Combining Model Railroading With Other Hobbies

It’s easy to get wrapped up in your model railroad and basically put on blinders to other hobbies – I know I’m guilty of this. I usually think something along the lines of “I don’t have enough time for my railroad, how can I possibly consider a new hobby?”

Well, every once in a while something opens my eyes to the possibilities.

Every September, I spend a day at the Puyallup Fair, which is the Washington State fair in a little town called Puyallup (it’s pronounced “pyoo-a-lup”). This is a great fair – lots of shows, animal exhibits, amusement park rides, midway games, etc – but one of the best parts for me is the hobby hall.

There’s usually a big model railroad display put up by a local club. This year was a little different, though.

This year’s train display was built completely from Lego blocks. The time that must have gone into putting everything together is pretty amazing, and the realism was impressive.

As I’m prone to do, I snapped some pictures of the display to post on the blog. Take a look at what you can accomplish when you take two different hobbies and combine them:

model train layout built with lego blocks model train layout built with lego blocks
The two sides of the layout

model train layout built with lego blocks model train layout built with lego blocks
Some of the locomotives on the layout

If you click on any of those pictures, a larger version will open in a new window.

{ 1 comment… read it below or add one }

Wanita Mikulski December 2, 2006 at 3:41 pm

Ideas for making scenery & accessories are useful when making miniatures of any kind. I have miniature doll houses. The idea of using kitty litter for rocks will work great in a doll house garden or flower border.

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