“How did you spend your weekend?” asked one friend of mine at the work. “Nothing special, among other things  i was watching videos in the youtube about RR modeling”  I said.  “And?”  he insisted.  I started talking about and I didn’t realise that I was talking more and more passionate about all the nice things I had seen and learnt. A second friend participated and both together encouraged me to talk. I noticed a little smile on their faces and  I stopped talking.  “Don’t be upset, we had model trains too. It is a wonderful hobby and you have to bother with it, because fascinates you” they said one voice. “You are both insane, I just spent my time with something pleasant. That’s not meant I have to be engaged. I’m going to work” I said and I left. The next day on of my friends brought me a TT scale train set and against my objections left it on my desk. "i'll try it, no reason to rush.” I said in my mind and a more than a year passed.

In the meantime I bought an Arduino mega with a motor shield and I build a DCC++ command station. Soldering iron,  arduinos, servos, ics, added. Jmri runs. I built Geoff Bunza’s dcc decoder,  I mounted a dcc zimo decoder in the old loco and front lights with optical fibers. I bought styrene, tools, wheels, couplers, bogie kits to try my skills in the scratch building and I made a tank car, a little frankenstein. I was planning my first layout in scarm, I was studying standards, articles, forums, sites, blogs about everything in relation with rr modeling.  Maybe that is a professional deviation as I’m a structural bridge engineer. I found an affordable way for cutting pcb ties, I didn’t find any source in Europe, in a laser cutter and I will try  to build the turnouts. I chose to go with a frame of drywall steel studs and xps  for the layout in the loft. 

Maybe I sounded ambitious. I’m not. StilI i have fun and I allways I’m saying “I’m not going somewhere, I’m just playing”. I wanted to confront the major, of my point of view, challenges of the hobby and discover if I have any skills, because I realized that it is not a cheap hobby.

The score MRR vs Me? Hm… Counting that the real life is also against me, I’m standing on my feet and I’m writing about all these, I suppose is no winner yet. But it is a harsh match. Freddy Krueger lives in my loft. :D I’m a little bit lazy.
So, first of all I have to kill the Freddy, build the layout bench and buy the track.

I’ll post some photos soon. Be good !

Have fun
Vasilis
TT scale