your desk (or a subdirectory on your computer) full of home-drawn trackplans that you know you'll never
build, but they're too good to discard.
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- You look forward
to the latest announcements from your favorite engine maker with more enthusiasm than a six-year-old looks forward
to Christmas.
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- You think that
three hours forming and mounting wire grab-irons on a caboose is time well spent.
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- You never miss
a chance to try and interest your children in your hobby, even teenagers in a "cars" stage.
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- You've ever poured
your heart into showing off your layout for friends, and their only questions are, "How much did all this
cost?" and, "How fast can the engine go?"
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- You sincerely believe
that the concept of limited-run locomotives and cars was an evil plot dreamed up by the Devil himself.
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- You're setting
up a simple trainset to run around the Christmas tree, and you're mentally planning the scenery and structures
you'll need "to make it look right."
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- You hate collectors,
because they drive up the prices of the equipment you're trying to collect. (But you're going to run yours, and
that's different.)
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- Your spouse assumes
you can fix light switches, toasters, radios, and vacuum cleaners because "you know all about that wiring
stuff from working on your trains, right?"
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- You've ever told
yourself, "Never again will I try to mount tiny coupler springs while working over a shag rug" or you
rip same out to install indoor/outdoor flat carpet over the padding in your den.
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- You've ever felt
smug because you found an inaccuracy in a published photo of somebody else's gorgeous layout. Not that you'd ever
say anything about it, of course.
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- You've ever refused
to buy a model freight car because the stencilled build date (which you had to squint to read) is a year off from
the era you're modeling.
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- You've visited
a hobby shop on a busy day, and wound up answering detailed questions for other customers before you shop.
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- You justify the
money you spent at a train show as "just doing my part to improve the nation's economy."
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- Your spouse gives
you something expensive but inappropriate, like an articulated stack car when you model the 1950's, and you run
it to avoid hurting her feelings, but the whole time, you're squirming inside.
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- You refuse to buy
an inexpensive, beautifully-detailed boxcar lettered for your favorite railroad, because the prototype car had
14 ribs and the model has 16!
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- You feel compelled
to browse in the local mall's hobby shop every time you go near it, even though you know they charge list price
and have nothing you need.
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- You've ever run
two or more boxcars in a train, and hoped no one else noticed that they have identical road numbers.
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- You've ever tried
to justify bringing home a new freight car on the grounds that its your wife's favorite color or matches your shoes.
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- You talk about
the merits of DCC versus cab control at parties.
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- Hardly a day goes
by without you making progress on planning the layout you're going to build someday.
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- Your family has
ever eaten in the den because the kitchen table was buried in decals, tools, and detail parts for your latest project.
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- You've ever gotten
defensive with your railroading friends about buying a model engine or car from a manufacturer they hold in contempt.
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- You've ever calculated
how long your layout is in scale miles, and padded the number by adding the lengths of the sidings and spurs.
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- It constantly annoys
you that the kits for model truck, cars, and boats in the hobby shop aren't made to useful scales, like 1:48.
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- You've ever told
anyone, "I can quit buying freight cars any time I want!"
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