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Hobbycraft do a starter in the UK for about £60 at this time of year, which is a good one (for what it is), part of the issue though is that the hornby track, especially the turnouts are utter pants - but its cheaper to buy the set then bin some of it later

Unless things have changed the controllers in those starter sets are pretty useless too.

This whole thing is like when we bought Thomas the Train for our kids...

RC controlled Cars and/or plane is also a money pit and here in Japan the whole pellet gun is something you can spend a lot of money on. But model kits are mostly cheap here

I distinctly recall jumping into RC cars with my friends, and dropping $500+ for a right off the bat, then spending all night building and painting to race the next morning. All told, I dropped perhaps $2k into RC cars, when I consider race fees, batteries, bodies, paint, etc. I don't regret it at all. I still have my cars, but I should probably replace my internals with brushless.

At the time, only "old guys" were doing trains...

Yup, low power rubbish, but good enough for a basic oval and one small loco

Don't try and drive a 12 coach express over a 40' loop with one. It gets a bit umm slower

sorry, OT. :(

My buddy is into model trains -- he has a very elaborate setup -- and laughs when I mention that wargaming is expensive

It's not too expensive to get started with trains, but there are so many things you can do, and so many places that you can spend time and money that it's just important to set expectations and budgets, no different than if you were modelling 40k for the purposes of building dioramas.

One of the saddest model railroading tales that I have ever heard was from a man that owned several machined brass engines, expertly painted... and whose wife let their kids take the 'toy trains' out to play in the sandbox....

The Auld Grump

An interesting compromise for model railways that I don't think I saw anyone mention is HOe.

It uses HO scale (~1:87), but on 9mm track (normally used for N gauge) - this corresponds to a narrow gauge of approximately 2' 7" (as compared to the standard 4' 8.5"),which is a fair stand-in for things like the common 2' 6" and 3' gauges (or several common metric gauges). It allows layouts of a similar footprint to an N-scale layout, but with somewhat beefier models.

I've got a fictional Welsh narrow gauge line I've been working on for a while, based loosely on the Welshpool and Llanfair. I can't pretend it's spectacular in either design or its available rolling stock (although it has offered me a chance to go to town with scratch-building - with a lot of narrow gauge stock being unique or near-unique, there's a lot of opportunity to design fictional locomotives), but I've been able to take to it more seriously than my OO collection. (To be honest, my OO is more of a train-set than a model railway, as there isn't the space for a permanent layout).

Zingraff wrote:
Actually a lot of adult (predominantly male) hobbies are ludicrously expensive. Like restoring old cars, owning boats, model air planes, golfing, collecting rare books, hunting, freemasonry, and so on.

Here, Here.


My skydiving gear:

Container: $2000
Reserve Parachute: $1000
Main Parachute: $2000
Automatic Activation Device (an emergency system): $1250
Wingsuit: $1500
Tracking suit: $750
Regular Jumpsuit: $400
Helmet: $400
Digital Altimeter: $250
Audible Altimeter: $200

Ride to altitude: $25 each time

-MaxGravity

As always in these threads, I will bring up the hobby of J Class yachting, which is so expensive that only billionaires can afford it.

J Class yachting? What century is this?

Isn't the current standard AC72?

Only $10 mil each.

$100 mil if you want to win.
http://www.theverge.com/2013/9/3/4672686/billionaire-death-race

I saw the Oracle boat in the Newport harbor, and it's crazy how big it is in real life.

That's a cheapo format.

J Class is best class.

 TheAuldGrump wrote:
One of the saddest model railroading tales that I have ever heard was from a man that owned several machined brass engines, expertly painted... and whose wife let their kids take the 'toy trains' out to play in the sandbox....

The Auld Grump

Aaaaaarrrrgggghhhhh!!!

I started trying to resurrect my Dad's N-gauge layout when I was a teenager, but it got sidelined by university, career, etc. Just remodelled my spare room with extra shelves for all my 40k stuff and realised that I have a spare shelf that is just the right size for a littl N-gauge layout. And it would be silly to let all that stuff sit in the loft.

And so the madness begins....


Automatically Appended Next Post:
I can also second the New Railway Modeller forums, a lot of useful articles and good forums.

They also put me on to a bit of software called xtrkcad, which is really useful for planning your layouts.

Xtrkcad is useful, have used it on occasion to produce simply schematics for work. If you want insanity, get a package called templot, which is simply amazing

I should post my train stuff in the for sale thread, fund my crazy doll hobby.

 Jehan-reznor wrote:
RC controlled Cars and/or plane is also a money pit and here in Japan the whole pellet gun is something you can spend a lot of money on. But model kits are mostly cheap here

Geez I wish that I could get 1/700 Model Ships for Japanese prices (without the gargantuan shipping costs).

Often I pay as much for shipping as I do the models (I have been using 1/700 for WWII Naval Wargaming - takes a LOT of room for many battles. Especially for goons who want to run the Yamato down Ironbottom Sound in the Solomons, where it can shoot all the way from Lunga Point on Guadalcanal to Tulagi next to Florida Island).

And Gundams and other models get a ridiculous markup in the USA.

MB