CBCNSfan said:
Sorry folks I got down to the Rev Mikes and couldn't take any more of it. I don't know how you read it all, you're better men that I
Cheers Willis
Thanks Willis! It took me 3 hours to read it, then again I read slowly word by word...
I read it primarily to understand the hobby. Needless to say I don't agree with everything said either. Too many points to rant about, but:
- Clergy? I for various reason's have been surrounded by clergy of various levels all my life and never found any problems. If my priest is a train modeler good for him!
- As for train show sellers who are unshaven and wear filthy clothes, what can you do about it? If I'm going to a model show, do I really need to shave? Maybe people will think I'm older and respect me more (I've been told I look in my late 20s sometimes, which is good because I'm only 18). Filfy clothes? To shows I wear railroad related clothing that I ussually ware around trains anyway, so they're bound to get dirty after 5smoking units pass by them! Don't have enough time to wash them, got to go railfanning again...
- Worthless junk, that section in my opinion is the best. First of all nothing is worthless, really. Even stocks of bankrupot companies aren't worthless. There's a lot of stuff sold at Model shows that is old and outdated, but it may be what you're looking for, and if the price is right, how would you complain. If its really worthless, the market wouldn't seel it! I guess it helps that some sellers really don't know how rare some of their stuff is. I think I mentioned this before, but I bought an Athearn F7A VIA, which hasn't been made for a couple years now for $25! There's no other place to get it from, you either have to buy an undec and repaint it, or buy a dummy which is still for sale and power it!
A good point is uneducated customers. I've seen items on ebay for sale double and sometimes triple what they cost new from the Walthers catalog, that is rediculous. I found this to be the case with VIA passenger cars at the model show as well, most were 10-50% above the Walthers price, so I didn't nuy them.
Selling broken toys? Maybe I want to model a wreck or use parts that aren't broken. Why tear up and kitbash a perfectly good model is a broken one has what I need and once again at a good price? Maybe I need a broken hot wheels car as a gondola load.
Mail bombing? Ok I'm guily of that. If someone asks me for photos of gondola XYZ, but I have pictures of gondola XYY, I'll tell them about it. Then since they'd be intersted, I'll send them the full 2032x1524 version of gondola XYY, along with every other picture of it I have. Since they don't respond, I guess I get them bombed good. Real good.
Finally lame scenery. Maybe I'm a blind young modeler, but I have yet to see a layout that hasn't impressed me. If the layout is poor its because there hasn't been enough time to set it up properly or its the staging tracks. Plain and simply. As for rusty dinousars, that is just too funny. The closest thing I have is a "undec" nomadic man who is about 100m tall in HO scale. But he's a statue.
I personally think we need more local model shows and swap meets, as round here there's only one once a year.
I'm glad you enjoyed the article.