It's unusual to find girls into trains. Just wondering? Except for Candy Streeter are there any girls on here?
I don't know about "on here." Some do not identify their gender. I recall at a Houston train store years ago there was a Zoe who did the most fabulous scale trees. I know there is a Wendy on a Facebook page I see that is getting started into model trains--- and getting started FAST. Know Gil Freitag with his multi-room Stony Creek and Western HO layout full of national best-of-show models? His wife Virginia has her own backyard G gauge empire. Maybe there are girls around more interested into doing models than shooting the breeze about them. At first, I was wondering if this was going to be a thread about posing scantily-clad pin-up queens on tracks...
It seems to me that--as a very general rule that isn't true in every case--men are more likely to see a model railroad from the point of view of someone walking down that street, and see the trains as full size, while women are more likely to see the trains as undersized and therefore cute. At least at first. Photography or RailScope vids can make all difference in that. Once they get the perspective, though, women can become quite involved. Some are less patient with the mechanics of the trackwork, equipment and electrical, but those same women are liable to be more artistic than most men when it comes to the scenery. A couple can potentially become quite a strong team if they find they can bring different strengths to the same hobby. But, yes, women are more likely to come to the hobby through a man, I think.
Yes. Hoyden for one and I believe Chaya is another. There are actually more, but much of the time they seem to mostly lurk and read.
They can be sucked in, if you make the hobby contagious enough. 'Honey, what details is the yard or the porch of this house missing to make it look like a real home?' 'Dear, I'm trying to model (insert year here). What colors should I paint the dresses of the little figures?' 'You have such a good eye for color. Does this green look like summer grass to you?'
My wife is involved as far as encouraging me to continue this hobby. A while back she got it in her head that I was over-stressed and needed to spend more time relaxing. I've tried to argue the point with her, but she insists that I get back to my trains. I should also mention that she brought up the idea of a modular layout (not her terminology but it's what she meant) in the guest bedroom, so I could expand from my current switching layout.
Sticky-Monk's wife is a member, though not active lately. She also is Alan Curtis' daughter-in-law. Please forgive me, but I have forgotten, and can't locate her member name, which has a tractor reference.
I like that. Growing up, our house was heated by Old Company's Lehigh, and occasionally Blue Coal, also from the anthracite region of Pennsylvania.
I don't know any other girls in the hobby. My only explanation for my train interest is that I was a real engineer in another lifetime. I am one of those folks who always stops for trains and often stops for empty tracks or abandoned ROWs. When I see a ROW I see it with my modeler's eye and with my engineer's perspective; albeit electrical this lifetime.
Reminded me of the two ladies who always used to be at the Greenberg shows on this part of the east coast circuit that everybody referred to as the Bachmann girls. Bought a lot of rolling stock from those two ladies that dealt exclusively in Bachmann products of all scales and they knew their trains. A number of years ago they stopped coming to the shows, maybe just this far down or completely I don't know. I had heard that they had an Ebay store.
I haven't run into many girls/ladies that were into Trains or Model Trains. There was one on here named Vicky and she is also on NSO and one other that is on N Scale Model Trains on FB, but those are the only others that I have run into. I must add that to include Candy they are all well skilled modelers.
A good friend of mine named Leslie has her MMR, #289, and does a lot of clinics at the various NMRA conventions.
My daughter has been around trains all her life. She has been with me many times at the Rochelle Railroad park and also at Illinois Railway Museum. One of her first train rides was a IRM on a run down the mainline behind Frisco 1630 in a heavyweight passenger car. To this day she keeps asking me when we can get back to IRM,we now live 4 1/2 hours south of IRM and she is in college. I can not believe how fast she hasgrown up.