Reminds me of an estate sale I went to one time. Unassuming place, one of those tiny postwar homes about the same size as the one in this article - but with at least double or triple the density of this train layout in the basement. The owner must have been a very thin person, as the narrow winding paths around the basement in places measured no more than 8 inches, and the widest parts were only about 2 foot wide. In a 900 sq. foot basement, there was probably only about 50 sq foot of floor you could actually rest your feet on. The rest was all layout and boxes of trains and train accessories of all sorts - hundreds of tiny pots of specialty paint, miniature trees, "grass powder", special linkages and wheels, and more. Probably most of it got thrown away at the end of the sale.
People have hobbies, but I can't think of any circumstance in which I'd convert my basement into a deathtrap. There was less room than those hoarder houses you see on TV (but much more organized). It was genuinely concerning that they even decided to hold a sale there open to the public.
Truly one of the more bizarre things I've seen. Also, the upstairs? Mostly normal - you wouldn't even know the guy liked trains.
Tangentially related, re hoarders and death traps, have you come across the story of the Collyer brothers?
Homer Lusk Collyer (November 6, 1881 – March 21, 1947) and Langley Wakeman Collyer (October 3, 1885 – c. March 9, 1947), known as the Collyer brothers,[1] were two American brothers who became infamous for their bizarre natures and compulsive hoarding. The two lived in seclusion in their Harlem brownstone at 2078 Fifth Avenue (at the corner of 128th Street) in New York City where they obsessively collected books, furniture, musical instruments, and myriad other items, with booby traps set up in corridors and doorways to crush intruders. Both died in their home in March 1947 and were found (Homer on March 21, Langley on April 8) surrounded by more than 140 tons (127,000 kg) of collected items that they had amassed over several decades.
…
The responding officer initially had a difficult time getting into the house. There was no doorbell or telephone and the doors were locked; and though the basement windows were broken, they were protected by iron grillwork.[20] An emergency squad of seven men eventually had no choice but to begin pulling out all of the junk that was blocking their way and throw it out onto the street below. The brownstone's foyer was packed solid by a wall of old newspapers, folding beds and chairs, half a sewing machine, boxes, parts of a wine press, and numerous other pieces of junk. A patrolman finally broke in through a window into a second-story bedroom. Behind this window lay, among other things, more packages and newspaper bundles, empty cardboard boxes lashed together with rope, the frame of a baby carriage, a rake, and old umbrellas tied together. After five hours of digging, Homer Collyer's body was found in an alcove surrounded by filled boxes and newspapers that were piled to the ceiling.
Langley Collyer (born October 3, 1885 - died c. March 9, 1947):
Langley died first. He was crushed by one of his own booby traps - a makeshift tunnel of newspapers and debris - while attempting to bring food to his paralyzed brother Homer. Langley was buried under a massive pile of junk and his body was not discovered until April 8, 1947, weeks after his death, due to the concealment caused by the debris.
Homer Collyer (born November 6, 1881 - died March 21, 1947):
Homer, who was blind and crippled, died alone of starvation and dehydration sometime after Langley’s death. Without his brother to care for him, he perished in the same house. His body was found seated in a decaying chair amidst the filth and clutter.
> Without his brother to care for him, he perished in the same house.
Great example why you always need to strive for independence as a disabled person. If your family tries to directly or indirectly slow that process down, they are a danger to your well being.
Independent in the context of modern capitalism means attaching to more and more support nodes as everything that was serviced by family/clan in the past is replaced by individual entities that can be activated with cash transactions. (Everything except actually caring for you as a person, those require a strong third place).
I take a cash transaction over my patronising and frankly borderline crazy mother every day. This iddealisation of family has to stop, it is a cruel lie.
It's a terrible example of why you should strive for independence.
>> Langley died first. He was crushed by one of his own booby traps - a makeshift tunnel of newspapers and debris - while attempting to bring food to his paralyzed brother Homer.
An independent paralytic is a dead paralytic. You can't be independent and paralyzed.
Yep. I moved off grid and I now fill my days with “how will I unreel 600kg of cable and 500m of 90mm HDPE tube over half a kilometre of nightmare terrain and 70m of vertical drop with only muscles and mechanics in 37C heat, and how will I thread the fibre down the tube” and similar fun projects.
Man’s gotta man. At least I get to scratch the systems itch and get fit at the same time.
Is there anything particularly "neuro divergent" about having a hobby?
Anyways, I doubt his wife's making him do anything. Totally normal domestic arrangement to have a space for one's thing(s), whatever it may be. Well-conducive to a happy marriage, IMHO.
I'm not fortunate enough to have a whole basement to play with, but my study's piled high with my books, electronics, painting gear, art and models. I'm thankful to have a space that's mine. My SO didn't tell me to keep my shit here, I was like "dibs" on moving in.
> Is there anything particularly "neuro divergent" about having a hobby?
No, but how obsessive the pursuit of that hobby is, that's the question.
There are some model train enthusiasts that, over their life time, spend several millions of EUR on their hobby, so they basically work to finance their hobby.
There are plenty of people that travel a lot. Some would say they work to be able to travel. Would you consider those people obsessive in the pursuit of traveling?
The reason why I'm asking is that my impression seems to be that there is a lot more acceptance for obsession when the obsession is considered extroverted and conforming to society's expectation.
> Would you consider those people obsessive in the pursuit of traveling?
Could be, depending on how much they give up for traveling.
> The reason why I'm asking is that my impression seems to be that there is a lot more acceptance for obsession when the obsession is considered extroverted and conforming to society's expectation.
Maybe it's also related to the accumulation of things related to the hobby.
If you see somebody's collection of model trains and their tracks, it's pretty visceral that they must have spent lots of time and money on this. Same for basically any other hobby that involves collecting this (that aren't tiny, like postage stamps).
If, on the other hand, you hear that somebody has traveled a lot, that doesn't hit home to the same degree..
Maybe another factor is that we tend to associate at least some forms of neurodivergence (autism and AD(H)D at least) with hyperfocus on a few topics, whereas travel exposes one basically automatically to many new experiences. Haven't really thought that through yet...
I'll admit I don't know many people but nobody I know has that kind of expendable income. The "worst" case spends hundreds a year on merchandise / collectibles though.
Could be working to barely scrape by, going to bed early to save on heating costs, unable to afford to save a deposit to buy a house, worry how you’ll afford the next dentist or mechanics bill.
That depends on what the hobby is of course. Also, it's not necessarily healthy. Being unable to switch your attention away from your hobby tends to cause problems in other areas of your life like neglecting the housework, your partner, your children, your health etc. That's part of the reason why these things are classed as disabilities.
I've always looked at basements as a natural place for train layouts (no, I do not have one -- neither a basement nor a train layout). Trying to put such thing together among the usual furniture, people moving about, possibly toddlers found outside of the basement would be nigh impossible.
And my favourite, "Men will literally [do anything creative] instead of going to therapy". Apparently the proper way to to deal with your feelings is consumerism.
or maybe they are so overwhelmed that they are procrastinating. the problem here is expectations. you have the expectation that one should not chill or focus on a hobby when they should be looking for a job, or spend time with their children, or whatever else they could be doing when they don't chill or work on their hobby.
i know that feeling. i have been there. more than a year out of work, i could not focus on anything, whatever i did felt wrong because i thought i should use that time to apply to jobs. it was exhausting, and i was procrastinating a lot. i had to remind myself that i could not be writing job applications all day, and i used my hobbies to relax and get energy. so no, chilling or having cool hobbies are not a sign of someone catching a break. not without knowing more about their actual circumstances.
the problem is that people who slack off or do their hobbies when they should be doing something more important are worse off than those who are just busy. saying they are catching a break is like saying that an alcoholic is catching a break because they got the money to buy alcohol. or (from my perspective) if you have time for tv, youtube and tiktok you must be catching a break, because i don't.
the problem is the generalization. sure, when you catch a break then you can afford to slack off or do your hobbies. but the reverse conclusion is not true. not everyone who is slacking off is catching a break.
it's this judgement of people that when they do that it must be because they are well off that bothers me.
i faced this multiple times. when i grew up we lived on welfare but we could afford things that other people could not because we were thrifty and we saved money on other things we didn't need but were common otherwise, like a car and a TV. but because we were able to afford certain things people thought we were better off. i had time for my hobbies because i didn't spend time watching tv.
they were measuring my life through their perspective.
the same goes for hobbies and hence, your statement.
> ‘I told her the truth and she was like “ok”. ‘But she has an art degree so she appreciated the level of detail and work that went into it. We’re now engaged'
How? It was accessible through a door. Nobody - not the seller, agent, himself or any other prospective buyers, or the building inspector he presumably engaged to check the place over before signing contracts - thought to look behind the door?
How can you buy a house without checking out the foundations/basement yourself or by a pro?
All the home inspectors I looked at (Victoria, where this house is, plus Tasmania) were all quite clear that they would only access areas they could find a way in. Closed up areas, wouldn't be inspected by default.
Incidentally, I'm in Victoria myself. When I bought my house, the inspector did the works. Multiple roof spaces, got under the house and had a look, full report with photos, phone call consultation to explain everything he saw to me. He even notified the sellers of an urgent issue and they had it fixed that afternoon.
I guess it depends who you hire (and whether or not you want to know about any issues, which is the most compelling reason I've seen in the replies so far for why this was "missed").
In fact things like attic hatches are supposed to be sealed ane so even though seen the inspector is not allowed in the attic. (Unless there is other evedence of a problem, though they need to repair the seal in that case.
It's that something regional for specific access type? My Victorian houses always had the roof hatch accessible - it's just another storage area and needs to be available if you want to rewire something.
Attic access has to be weatherstripped - cheap ass builders just seal it.
I ain’t buying’ no pig in a poke. If it’s new construction I can inspect before completion (and you should); if it’s used, I am breaking the seal and crossing the streams. Attics got way too much “fun” to discover.
> Attic access has to be weatherstripped - cheap ass builders just seal it.
True.
> If it’s new construction I can inspect before completion (and you should); if it’s used, I am breaking the seal and crossing the streams. Attics got way too much “fun” to discover.
Don't do this! you can't see much anyway. At least not without walking up there and that disturbs your insulation. Everything you care about is about the roof working, so look at the roof from the outside. Keep the roof in good shape and you don't need to go in the attic.
Also until the house is yours you are not allowed to break that seal. Once it is your house you can do whatever you want, but it is too late.
Nonsense. Every house built in Victoria has an accessible hatch to the roof space. The hatches are not sealed either, it's just a lid resting over the opening, which can be pushed upward. Some have hinges, etc.
The Melbourne real-estate market is _mad_. Prices (relative to wages) are exceptionally high and continue to rise, spending half your take-home income on housing isn't super uncommon.
Widespread sentiment that if you don't buy something ASAP, you'll never be able to - meaning lots of buyers skimping on due diligence to close a sale.
Melbourne property prices actually haven't recovered from their 2022 peak, and that's before adjusting for inflation. I believe rents are down in real terms as well.
Things have been crazy for a long time, but I am actually optimistic for Melbourne specifically - the construction rate is up and the state government has been decreasing the power local governments have to block or delay development. If this continues, housing affordability should improve. My main concern is that a change of government may put an end to it, but I hope not.
Some details about what VIC is doing differently in this AFR article if you're interested (archive link because original is paywalled):
Population growth rate in Victoria has been 1.9% YOY average for 20 years, with no sign of slowing down. Even if they hit their targets, demand will exceed supply.
The Victorian government has also failed significantly on public housing. The wait time is about 20 months (10 months is VicGov's target, it was 14 months 3 years ago) and they're currently looking to demolish many existing options without many short term optionsnfor residents.
It seems very unlikely to me that Victoria's house prices will drop in any sigificant way this decade.
I don't think there'll be any significant drop on a sub-decade timescale unless there's some kind of financial crisis, but the ideal kind of trend is prices stagnating or growing slower than wages, which is the case right now - and the question is whether it will continue.
I think there is a good chance it will, as long as a change of government doesn't deliberately dismantle the current approach. Yes there's population growth and yet prices have been stagnant or declining the past few years and construction has picked up. That's a good trend!
I'm not familiar with the situation with public housing but am happy to accept if the government has failed there. But this seems like a separate failure rather than an indictment of their approach to increasing supply generally which I think is working.
Not uncommon for Australia. The housing market is very competitive so being a nuisance as a buyer, such as hiring someone for a thorough inspection, could hurt your chances.
What inspectors actually do also depends on who is engaging them and how much they get paid. For example, in the ACT it's mandatory for sellers to have an inspection done. This will generally go to the lowest bidder and they will put in minimum effort, e.g. the report will have things like "Roof inspected as far as can see from ladder placed against the house" and "furniture present, unable to inspect area". If you were the buyer and engaging an inspector, and the seller cooperated, you could have them inspect as much as you were willing to pay them for.
Many "inspectors" don't even go inside anymore. In some areas, where it is know that the buyers has every intention of replacing/rebuilding most houses, I've even heard of "inspections" done without a visit. They check on google that the house plan matches city records, that services are provided to the lot, and that there are no buried oil tanks and such, but don't bother going to view the house in person.
Heads up, the rest (most) of the world has access to Google to figure it out easily. Same way Americans convert a square foot to a square meter, or tatami, or whatever.
Whatever the inspector finds, whether it be $50k or $100k or $200k worth of repairs that you request as a price deduction, there’ll be someone else who won’t care about the inspection issues. It’s in your best interest to make the sellers life easier and execute the fastest sale.
Only to the extent that your best interest includes buying the house. But if the house needs tens of thousands (or more!) in repairs, then very likely buying the house is not in your best interest. That's kinda the point of an inspection.
I don't think there's a 10+ year old house in existence that doesn't need 1-2% or more of the building value in repairs. For the two properties I bought, I had an inspection report for over 10% and around 3% of the purchase price. Neither was a reason to not proceed.
Most old houses in Aus are just assumed to be complete shit so why waste money on an inspection to tell you what you already know. All the value is in the land.
If the house collapses that's a good thing because then the heritage protections are gone and you can build something better. The property value probably goes up if the old workers hut falls over.
I guess the seller didn't want complications and the agent just lists what they're told about, wouldn't check for anything unexpected. Surveyors are commonly disappointingly trusting of handwaving and the buyer didn't have the experience to think to check.
A whimsical tale of dishonesty, laziness and incompetence. Merry fucking Christmas
The article says much of the house is raised, sitting above a carport. It sounds like this may be the space between the house and carport, so someone checking out the foundations would be looking for the foundation under the carport.
I'm not really into trains, but it would be great if one day I found a 1970's computer room in my basement, complete with cold water lines, 3278 and 3279 terminals, and some tape drives...
I'd be happy to discover a basement, even if the first thing I'd do would be to call the police to check if nobody went missing near my neighborhood in the past few decades.
having a basement - that's ok. Having a hidden basement - hard no on the property. And if the basement door was nailed shut or hidden - I'm leaving the house right now, seen too many movies, there's a victorian doll/music box/portrait with staring eyes waiting for the next person to go in there
This is in Melbourne, where most homes are sold via auction (because of the limited supply)... lots of people are forgoing building inspections because of it. Wouldnt be surprised if he didnt do one.
It could be sold as an "as-is", intended for knockdown/ demolition and replacement, or removal. That's why the 20% minimum open space requirements for new homes.
Inspector wound't have had any reason to mention it. They care about structural issues.
The foundation is still clearly visible, they could do their job despite the railway. And they wouldn't have known that others didn't know it was there.
Home inspectors (at least in Australia) are next to useless and expensive. The one I bought a report from never looked under the house or in the attic.
In the US the quality has varied widely over the few houses I’ve purchased over the years. I’m also skeptical of their aligned interests. In the US most home purchases take place with a real estate agent involved. An inspector that adds friction to the process won’t get recommendations from agents.
My experience here in the UK, despite getting the highest "tier" of survey carried out on my (current) home when buying it, was that within the 74 page report they produced, there were at least a dozen occurrences of the surveyors recommending a "specialist".
They avoid any liability by saying, "we couldn't survey under the floor", we recommend getting in a specialist. "we can't assess the roof structure", we recommend getting a specialist.
By the time all was said and done, we were looking at tens of thousands of pounds in further "specialist" surveys, which nobody realistically is going to do only to decide after that you won't buy the house.
I can imagine once you're looking at houses priced in the millions it might make sense, but blowing the equivalent of your deposit just isn't tenable.
My home inspection report was two pages of useful information (here’s where the water shutoff is, the breaker panel is here), a page with two actual real issues (garage door opener didn’t work, kitchen foundation was settling) and then ten to twenty pages of “we don’t look at shit” legalese.
They specifically disclaim being experts in damn near everything.
If you want a real inspection you hire two or three building contractors to do it. I’d go with a general, a roofer, and an electrician. If I cared.
When my daughter was 2, one day I saw a sign for a model train exhibit in a strip mall. We walked into a tiny-ish hobby shop, and were directed to a staircase in a corner.
At the top was a huge warehouse filled with model trains, tracks, and landscapes. She was obsessed with the largest Thomas the Tank Engine set I've ever seen, and all I wanted to do was to look at all the different landscapes.
A relative who is a manager sort in the medical software field told me yesterday about hiring hundreds of medical coders straight out of college. Apparently that doesn't mean software developers, but people who have swallowed a large catalogue mapping medical products and many-digit codes.
With model railroads code may also mean something specifically different.
For example, HO scale has for example both code 83 and code 55 track, corresponding to 83/1000" high and 55/1000" high rails. You can make choices depending on looks/proportional accuracy or possibly size for more robust operation.
Imagine buying a house and gaining not just a home, but someone else’s whole dream world beneath your feet. That’s more than real estate. That’s a time capsule.
a few years ago i spent a few months in the house of an old friend of the family who spent his last days in a retirement home. the house was a treasure of interesting things to find. he was running a business out of it, and there were shelves of left over products, books and old style clothes. the most interesting was a model train set that was at least half a century old. similar the home of my own grandparents.
How would a buildings and pest inspection have missed it?
Or, maybe he found it during inspections, knew he would never convince his wife to buy the house on the strength of the train set alone, but did managed to convince on the strength of the house... now he has to sell the lie?
Side note, but if you're trying to sell off this stuff, you better do it soon. Train nuts like this are a dying breed. Probably will all be mostly worthless in a couple decades, along with commemorative plates, or the "good china" your parents never use.
Market is hot(ish) now though, or was a few years ago. A friends dad died and he had trains. We helped ebay all of it. Owned a toy store or something, lots of rare stuff (like window displays). We even had a guy buy one of the rare posters, return it for questionable reasons, and then start selling counterfeits. Even so, the grand total wasn't a ton of money, more within the "worth doing" category.
To me it seems there are more hobbyists than ever. It's finally "cool" to play DnD, Covid gave hobbies a big boost and people yearn to do something away from screens.
There have been some articles lamenting that the space isn’t available as easily anymore.
But I think it’s a combination of “toy trains” being pushed out of the “hobby” so fewer new kids are introduced to it (the Lego Train clubs get some heat and hate and generally are disregarded by the “real model trains” for example) and that the “train obsession” has other ways to discharge these days.
Many people who would have built elaborate basement models instead spend their time perfecting Factorio or Minecraft worlds (any sufficiently advanced sandbox game becomes a train simulator).
I think the period of the trains might go out of date, with a few exceptions — though it might return to fashion once it's beyond living memory.
So a collection of model steam trains might lose value, as fewer people have remember them in use, but the hobby can continue with high-speed electric trains etc.
Now I’ve an idea for a Netflix comedy. Older gentleman with an extensive model train network and experience with Large Lionel Models gets hired as a CEO for a Silly Valley AI startup; hijinx ensue.
I would not be too hasty with modernisation of the controllers as it seems that most enthusiasts are happy with DC (analog) rather than DCC (digital). Too much determination to modernise could result in a broken train set since the project would be large. Restoration with no modernisation would still provide the fun, and be part of the owner's original vision.
What he was lucky with was the state of it. My own father was into model engineering, however, he never put his tools away and never completed a project, so it just took months to tidy up his hoarded junk, to find there was absolutely nothing of value at the bottom of it. If only my dad had completed his projects and left it in the condition shown here.
The model train setup Daniel Xu found beneath the home he just purchased is impressive, but it has proven an even greater delight, given he is a train engineer and train enthusiast. Source: SBS News
Uh huh... fortunate indeed.
My immediate thought was, his wife discovered his hobby, and the money spent, and "No, it was here when we moved in!"
Then the news shows up, and of course, he can't tell them different, or busted!
You can't comment like this on Hacker News, no matter what it's about, but especially something as benign as model trains. This kind of commenting is not what HN is for and destroys what it is for.
Please read the guidelines and make an effort to observe them in future.
Reminds me of an estate sale I went to one time. Unassuming place, one of those tiny postwar homes about the same size as the one in this article - but with at least double or triple the density of this train layout in the basement. The owner must have been a very thin person, as the narrow winding paths around the basement in places measured no more than 8 inches, and the widest parts were only about 2 foot wide. In a 900 sq. foot basement, there was probably only about 50 sq foot of floor you could actually rest your feet on. The rest was all layout and boxes of trains and train accessories of all sorts - hundreds of tiny pots of specialty paint, miniature trees, "grass powder", special linkages and wheels, and more. Probably most of it got thrown away at the end of the sale.
People have hobbies, but I can't think of any circumstance in which I'd convert my basement into a deathtrap. There was less room than those hoarder houses you see on TV (but much more organized). It was genuinely concerning that they even decided to hold a sale there open to the public.
Truly one of the more bizarre things I've seen. Also, the upstairs? Mostly normal - you wouldn't even know the guy liked trains.
Tangentially related, re hoarders and death traps, have you come across the story of the Collyer brothers?
Homer Lusk Collyer (November 6, 1881 – March 21, 1947) and Langley Wakeman Collyer (October 3, 1885 – c. March 9, 1947), known as the Collyer brothers,[1] were two American brothers who became infamous for their bizarre natures and compulsive hoarding. The two lived in seclusion in their Harlem brownstone at 2078 Fifth Avenue (at the corner of 128th Street) in New York City where they obsessively collected books, furniture, musical instruments, and myriad other items, with booby traps set up in corridors and doorways to crush intruders. Both died in their home in March 1947 and were found (Homer on March 21, Langley on April 8) surrounded by more than 140 tons (127,000 kg) of collected items that they had amassed over several decades.
…
The responding officer initially had a difficult time getting into the house. There was no doorbell or telephone and the doors were locked; and though the basement windows were broken, they were protected by iron grillwork.[20] An emergency squad of seven men eventually had no choice but to begin pulling out all of the junk that was blocking their way and throw it out onto the street below. The brownstone's foyer was packed solid by a wall of old newspapers, folding beds and chairs, half a sewing machine, boxes, parts of a wine press, and numerous other pieces of junk. A patrolman finally broke in through a window into a second-story bedroom. Behind this window lay, among other things, more packages and newspaper bundles, empty cardboard boxes lashed together with rope, the frame of a baby carriage, a rake, and old umbrellas tied together. After five hours of digging, Homer Collyer's body was found in an alcove surrounded by filled boxes and newspapers that were piled to the ceiling.
Cause of Death:
Langley Collyer (born October 3, 1885 - died c. March 9, 1947): Langley died first. He was crushed by one of his own booby traps - a makeshift tunnel of newspapers and debris - while attempting to bring food to his paralyzed brother Homer. Langley was buried under a massive pile of junk and his body was not discovered until April 8, 1947, weeks after his death, due to the concealment caused by the debris.
Homer Collyer (born November 6, 1881 - died March 21, 1947): Homer, who was blind and crippled, died alone of starvation and dehydration sometime after Langley’s death. Without his brother to care for him, he perished in the same house. His body was found seated in a decaying chair amidst the filth and clutter.
> Without his brother to care for him, he perished in the same house.
Great example why you always need to strive for independence as a disabled person. If your family tries to directly or indirectly slow that process down, they are a danger to your well being.
-- signed, a blind man
Independent in the context of modern capitalism means attaching to more and more support nodes as everything that was serviced by family/clan in the past is replaced by individual entities that can be activated with cash transactions. (Everything except actually caring for you as a person, those require a strong third place).
I take a cash transaction over my patronising and frankly borderline crazy mother every day. This iddealisation of family has to stop, it is a cruel lie.
The genes say otherwise. Strong families are the only ones surviving prosperity induced population collapse globally.
It's a terrible example of why you should strive for independence.
>> Langley died first. He was crushed by one of his own booby traps - a makeshift tunnel of newspapers and debris - while attempting to bring food to his paralyzed brother Homer.
An independent paralytic is a dead paralytic. You can't be independent and paralyzed.
Remove single points of failure, ensure redundancy of dependencies, etc.
Being able to contact other people in case of an emergency by definition would make him more independent than he was, obviously.
Maybe not independent, but less critically dependant, that would be the goal.
sure, tell the blind man what to do
Where are you quoting this from? Please provide the source.
Oh yeah, Wikipedia:
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Collyer_brothers
“Mostly normal - you wouldn’t even know the guy liked trains.”
Probably not intended but pretty funny implication that train lovers are pathologically eccentric. Probably mostly true.
"A Gentle Madness" is a 584pp comprehensive history of book collectors and bibliomania. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/A_Gentle_Madness
Now I see the real value of games like Factorio. That kind of poison needs to go somewhere or it ends up in real life projects
I am certain there are more than a few Minecraft bases with extensive rail networks beneath them.
Yep. I moved off grid and I now fill my days with “how will I unreel 600kg of cable and 500m of 90mm HDPE tube over half a kilometre of nightmare terrain and 70m of vertical drop with only muscles and mechanics in 37C heat, and how will I thread the fibre down the tube” and similar fun projects.
Man’s gotta man. At least I get to scratch the systems itch and get fit at the same time.
yep, same feeling when I open Against the Storm or Shapez 2. Actual digital crack.
“liked” I think that word needs to be amped up 7 orders of magnitude.
Obsessed, passionate, fascinated…
Is this the sort of thing that leads people to work remotely so they can have the space for their hobby.
Like one’s Lego collection, albeit just in the boxes because they’ve not had the time to put them together.
How was it a deathtrap?
Sounds like he was neuro divergent and his wife made him keep his obsession in the basement.
Is there anything particularly "neuro divergent" about having a hobby?
Anyways, I doubt his wife's making him do anything. Totally normal domestic arrangement to have a space for one's thing(s), whatever it may be. Well-conducive to a happy marriage, IMHO.
I'm not fortunate enough to have a whole basement to play with, but my study's piled high with my books, electronics, painting gear, art and models. I'm thankful to have a space that's mine. My SO didn't tell me to keep my shit here, I was like "dibs" on moving in.
> Is there anything particularly "neuro divergent" about having a hobby?
No, but how obsessive the pursuit of that hobby is, that's the question.
There are some model train enthusiasts that, over their life time, spend several millions of EUR on their hobby, so they basically work to finance their hobby.
There are plenty of people that travel a lot. Some would say they work to be able to travel. Would you consider those people obsessive in the pursuit of traveling?
The reason why I'm asking is that my impression seems to be that there is a lot more acceptance for obsession when the obsession is considered extroverted and conforming to society's expectation.
> Would you consider those people obsessive in the pursuit of traveling?
Could be, depending on how much they give up for traveling.
> The reason why I'm asking is that my impression seems to be that there is a lot more acceptance for obsession when the obsession is considered extroverted and conforming to society's expectation.
Maybe it's also related to the accumulation of things related to the hobby.
If you see somebody's collection of model trains and their tracks, it's pretty visceral that they must have spent lots of time and money on this. Same for basically any other hobby that involves collecting this (that aren't tiny, like postage stamps).
If, on the other hand, you hear that somebody has traveled a lot, that doesn't hit home to the same degree..
Maybe another factor is that we tend to associate at least some forms of neurodivergence (autism and AD(H)D at least) with hyperfocus on a few topics, whereas travel exposes one basically automatically to many new experiences. Haven't really thought that through yet...
> whereas travel exposes one basically automatically to many new experiences
Tons of people just travel to "destinations" that have resorts and beaches and are very sanitized to be completely not-new at all
Once you've been to one of these resorts you've been to all of them, it really doesn't matter which country they are in
I don't know why you're singling out model train enthusiasts. This describes many people I know, and an extremely large range of hobbies.
The "singling out" I read as because the topic of this article that we're discussing is model trains.
If this article was about $OTHER_HOBBY, there would be a citation of someone who spent a ton of money on $OTHER_HOBBY.
Isn’t that just normal life? I know that I, and almost everyone I know, only works to finance the things we actually enjoy.
I'll admit I don't know many people but nobody I know has that kind of expendable income. The "worst" case spends hundreds a year on merchandise / collectibles though.
> so they basically work to finance their hobby.
and what is wrong with that?
nothing, IMHO.
Could be worse.
Could be working to barely scrape by, going to bed early to save on heating costs, unable to afford to save a deposit to buy a house, worry how you’ll afford the next dentist or mechanics bill.
Being able to afford a hobby is a luxury.
Welcome to Australia.
> Is there anything particularly "neuro divergent" about having a hobby?
Hyperfocus can make one take hobbies to fairly extreme levels.
Indeed. And such hobbies are a healthy and productive outlet for this kind of energy
That depends on what the hobby is of course. Also, it's not necessarily healthy. Being unable to switch your attention away from your hobby tends to cause problems in other areas of your life like neglecting the housework, your partner, your children, your health etc. That's part of the reason why these things are classed as disabilities.
I've always looked at basements as a natural place for train layouts (no, I do not have one -- neither a basement nor a train layout). Trying to put such thing together among the usual furniture, people moving about, possibly toddlers found outside of the basement would be nigh impossible.
>Sounds like he was neuro divergent and his wife made him keep his obsession in the basement.
Men do noting but chill: "They're losers, incels, etc".
Men have cool hobbies that don't bother anyone: "They're neurodivergent".
Men just can't catch a break these days.
And my favourite, "Men will literally [do anything creative] instead of going to therapy". Apparently the proper way to to deal with your feelings is consumerism.
If Men have the time and opportunity to do nothing but chill, or to have cool hobbies, then they are very definitely catching a break.
or maybe they are so overwhelmed that they are procrastinating. the problem here is expectations. you have the expectation that one should not chill or focus on a hobby when they should be looking for a job, or spend time with their children, or whatever else they could be doing when they don't chill or work on their hobby.
i know that feeling. i have been there. more than a year out of work, i could not focus on anything, whatever i did felt wrong because i thought i should use that time to apply to jobs. it was exhausting, and i was procrastinating a lot. i had to remind myself that i could not be writing job applications all day, and i used my hobbies to relax and get energy. so no, chilling or having cool hobbies are not a sign of someone catching a break. not without knowing more about their actual circumstances.
My point is that many people do not have the time and opportunity.
the problem is that people who slack off or do their hobbies when they should be doing something more important are worse off than those who are just busy. saying they are catching a break is like saying that an alcoholic is catching a break because they got the money to buy alcohol. or (from my perspective) if you have time for tv, youtube and tiktok you must be catching a break, because i don't.
the problem is the generalization. sure, when you catch a break then you can afford to slack off or do your hobbies. but the reverse conclusion is not true. not everyone who is slacking off is catching a break.
it's this judgement of people that when they do that it must be because they are well off that bothers me.
i faced this multiple times. when i grew up we lived on welfare but we could afford things that other people could not because we were thrifty and we saved money on other things we didn't need but were common otherwise, like a car and a TV. but because we were able to afford certain things people thought we were better off. i had time for my hobbies because i didn't spend time watching tv.
they were measuring my life through their perspective.
the same goes for hobbies and hence, your statement.
They why are they being berated for what they do with their private lives?
Because a certain subset of society feels entitled to tell other people what to do with their time and resources.
"Nobody needs.." and all that.
...where else are you going to put something like that in a home?
Maybe he had to keep it a secret?
"A businessman who secretly built the UK’s biggest model railway feared his girlfriend would dump him if she learnt about his ‘dull’ hobby."
Train-mad Simon George, 53, spent £250,000 and a staggering eight years on his 200ft-long project.
https://metro.co.uk/2021/12/07/man-spent-250000-secretly-bui...
IMHO, the £250,000 is more "staggering" than the eight years he spent.
> ‘I told her the truth and she was like “ok”. ‘But she has an art degree so she appreciated the level of detail and work that went into it. We’re now engaged'
Glad that worked out.
https://archive.ph/2lZ7U
How? It was accessible through a door. Nobody - not the seller, agent, himself or any other prospective buyers, or the building inspector he presumably engaged to check the place over before signing contracts - thought to look behind the door?
How can you buy a house without checking out the foundations/basement yourself or by a pro?
All the home inspectors I looked at (Victoria, where this house is, plus Tasmania) were all quite clear that they would only access areas they could find a way in. Closed up areas, wouldn't be inspected by default.
Incidentally, I'm in Victoria myself. When I bought my house, the inspector did the works. Multiple roof spaces, got under the house and had a look, full report with photos, phone call consultation to explain everything he saw to me. He even notified the sellers of an urgent issue and they had it fixed that afternoon.
I guess it depends who you hire (and whether or not you want to know about any issues, which is the most compelling reason I've seen in the replies so far for why this was "missed").
In fact things like attic hatches are supposed to be sealed ane so even though seen the inspector is not allowed in the attic. (Unless there is other evedence of a problem, though they need to repair the seal in that case.
It's that something regional for specific access type? My Victorian houses always had the roof hatch accessible - it's just another storage area and needs to be available if you want to rewire something.
It is fairly new, strarted inithe late 1990s. It doesn't apply to old houses.
No, a completely new house. No access is sealed/blocked in any way. If you know the specific regulation, please post it.
Codes are very regional, and I'm no longer in construction where I have the code handy.applies in Minnesota anyway
https://structuretech.com/attic-inspections-sealed-access-pa... Is a MN inspector and they cover it.
Attic access has to be weatherstripped - cheap ass builders just seal it.
I ain’t buying’ no pig in a poke. If it’s new construction I can inspect before completion (and you should); if it’s used, I am breaking the seal and crossing the streams. Attics got way too much “fun” to discover.
> Attic access has to be weatherstripped - cheap ass builders just seal it.
True.
> If it’s new construction I can inspect before completion (and you should); if it’s used, I am breaking the seal and crossing the streams. Attics got way too much “fun” to discover.
Don't do this! you can't see much anyway. At least not without walking up there and that disturbs your insulation. Everything you care about is about the roof working, so look at the roof from the outside. Keep the roof in good shape and you don't need to go in the attic.
Also until the house is yours you are not allowed to break that seal. Once it is your house you can do whatever you want, but it is too late.
Things like rodents entering the house are a big problem and will only be evident by inspecting spaces people don’t clean.
Cool... The thread is about Victoria, Australia.
Why is that? That seems odd.
Air seal. If the hetch can open it leaks unconditioned air and the house is less energy efficient.
Nonsense. Every house built in Victoria has an accessible hatch to the roof space. The hatches are not sealed either, it's just a lid resting over the opening, which can be pushed upward. Some have hinges, etc.
My house is in Victoria and I can confirm there is no roof hatch. Its a 3 story house. No access or crawl space between the floors either.
Skillion roof? Probably doesn’t have a roof space.
The Melbourne real-estate market is _mad_. Prices (relative to wages) are exceptionally high and continue to rise, spending half your take-home income on housing isn't super uncommon.
Widespread sentiment that if you don't buy something ASAP, you'll never be able to - meaning lots of buyers skimping on due diligence to close a sale.
Melbourne property prices actually haven't recovered from their 2022 peak, and that's before adjusting for inflation. I believe rents are down in real terms as well.
Things have been crazy for a long time, but I am actually optimistic for Melbourne specifically - the construction rate is up and the state government has been decreasing the power local governments have to block or delay development. If this continues, housing affordability should improve. My main concern is that a change of government may put an end to it, but I hope not.
Some details about what VIC is doing differently in this AFR article if you're interested (archive link because original is paywalled):
https://archive.md/yeDxF
Population growth rate in Victoria has been 1.9% YOY average for 20 years, with no sign of slowing down. Even if they hit their targets, demand will exceed supply.
The Victorian government has also failed significantly on public housing. The wait time is about 20 months (10 months is VicGov's target, it was 14 months 3 years ago) and they're currently looking to demolish many existing options without many short term optionsnfor residents.
It seems very unlikely to me that Victoria's house prices will drop in any sigificant way this decade.
I don't think there'll be any significant drop on a sub-decade timescale unless there's some kind of financial crisis, but the ideal kind of trend is prices stagnating or growing slower than wages, which is the case right now - and the question is whether it will continue.
I think there is a good chance it will, as long as a change of government doesn't deliberately dismantle the current approach. Yes there's population growth and yet prices have been stagnant or declining the past few years and construction has picked up. That's a good trend!
I'm not familiar with the situation with public housing but am happy to accept if the government has failed there. But this seems like a separate failure rather than an indictment of their approach to increasing supply generally which I think is working.
Not uncommon for Australia. The housing market is very competitive so being a nuisance as a buyer, such as hiring someone for a thorough inspection, could hurt your chances.
What inspectors actually do also depends on who is engaging them and how much they get paid. For example, in the ACT it's mandatory for sellers to have an inspection done. This will generally go to the lowest bidder and they will put in minimum effort, e.g. the report will have things like "Roof inspected as far as can see from ladder placed against the house" and "furniture present, unable to inspect area". If you were the buyer and engaging an inspector, and the seller cooperated, you could have them inspect as much as you were willing to pay them for.
Many "inspectors" don't even go inside anymore. In some areas, where it is know that the buyers has every intention of replacing/rebuilding most houses, I've even heard of "inspections" done without a visit. They check on google that the house plan matches city records, that services are provided to the lot, and that there are no buried oil tanks and such, but don't bother going to view the house in person.
It's really a shame too. If the realtor found that prime basement living space beforehand they could've tripled the sale price!!
(A joke but also not really because housing prices here in Australia are absolutely insane)
What is insane? I’ve been staring at valuations so long that $1,000 a square foot in SoCal doesn’t seem “that unreasonable”.
Heads up, the rest of the world don't know what a "square foot" or a "SoCal" is.
Heads up, the rest (most) of the world has access to Google to figure it out easily. Same way Americans convert a square foot to a square meter, or tatami, or whatever.
To be fair we can also google Australian house prices ;)
Maybe we need an international standard for house overpricedness - median hourly per square meter or something.
Whatever the inspector finds, whether it be $50k or $100k or $200k worth of repairs that you request as a price deduction, there’ll be someone else who won’t care about the inspection issues. It’s in your best interest to make the sellers life easier and execute the fastest sale.
Only to the extent that your best interest includes buying the house. But if the house needs tens of thousands (or more!) in repairs, then very likely buying the house is not in your best interest. That's kinda the point of an inspection.
I don't think there's a 10+ year old house in existence that doesn't need 1-2% or more of the building value in repairs. For the two properties I bought, I had an inspection report for over 10% and around 3% of the purchase price. Neither was a reason to not proceed.
The inspection is less to find and fix things (though sometimes you do) and more to just know what you’re getting into.
Anything that is so bad as to call off the sale was probably visible during a basic walkthrough or from the street, anyway.
Most old houses in Aus are just assumed to be complete shit so why waste money on an inspection to tell you what you already know. All the value is in the land.
If the house collapses that's a good thing because then the heritage protections are gone and you can build something better. The property value probably goes up if the old workers hut falls over.
I guess the seller didn't want complications and the agent just lists what they're told about, wouldn't check for anything unexpected. Surveyors are commonly disappointingly trusting of handwaving and the buyer didn't have the experience to think to check.
A whimsical tale of dishonesty, laziness and incompetence. Merry fucking Christmas
The article says much of the house is raised, sitting above a carport. It sounds like this may be the space between the house and carport, so someone checking out the foundations would be looking for the foundation under the carport.
I'm not really into trains, but it would be great if one day I found a 1970's computer room in my basement, complete with cold water lines, 3278 and 3279 terminals, and some tape drives...
I'd be happy to discover a basement, even if the first thing I'd do would be to call the police to check if nobody went missing near my neighborhood in the past few decades.
having a basement - that's ok. Having a hidden basement - hard no on the property. And if the basement door was nailed shut or hidden - I'm leaving the house right now, seen too many movies, there's a victorian doll/music box/portrait with staring eyes waiting for the next person to go in there
Really if you find a hidden basement make sure it has airflow or it could easily suffocate you.
This is fantastic. But wow, the home inspector was really phoning it in that day!
This is in Melbourne, where most homes are sold via auction (because of the limited supply)... lots of people are forgoing building inspections because of it. Wouldnt be surprised if he didnt do one.
It could be sold as an "as-is", intended for knockdown/ demolition and replacement, or removal. That's why the 20% minimum open space requirements for new homes.
Inspector wound't have had any reason to mention it. They care about structural issues.
The foundation is still clearly visible, they could do their job despite the railway. And they wouldn't have known that others didn't know it was there.
Ours did up a full report with pictures. I also walked through with the guy. Seems like something they would mention, even offhand.
It would not be unreasonable for an inspector to assume something like the train layout was mentioned in the listing or otherwise known to the buyer.
I don’t think a surveyor would be bothered about home contents
It's an omission so huge you could drive a train through it.
This was also my train of thought.
Assuming HO scale.
Looked a bit bigger than that...
Our inspector missed obvious asbestos in the basement — I would have preferred the model trains!
Good news, everyone! It'll be all legal again soon:
https://www.ishn.com/articles/114790-trump-administration-to...
That’s not what the article you linked says.
Unbelievable lol.
The finger curls. You get model trains carrying carloads of asbestos.
Our home inspector missed the front door failing to latch!
Home inspectors (at least in Australia) are next to useless and expensive. The one I bought a report from never looked under the house or in the attic.
In the US the quality has varied widely over the few houses I’ve purchased over the years. I’m also skeptical of their aligned interests. In the US most home purchases take place with a real estate agent involved. An inspector that adds friction to the process won’t get recommendations from agents.
Why don’t get sued into usefulness when issues inevitably arise in properties they’ve inspected?
When you pay an expert and rely on their opinion, you have recourse
My experience here in the UK, despite getting the highest "tier" of survey carried out on my (current) home when buying it, was that within the 74 page report they produced, there were at least a dozen occurrences of the surveyors recommending a "specialist".
They avoid any liability by saying, "we couldn't survey under the floor", we recommend getting in a specialist. "we can't assess the roof structure", we recommend getting a specialist.
By the time all was said and done, we were looking at tens of thousands of pounds in further "specialist" surveys, which nobody realistically is going to do only to decide after that you won't buy the house.
I can imagine once you're looking at houses priced in the millions it might make sense, but blowing the equivalent of your deposit just isn't tenable.
My home inspection report was two pages of useful information (here’s where the water shutoff is, the breaker panel is here), a page with two actual real issues (garage door opener didn’t work, kitchen foundation was settling) and then ten to twenty pages of “we don’t look at shit” legalese.
They specifically disclaim being experts in damn near everything.
If you want a real inspection you hire two or three building contractors to do it. I’d go with a general, a roofer, and an electrician. If I cared.
When my daughter was 2, one day I saw a sign for a model train exhibit in a strip mall. We walked into a tiny-ish hobby shop, and were directed to a staircase in a corner.
At the top was a huge warehouse filled with model trains, tracks, and landscapes. She was obsessed with the largest Thomas the Tank Engine set I've ever seen, and all I wanted to do was to look at all the different landscapes.
model train network?! a network to train your large language model?
Better scrupulously check keywords when hiring engineers to work on this.
"bringing it up to code" might also be as ambiguous as "engineer"
A relative who is a manager sort in the medical software field told me yesterday about hiring hundreds of medical coders straight out of college. Apparently that doesn't mean software developers, but people who have swallowed a large catalogue mapping medical products and many-digit codes.
With model railroads code may also mean something specifically different.
For example, HO scale has for example both code 83 and code 55 track, corresponding to 83/1000" high and 55/1000" high rails. You can make choices depending on looks/proportional accuracy or possibly size for more robust operation.
"Done, it's all up to code, your house has been migrated to the cloud".
Next they are going to calling themselves "Train Engineers"...
wait
Imagine buying a house and gaining not just a home, but someone else’s whole dream world beneath your feet. That’s more than real estate. That’s a time capsule.
a few years ago i spent a few months in the house of an old friend of the family who spent his last days in a retirement home. the house was a treasure of interesting things to find. he was running a business out of it, and there were shelves of left over products, books and old style clothes. the most interesting was a model train set that was at least half a century old. similar the home of my own grandparents.
Were there any Klein bottles?
Oh yeah... he "found it"...
How would a buildings and pest inspection have missed it?
Or, maybe he found it during inspections, knew he would never convince his wife to buy the house on the strength of the train set alone, but did managed to convince on the strength of the house... now he has to sell the lie?
“Honey, look at this massive model train network that just happened to be in our basement!”
No mention of the stacks of niche magazines though
Fast Railing Monthly
Long Rollers
Barely Legal Signals
Locomania!
Chuggers
Driver's Wives
Hot Steamy Machines
Whistleblowing Enthusiast
SMUTS
Country Tooter
Shudders & Squeals
Stiff Points Quarterly
The Linkage Lover
This Oiled Life
Footplate Fanciers
Tiny Tunnels
Dirty Platform Digest
Wide Gauge Wonders
Derailed Darlings
Exactly! This basement could be an antique roadshow’s dream
Side note, but if you're trying to sell off this stuff, you better do it soon. Train nuts like this are a dying breed. Probably will all be mostly worthless in a couple decades, along with commemorative plates, or the "good china" your parents never use.
Market is hot(ish) now though, or was a few years ago. A friends dad died and he had trains. We helped ebay all of it. Owned a toy store or something, lots of rare stuff (like window displays). We even had a guy buy one of the rare posters, return it for questionable reasons, and then start selling counterfeits. Even so, the grand total wasn't a ton of money, more within the "worth doing" category.
> Train nuts like this are a dying breed.
Why?
To me it seems there are more hobbyists than ever. It's finally "cool" to play DnD, Covid gave hobbies a big boost and people yearn to do something away from screens.
There have been some articles lamenting that the space isn’t available as easily anymore.
But I think it’s a combination of “toy trains” being pushed out of the “hobby” so fewer new kids are introduced to it (the Lego Train clubs get some heat and hate and generally are disregarded by the “real model trains” for example) and that the “train obsession” has other ways to discharge these days.
Many people who would have built elaborate basement models instead spend their time perfecting Factorio or Minecraft worlds (any sufficiently advanced sandbox game becomes a train simulator).
I think the period of the trains might go out of date, with a few exceptions — though it might return to fashion once it's beyond living memory.
So a collection of model steam trains might lose value, as fewer people have remember them in use, but the hobby can continue with high-speed electric trains etc.
Hahaha exactly what I thought!
Philip K. Dick's "Small Town" is found!
> His love of rail started when he was young, through a Japanese cartoon about a crime-fighting train.
I think this is Brave Express Might Gaine…?
There’s never a train when you want one, but when you don’t they’re everywhere!
Funny some AI words are in the title and these days you expect every post on HN be related to AI.
model train network
Now I’ve an idea for a Netflix comedy. Older gentleman with an extensive model train network and experience with Large Lionel Models gets hired as a CEO for a Silly Valley AI startup; hijinx ensue.
This story deserves a follow up in a few years.
I would not be too hasty with modernisation of the controllers as it seems that most enthusiasts are happy with DC (analog) rather than DCC (digital). Too much determination to modernise could result in a broken train set since the project would be large. Restoration with no modernisation would still provide the fun, and be part of the owner's original vision.
What he was lucky with was the state of it. My own father was into model engineering, however, he never put his tools away and never completed a project, so it just took months to tidy up his hoarded junk, to find there was absolutely nothing of value at the bottom of it. If only my dad had completed his projects and left it in the condition shown here.
We need a Hacker News remindme bot!
Serendipity.
I love the metaphor of migrants accidentally discovering awesome remnants of the peoples they replaced.
the people yearn for openttd
This guy is so lucky. We all have to build our own. What a head start.
The model train setup Daniel Xu found beneath the home he just purchased is impressive, but it has proven an even greater delight, given he is a train engineer and train enthusiast. Source: SBS News
Uh huh... fortunate indeed.
My immediate thought was, his wife discovered his hobby, and the money spent, and "No, it was here when we moved in!"
Then the news shows up, and of course, he can't tell them different, or busted!
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You can't comment like this on Hacker News, no matter what it's about, but especially something as benign as model trains. This kind of commenting is not what HN is for and destroys what it is for.
Please read the guidelines and make an effort to observe them in future.
https://news.ycombinator.com/newsguidelines.html