Years ago (advent of Ebay) I got into a serious loco and railcar buying spree. At the height, I had just over 600 railcars - almost all kits, with 32 passenger cars and the remaining all pre-1960 freight cars. During all this time I had two similar medium size layouts (1995-2008 and 2008-2020), both 11 x 15 with lower level staging.
Obviously, I soon realized I couldn't possibly have all these cars on the layout and most ended up back in the boxes. Finally, over a two year period I sold off about 400 of the cars on Ebay, leaving only about 220 on hand. These were selected because they made sense for my '50s midwest ATSF & IC layout.
At first I tried to have as many cars as possible on the layout (about 100-125), but I eventually figured out that it was just too much. So I cut down the layout cars to 75 or so, and it surprised me that I actually enjoyed running the trains more than I did when the layout was loaded. This was a quite a revelation to me, as it hit me that "less really was more".
ENJOY !
Mobilman44
Living in southeast Texas, formerly modeling the "postwar" Santa Fe and Illinois Central
csxns maxman “He who dies with the most trains wins”
maxman “He who dies with the most trains wins”
I’d say but I’m not interested in dying just yet.
MisterBeasleyAt some point, I read that some high percentage of rolling stock should be "home road."
Somewhat era and location dependent.
The older the era, the truer it is The more limited the variety of cars the more it swings one way or the other.
If I am modeling a Michigan Upper Peninsula ore line then about 90% of the cars will be home road. If I am modeling Freeport, TX then 95% of the cars will be private owner.
If you are modeling a general railroad in the midwest to west in the 2000 or later era, then about 50% of the cars (or more) will be private owner.
Dave H. Painted side goes up. My website : wnbranch.com
maxmanI’d say but I’m not interested in dying just yet.
Russell
Well, I don't know?
I think both a Railroad or a modeler saying I have too many cars, would be like saying I'm getting to much air or I'm making too much money.
Maybe the cars that don't match up to the business's or Industries in the area they're at, stop by at the next town where they do. Or on a layout just passing through, to do that same thing too
Just saying
TF
csxns maxman I’d say but I’m not interested in dying just yet. Go ahead and say you might be lucky.
maxman I’d say but I’m not interested in dying just yet.
Go ahead and say you might be lucky.
No thanks. You're beginning to sound like Dirty Harry.
cefinkjr I seem to recall an article in MR (or maybe some other magazine) many years ago that suggested operations on our layouts could be improved by limiting the number of cars we have in service. IIRC, the article suggested that we should limit the number of cars on our railroads by type according to the capacity of the places each type could logically be stopped. I think it suggested some ratio of cars to total capacity but I'm not sure what that ratio was.
I seem to recall an article in MR (or maybe some other magazine) many years ago that suggested operations on our layouts could be improved by limiting the number of cars we have in service. IIRC, the article suggested that we should limit the number of cars on our railroads by type according to the capacity of the places each type could logically be stopped. I think it suggested some ratio of cars to total capacity but I'm not sure what that ratio was.
- Between operations, I like to keep the mainline clear. I try so anyway. So the cars all need to fit in the yards and sidings. Locos are stored in the roundhouse.
- Most cars should be associated with an industry on the layout. A generic yard could allow you to "cheat" and have foreign cars that would come and go to an unseen destination. But the foreign cars should be limited in numbers if you want to do exchanges between the industries on your layout and the generic yard.
- Jam-packed yards are difficult to switch. I like to keep some free space on my sidings to facilitate remote uncoupling. If there is not enough space, unwanted couplings will occur when picking up selected cars. So I usually keep an empty space (of about one car in length) in my sidings.
- Personally, I don't like switching too much, so I limit the scenarios where empties are replaced by full cars. So industry sidings will be empty from time to time while the cars are out serving the customers. My logging operation will get the empty-full swap because my 5 finger crane actually allows me to swap the logs from the flatcars near the sawmill back to the empty flatcars sitting near the woods via the "ski crane". Once emptied, I get the loco to bring back the empties at the source, and pick up the full ones. I like seeing empty skelton cars returning to the source...
-I have one passing siding that usually remains clear, unless I am in operation mode.
Otherwise, I have a few drawers full of spare cars. I like to change "eras" and "railroads" on my generic layout, so I will replace locomotives and passenger cars entirely on the layout from time to time. The freght cars don't get changed as frequently.
Simon
maxmanNo thanks. You're beginning to sound like Dirty Harry.
csxns maxman No thanks. You're beginning to sound like Dirty Harry. Are you having fun sounds like it so go ahead and make my day.
maxman No thanks. You're beginning to sound like Dirty Harry.
Are you having fun sounds like it so go ahead and make my day.
Having fun? Yes.
Feeling lucky? Nope.
maxmanHaving fun? Yes. Feeling lucky? Nope.
Oh, I don’t think it would get closed down for any of this polite banter.
Now, if one of us made a comment about people keeping their spare cars in their drawers, then maybe.
My layout isn't large (4x8 with an L-shaped extension).
I have the maximum number of cars I can keep on it, on it now. I couldn't put one more car on it without disrupting my normal switching/road/industrial jobs.
The yard (only 3 tracks) is 100% full between jobs. And the industries are 100% full as well. For each job, so many cars go out and that many come back in.
I've bought few cars lately. A few cabooses, yes. Actually, there's only one more car I really want, and I can't buy it because it seems nowhere to be found: an Intermountain covered hopper, lettered for "Percival Grain, Inc." If anyone's got a copy they'd like to get rid of...
Scroll back to page 1 and read David Husman's answer again.
There are two questions here: how many cars are too many? and how many cars can there be on a layout before it stops being fun?
I can't answer the first question, but I'm happy I didn't have funds for freight cars before InterMountain and Tangent and the others got rolling.
For the second question, I've endured op sessions where every spur track and every yard was full, and the sessions weren't fun and did not feel real. On top of that, some were set up so that were three cars picked up for every three cars spotted etc. They were like one of those little square puzzles that have eight sliding tiles for nine spots.
A yard more than half full is difficult to work efficiently. A railroad with all the staging tracks packed requires more schedule discipline than either real or model railroaders possess.
We keep our rotating set of cars on shelves, grouped by car type. We keep the "deep surplus" cars in slding drawers or banker boxes with appropriate dividers and separaters. Most years, we haul our "deep deep surplus" cars off to a swap meet and sell them.
It's always interesting to me how quickly these threads wander off away from the original question / topic.
In this case the original poster asked:
cefinkjrI seem to recall an article in MR (or maybe some other magazine) many years ago that suggested operations on our layouts could be improved by limiting the number of cars we have in service. I've searched the MR archive unsuccessfully for that article. Can anyone point me to it or does anyone have a better memory of it than I have?
I've searched the MR archive unsuccessfully for that article. Can anyone point me to it or does anyone have a better memory of it than I have?
The request to help find a particular magazine article became a long discussion on how many freight cars was too many.
wjstix It's always interesting to me how quickly these threads wander off away from the original question / topic. In this case the original poster asked: cefinkjr I seem to recall an article in MR (or maybe some other magazine) many years ago that suggested operations on our layouts could be improved by limiting the number of cars we have in service. I've searched the MR archive unsuccessfully for that article. Can anyone point me to it or does anyone have a better memory of it than I have? The request to help find a particular magazine article became a long discussion on how many freight cars was too many.
cefinkjr I seem to recall an article in MR (or maybe some other magazine) many years ago that suggested operations on our layouts could be improved by limiting the number of cars we have in service. I've searched the MR archive unsuccessfully for that article. Can anyone point me to it or does anyone have a better memory of it than I have?
Browser search for "Model Railroad Car Capacity Charts".
Scroll down the results and hopefully you'll see something called "Car Capacity-name of another forum". Click there and there is a little discussion, with another link to some of Joe Fugates thoughts.
Maxman, I did not find your source. I did find this:
https://cs.trains.com/mrr/f/88/t/210536.aspx
Where the range is 50 to 80 percent, excluding staging tracks.
There is no correct answer. Each of us has their own valid opinion.
kasskaboose There is no correct answer. Each of us has their own valid opinion.
I agree. Too many variables to come up with a formulatic answer. There's more to it than yard space. Frequency of train movements also enters the equation. A modeler will know he's reached his limit when operations start getting clogged up. That's how I figured it out.