Mixed Emotions - Is There A Suport Group Available?

[Frank53]

Sooooooo . . .

with all the hub-bub circulating the forum regarding the new Lionel catalog, I'm sitting here minding my own business, working on my layout drawings, with David Doyle's postwar catalog of Lionel Trains (I just picked this up - I like it a lot), and I say - let see what this catalog is about.

Bamm

I go through page after page of very very cool stuff, thinking - that would be so cool, here, I can use that, I can use this, yada, yada, yada

Then - panic hits me like a bucket of water (bonus points for anyone who correctly identified the movie from which that line is quoted) - I want my new layout to be absolutely, positively Lio\nel Post-War - soup to nutz.

But, but, but, this new stuff would be so neat.

This is clearly a case of violating one of teh many rules of ignorance - "what you don't know won't hurt you"

So, is there a support group available to talk me off this ledge??

[dougdagrump]

It's called a "Budget". [:D]

[Roger Bielen]

The support group I would like to find is strictly financial $$$$$ with no payback necessary.

[brianel027]

I wouldn't worry about it too much Frank. Instead of spending money on a shrink, spend the money on the trains you want - that'll be the best therapy of all!

Yep, I've met some other guys who wanted to keep their layouts entirely postwar Lionel at first. But why keep the door closed on having a better layout? I mean, I always get a chuckle when I see photos in the train mags... there's a pic of some brand new scale detailed and sized locomotive (and they are nice) pulling a sting of 6464 sized / detail boxcars past an #145 operating gateman. On one hand that strikes me as funny. On the other hand, why should any one limit or restrict the fun they can have with their own trains?! It's just as funny when I see photos of SD-90's and FP-59's on a layout next to steam engines.... even the guys who insist on prototypical detail on the trains they buy still themselves break the rules. Steamers and Dash-8's? Not prototypical running by a longshot, but still fun nonetheless.

What works for one guy's layout may not work for another's... that's the beauty of it all.

[:D] Well, looking at my watch, time's up for this session... please pay the receptionist on the way out the door. [:D]

[Richard A]

QUOTE: It's called a "Budget".

I've been back into model/toy trains for only 4 years or so, and am blown away every year with all the really neat stuff in all the glitzy catalogs. If I had an unlimited budget (oxymoron?), my layout would look more like the history of model/toy trains in the U.S. than anything else. [;)]

But the reality of my income and other obligations restricts me to a very narrow piece of that "history". I can drool over scale GG-1's, but they just didn't exist on the Southern Pacific in west Texas in 1955. [:(]

But within my narrow piece of history, I am mixing high-rail and O-27. And in the event they just happen to pass one another, I blink and then it's over. [:)]

[Frank53]

I'm not really worried about the money. Other than coffee, a pack of smokes and a trip to Blockbuster once a week, I really don't spend anything on myself.

I'm not swayed nor really interested in engines, i have a bunch already. Between a 726, 681, NYC 2344, NJC 621, 2026 and a little 1024, I have plenty of postwar pulling power, and it's more train sthan I can accommodate on the layout I am thinking of. Although I admit I have always been partial to the Orange/black/white color scheme of the New Haven line. But if I want one, I can get a post war version by sailing the Bay of E.

I do need some passanger cars, and as discussed in another thread, I will be buying some post war cars from ebay.

My temptation is in the really interesting frieght cars and specialty items, as well as acessories and scenic touches. Some of it is incredibly neat, but I'm off teh ledge for now . . .