an unused parking lot?” A $500 spending limit – and only the
most rudimentary set of tools – means you want an answer
before sinking your nest egg into this hobby, not after.
But that’s not all. Another possible question might be, “OK,
so I like railroading, but what do I want to model? A mountain
shortline? An urban setting? A point-to-point or switching lay-
out, or would I rather just watch trains go around and around a
continuous loop? Do I like scenery? Track laying? Kit building?
Operations? I thought I liked X before, but I’m wondering about
Y now.” All these are things we hope to have answered before
we even think about The Big One – the grand layout we always
dream about building – and before we have that unpleasant
conversation with the kids about having spent the inheritance.
Clearly, with a $500 limit, we’re not planning to create that be-
all and end-all layout (as if there ever was such a layout, except
in our dreams!). Instead, we’re expecting to learn stuff, and
quite likely, throw away chunks of what we’ve made. (Though if
we have something worth keeping, so much the better.)
So, it’s settled: we can’t build that dream layout for $500, and
we won’t pretend to here.
Let’s add to our “reality” list a present-day fact: most of us are
extremely busy with everything else happening in our lives.
We’re pressed for time, and pressed for space, in addition to
being pressed for money to spend on the hobby. We have to
fit our creative activity into whatever slivers of time we can
find during evenings or weekends. And when we can’t spend
time on our hobby, we have to put it aside... sometimes liter-
ally. Apartment life may deny us a garage. City life may deny us
a basement. Family life may deny us a spare bedroom. Military
life may even deny us more than a bunk and cramped locker.
But that shouldn’t deny us the opportunity to explore the
hobby, and, well, experiment.
$500 layout 3rd place - 2
MRH-Oct 2014
