I Need a Hobby

You are spending too much here. Why not take the national express coach to London? It'll cost you about £40 return ( cheaper if you book early).
Maybe use the money you save to spend longer in London, or buy yourself another train set!

 

i play guitar, it helps me keep my mind off pmo

 

Here's a list of hobbies. You may find something which takes your fancy.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/List_of_hobbies

I'm with you though on the Tube trains - I love the Underground and trains in general really. Not sitting down photographing them and taking down numbers but riding on them. Such a cool form of transport.

 

this is much needed for everyone I suppose

 

I'm exactly the same. I watch as all these people get on and either start messing around with their phones or read the papers or just sit and look tired/bored as they head to work/come home and I'm sitting there wired, loving the experience of being in this Tube train whizzing about under London lol Same with any form of transport really. I suppose people associate the transport they are on with the mundane or perhaps with a job they hate going to and it ends up sullying the entire experience. I have sat in airport terminal buildings while businessmen and women have sat there working totally oblivious to the entire experience of traveling by airplane because they're just used to it. Even when on the plane, they don't take the time to enjoy it or really look out of the windows. They just have their heads down working throughout the flight.

There are some good ones within all of that. I'm fascinated now by Bottle Gardens, miniature ecosystems growing under glass. Also, geocaching seems interesting. And also collecting sea glass. That looks great.

 

Yeah me too. I can remember pointing out the window once to the Sydney Harbour Bridge and the chap sitting next to me said "Yeah, seen it before" before looking back to the brochure in his hand. We're all different right so what floats my boat won't float someone else's but even I wanted to shake the guy and shout out "Mate, it's the Sydney Harbour Bridge!!!!!"

 

Try photography! You need a technical foundation if you are to take pictures that come out the way you want them to (i.e., understanding shutter speed, aperture, ISO, focal length, etc.), which helps you dip your toes in the water for being "in the mood of art" rather than going fully into it like maybe you would with drawing, and depending on the way you think might be an easier approach to creating art (understanding the relationship between your various numerical settings and the scene before you to get the picture that you want).

If you do digital photography, you would also get some computer time while you edit your pictures, which might help with getting a "screen time fix". You could watch tutorial videos on YouTube on whatever software you use (Lightroom is the most common one) and use your time more productively to keep learning about your hobby.

Whether you live out in the country or in the city (or if you visit the city frequently, like you seem to do), there's plenty of things you can photograph. There's also tons of resources and ideas online on photography projects, daily/weekly challenges, etc. After a while, you might find you're drawn to a particular subject - portraits, architecture, landscape, abstract, macro, street, there's a lot of genres out there for you to explore. Heck, you might even be able to photograph trains in any* way you like (*Disclaimer: I don't know what kind of laws there might be with regards to photographing trains, especially the London Underground. Always check first.)

I'm attaching 2 pictures of trains I took when I first started getting into photography about 4-5 years ago which will hopefully inspire you. My disclaimer comes from experience with the Madrid Metro picture, when the conductor actually came out of the train and told me I needed a permit to photograph within the station (I had my camera on a tripod).

 

Cool pictures dude. That 1st one looks like Switzerland.

 

Good eye - that was indeed taken in Switzerland!

 

Any digital camera with a crop sensor from the past 5 years will work just fine to learn photography. Those pictures were taken with a Nikon D3000, currently valued at around $150 according to eBay. The Canon equivalent would be one of the Rebel cameras, and I'm sure a Rebel T3 can be had for quite cheap these days.

From there, you can see what kind of camera/lenses will suit your needs and upgrade as needed.