Gil - Very well stated ! And quite true. I too have made the same mistakes, now its less quantity and higher quality. Much Much better off.
Need any MPC stuff ??
Don
Doug Murphy 'We few, we happy few, we band of brothers...' Henry V.
Doug -
Couldn't agree with you more. When I first started the PW stuff was too expensive unless it was really trashed or in bad shape. The used PW market was out of my price range, then along came MPC, some items at a resonable price, but boy did the quality plummet ! When I look at what is available today and see the quality improvement comparred to MPC era, I am always in a state of awe.
I do not have an unlimited train budget either, but your day too will come. And it will be here sooner than you expect. I definetly would put the trains back on the shelf and relive the times when ours was younger. I guess that's just the circle-of-life. I envy you and what you are doing with the trolleys, I was never that focussed. I think your on the right track. And those trollys that I have seen don't come cheap, and certainly are a lot better than the old Lionelville #60.
Especially buying sight unseen, most the time from non train people it is true that you can not expect C10 quality. As is my handle "trainsandmusic" I am a musician. For this reason I shy away from buying high quality instruments on Ebay and the like for the top end of what they are worth. If I can not try it first I will not buy, there are too many items on there "overhauled" by bad repair men and such a variant in quality. I learned this at a young age.
This carries over with trains. Now I have a limited budget as do many on this forum. I will buy the "ebay specials" taking into consideration the parts that may need to go into it. I repair my own stuff. If I buy an engine that looks abused I will think what the worst case scenario will be. I've been in this hobby long enough to know what to expect. I analyze the pictures very carefully, if there are no pictures I move on. I add the price of parts that I may or may not need to what I will pay. If it comes in around what I am willing to spend I will buy, if not I move on. I don't mind restoration or making a mutt (to some degree) if the finished product looks and runs nice. Sometimes a cheap find lends itself to a no guilt repaint. Right now I am repainting a previously painted 55tiejector to the Virginian RR.
Don't forget time restraint. Projects add up quick. Right now I only have a very very small board. It is just about packed with everything I can pack on it. Now is my time to focus on projects to keep busy in this hobby. When I do start building my "dream" layout, (probably 20 years from now) I will probably be more worried about wires, track, yada yada than fixing up boxes of stuff.
Oh, the fact I don't deal much with modern stuff makes fixing stuff easier. I do have a century club 773 that I did just buy off E-bay that I love. It was mint when I got it and probably wouldn't have bought it used.
As much as I stay true to postwar technolgy, that protosound is pretty cool.
Well I can agree and yet I can also disagree.
I've done extremely well over the years, getting some exceptionally good deals - many of which I didn't have to ask for, but were offered to me. And in part, because I know I am probably going to have to repaint to get the road names I want, I'm not paying full price for something I have to then strip down. Nor am I paying more for extra electronics that I am only going to rip out of the loco and then trash. so I know what I'm looking for, what I can afford to pay - and have been lucky enough to have those things almost just come right to me.
I guess my artisic and design abilities and mechanical interest have served me well. There's no school or class on Toy Trains 101. It's something you learn as you go along. Once in a while you make a mistake and you learn from it. And when I have done displays or shows, I find my stuff is immensely popular and gets a lot of positive comments and questions. And I have many items that are truly one-of-a-kind and unique to my layout and collection. Modern types of trains are not made in 027 size, so I have to make them myself. I've found with having small layouts, I've had to either modify exisiting accessories or completely design and make my own.
And unlike most of the higher end modelers I know, I have never had an engine DOA out of the box, or had to send something back to the manufacturer for service. All of my trains are low end and common and parts are easily and readily available... no fuss, no muss.
I once paid $1.00 for a MPC Dockside steamer.. it worked as was, I made improvements and that engine now can pull as many cars as some of my postwar locos. Another good deal was $75 for 4 powered K-Line TCA Alco FA's, but with busted pilots. They were easy enough to fix and are now Penn Central, Conrail, New Haven and Norfolk Southern.... all work and run well. I've been at YORK and other shows where dealers offer me good deals without me even having to ask or quibble. I remember buying an entire box full of Lionel 027 MPC switches: manuals for $1 ea and electics for $2. The guy told me nothing was tested - but everything worked. So I made out good. My nephew got a bunch of those for his layout.
I have some simple sounds that I made myself, but I also have an MRC 312 Sound Station that I added additional speakers to. Granted, it's not Railsounds... I know that. But for less than $45 it serves my purposes well and gives sound to every single locomotive I own.
Yep, there's compromises. But I don't expect miracles from my low end trains, and therefore they seldom disappoint me. As nearly everyone here knows, my one main moan with current cataloged low end trains is the lack of current road names. But other than that, I'm happy. I've made a lot myself and have had fun to boot all on a shoestring budget.... that's what a hobby is about.
brianel, Agent 027
"Praise the Lord. I may not have everything I desire, but the Lord has come through for what I need."
Brian, I also have an MRC Sound Station and want to add additional speakers. Would you be kind enough to explain how you did it? What type/brand of speaker did you use?
Jim
Modeling the Baltimore waterfront in HO scale
lionroar88 wrote:Don,I'm looking for some MPC era high cube boxcars... if you have any and want to get rid of 'em let me know, I'll pay fair price.
Brent, The only Hi-Cube cars I have is the Lionel Disney set.
Ha ha Keith. Good one, except that I have no need to overpay for anything, especially trains.
And for the other, I already have a lot of them!
Gotta give MPC credit where credit is due. When the Hi-cube box cars were introduced, they were issued in then current roads and paint schemes. When Conrail was formed, Lionel MPC was smart enough to issue a CR loco, as well as rimmediately releasing locos in the predecessor roads, like EL, PC, RDG, CNJ and LV. The northeast US has always been and still is the strongest sector of the model train market.
MPC Lionel gets a lot more respect and innovation in my book than many give it, even though I am also very aware MPC did make cost cutting moves too.
I focus on scale modern engines and rolling stock, and obviously it is not cheap. But if it weren't for the secondary market and ebay I wouldn't have even half of what I have now.
I too am one of those persons who cannot afford to buy every $400 engine that comes out, but by bugdeting and saving I was able to buy $150-250 engines on Ebay that normally sold for $300-400 in the LHS. I have gotten similar deals on rolling stock as well- savings of around 30%- 50% off the MSRP.Can you get still get a good deal on scale diesels and rolling stock on Ebay or the other Auction houses? Probably, but since popularity has risen for this type of equipment the deals aren't as plentiful as they once were. But I still see scale diesels going for $250-$300+, definitely cheaper than most hobby stores.Geno
Brian seems to be avoiding my question. Maybe he didn't really upgrade his MRC Soundstation. Maybe he's all talk?
Sorry Jaabat... didn't see the comments here. Nope, I'm not talk... If I say I've done something train-wise, then I have. I constantly experiment and mess around with things. I've probably legally voided warranties on every single train product I own.
OK, the MRC Sound Station. What I did was pretty simple and probably there are other ways to go. I took apart the two speakers and drilled a small hole into the back of each one. Inside the MRC speakers you'll see the spot where the wires are soldered that go to these speakers. I added a feeder wire to each solder connection, ran the wires through the drilled hole, made a small knot in the wires on the outside of the MRC speaker housing and put it back together.
I used a couple of spare boom box speakers. I have a few laying around and just checked to see which ones worked best. I opted for a couple that had surround sound speakers and they work just fine. I guess it depends on your taste whether this is loud enough, but it certainly absolutely makes it much louder than before.
I haven't messed around with this idea yet, but I suppose you might be able to take the added wires off the MRC speakers, and run them through a small pre-amp to larger speakers and really get things loud. Or run them into a "line in" jack on a boom box and see if that would work.
I didn't spend a lot of time on this one. What I did was the first idea I had, and it worked right off the bat suitably for my tastes. I could have experiemented more, and probably would have had the first idea not worked.
You'll still want to have the speakers towards the front of your layout. But I agree, as is, the MRC provided speakers are not quite loud enough for the typical 3-rail layout. My added boom box speakers did the trick and it's plenty loud enough for me now. And I aready had the speakers, so it was just the time to drill a couple of holes and add a couple of speaker wires.
If you didn't want to solder wires, you could probably use alligator clips inside the MRC speakers to run wires outside them. And instead of drilling just a hole, you could probably go the next step and insert some stereo speaker clip wire attachments, or an RCA speaker plug. I just did the simpliest and most cost effective way. Either way, once again, I've technically voided the warranty and yet another in a long long long list of train items I own.
No regrets though. I improve everything and make it better.... I can live with the compromise.
AND ON AN UNRELATED NOTE, but concerning a past thread, I still think RMT is the company of the year. I've written several of the major train companies about lack of current road names on lower end 027 products - or in the case of Williams, why they use the wrong "squished" NS logo on all their products. I heard from no one except for RMT.... Walter wrote back within a couple hours and mentioned his new Norfolk Southern PEEP to me before I knew anything about it. To make a metaphor, the ice cream may not be in the flavors I want, but the size of the cone is still perfect, as is the price. And the prompt service shows the right attitude. And the new issue of TRAINS magazine has a photo of that new NS loco... both the real thing and the RMT thing look good!
The new issue of TRAINS magazine is pretty good (as most are) with a good lengthy article on current operating short lines. It's neat to see so many older diesels still in service and many in paint schemes that replicate older more well known ones. The more I learn about trains, the more I find there's almost a prototype for ANYTHING you could imagine on your own 3-rail layout.
Thanks, Brian. Sorry I had to trick you into replying. But I did want to find out if the added speakers made a volume difference. I was thinking of adding some car stereo speakers to the edge of the layout to boost the sound.
I don't really think you're all talk!
Our community is FREE to join. To participate you must either login or register for an account.
Get the Classic Toy Trains newsletter delivered to your inbox twice a month