Am I alone or is being a model Railroader mean having to accept everyone's trainset junk food when they clean out their houses. Then they expect to see all of it on your layout when they come over? What do you do with this stuff?
Joe Staten Island West
If it is truly junk it goes in the trash. No explanation necessar.
joe323 Am I alone or is being a model Railroader mean having to accept everyone's trainset junk food when they clean out their houses. Then they expect to see all of it on your layout when they come over? What do you do with this stuff?
Show them the classic clip from "The Jerk" where Navin's "father" explains to him the difference between that which you step in and a formerly well known brand of shoe polish. Then gently explain that, when it comes to trains, you're an avid partisan of the model railroad equivalent of Shinola.
Andre
I have learned a tactful way to let potential donors know that, although I appreciate their good intentions, the items in question would not quite be an item that I can use.
Then suggest that they donate it to a charity sale or Goodwill. It is better to be upfront about the look that you are working to achieve on your layout then nicely explain why the potential donation just wouldn't fit.
A model railroad club I was involved with faced the same dilemma, someone would bring a bag of Uncle Charlie's "stuff" and wonder why it wasn't used on the layout.
We formed a standards committee that had final say in what stays and what goes.
Again, thank the donor and explain that the items may not fit but will be put to good use by generating income at the next flea-market.
Regards, Ed
I got a bunch of O and S scale stuff from family that had been picked up over the years, as well as a 4x8 layout to run them on. I'm in HO, and have no interest in the larger scale stuff.
They wonder why I haven't put much time into getting the stuff working. I don't know how to fix it, and won't spend the money to get it working. Not to mention no room for the 4x8. The "toy-like" look of the early american flyer, ives, and lionel trains doesn't appeal to me anyways.
But I had to take it, some of the trains have been in the family since 1920, and didn't want to see them sold because there was no inheritance for them.
I get asked all the time if I would like boxes of old stuff from people. I offer up the excuse that the modern day trains are way different now and have computer chips in them. I find that works well as far as an having an excuse for not taking their stuff and they are not offended in the least.
Brent
"All of the world's problems are the result of the difference between how we think and how the world works."
If they are offering it to me free, my general approach is to always say yes but make it clear I may in turn pass on unwanted items to others, and if that is not satisfactory to them then they should perhaps give it elsewhere. I think that is more polite than picking through the box, taking a couple of things, and returning the rest to them.
Sometimes there is a gem hidden in a box of -- well, the stuff that is other than Shinola. It is easy enough to place the unwanted items in the box of stuff for Goodwill or Purple Heart or the other organizations.
And you need not look further than the various postings by "Doctor Wayne" on this Forum to know what wonderful things can be done with train set quality stuff.
Dave Nelson
It took me a while to make my surrounding understand, that I will turn down any offer of model railroad related items not fitting to my theme, scale, period, whatever. They have accepted that by now, in fact, don´t even ask anymore, but that´s fine with me.
I just cannot run a HO scale Big Boy over my tiny Swiss narrow gauge layout
I use another approach. When a neighbor tried to give me some old 1950 era Lionel NYC set of AAs and a NYC Geep,around 15 cars,rusty 3 rail track and other odds and ends way back in 95 or 96 I simply called a trusted Lionel collector friend and had him to contact my neighor and let them hash out the details.
Around two weeks later my neighbor came over and gave me $200.00 to buy something for my train set (why do non modelers call layouts that?) and thanked me for being honest..
Larry
Conductor.
Summerset Ry.
"Stay Alert, Don't get hurt Safety First!"
I will take anything with a smile, although I usually explain that it's not appropriate for my era, location or scale if it's not.
The, I'll take it to a train show, find a vendor who is selling similar stuff and offer it to him for nothing. Everyone is happy that way. One vendor actually pulled money from his pocket and insisted on paying me for the brass track I gave him.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
With the layout that one of our neighbours have it was the boxes of stuff that came in handy. One can scratch build anything with that.
Any argument carried far enough will end up in Semantics--Hartz's law of rhetoric Emerald. Leemer and Southern The route of the Sceptre Express Barry
I just started my blog site...more stuff to come...
http://modeltrainswithmusic.blogspot.ca/
The great philosopher Immanuel Kant advised us to never tell a lie. My own grandfather told me that a half-truth is worse than a whole lie. Modern thinking suggests that both of those are not necessarily so.
I prefer to just be forthright and tell it like I see it. After all, it's a measure of my respect for others to be honest so that they can treat me with full knowledge of my preferences and not have to wonder if they have pleased me or placed a burden on me. As a measure of self-respect, I state the truth so that I don't burden myself at the same time, either with guilt or with something I'll have to dispose. I'd rather have something in my possession that I want to have, not something I don't. I feel the chances are excellent that people who bother to offer me something they think I might like to have are positively oriented to me and want me to be happy with the items. Why lie to them about it?
So, I tell them my wife says I can't have any more trains.
Okay, not really....but I do tell them that I am particular about what I run, and that I don't do my own decoder installations. On a tight budget, that means I only get DCC locomotives, newer models, and then only rarely.
Despite being new to model trains, I got a few older train thigns. In one case I donated that to the Salvation Army and in another swapped that out for something more commonly found on the layout.
My parents even offered to buy me a steam loco but I declined politely by stating that team isn't found on a modern layout. They understood and probably appreciated that I have criteria for trains.
I am always happy to get things for free. One man’s junk is another man’s treasure and you never know, you might find something very rare. I will check everything out and see what is usable. I will use what I can and what I don’t use will just sit in the junk box for possible kit bashing or parts or whatever. Some of it might get sold or passed on to others. To me, if someone gives me something it is up to me what I do with it. They don’t really want it. They are getting it out of their house. They don’t care. Some of the things have been really great, others were broken and went to the trash.
A gift is totally different, they expect you to use a gift. That can be a little tricky.
I would definetly accept free model railroading stuff, emphasis on 'free'.
A friend showed me a box of stuff and asked me what I thought. I looked through the whole thing. It was all pretty much junk to me and I spent some time explaining why the toy train locomotives with 4 wheel pick up and the freight cars with truck mounted couplers weren't worth much. Everything was damaged. Apparently he wasn't listening because he offered the lot to me for $50.00 and couldn't understand why I declined.
Dave
I'm just a dude with a bad back having a lot of fun with model trains, and finally building a layout!
(assuming it's free) Flip it on ebay, and buy a model RR product you actually want for the layout. Then show them what you bought with the money. If they act surprised/negative/whatever, just reply "I thought you were trying to support my hobby?"
Julian
Modeling Pre-WP merger UP (1974-81)
Years ago, I modeled the UP. My well meaning sister bought me a Pennsy GG1 for Christmas. The next year she bought me the Bachmann John Bull trainset. I still have both. Now that I am modeling a fictional eastern railroad, the GG1 would at least be plausible but I would have to put up catenary to make it look right.
Lone Wolf and Santa Fe I am always happy to get things for free. One man’s junk is another man’s treasure and you never know, you might find something very rare. I will check everything out and see what is usable. I will use what I can and what I don’t use will just sit in the junk box for possible kit bashing or parts or whatever. Some of it might get sold or passed on to others. To me, if someone gives me something it is up to me what I do with it. They don’t really want it. They are getting it out of their house. They don’t care. Some of the things have been really great, others were broken and went to the trash. A gift is totally different, they expect you to use a gift. That can be a little tricky.
I've been to a few estate sales and typically most of it is junk but usually there will be a few nuggets among the trash.
gmpullmanA model railroad club I was involved with faced the same dilemma, someone would bring a bag of Uncle Charlie's "stuff" and wonder why it wasn't used on the layout. We formed a standards committee that had final say in what stays and what goes. Again, thank the donor and explain that the items may not fit but will be put to good use by generating income at the next flea-market.
At Boothbay Railway Village, we do something similar. We tell potential donors up front that we evaluate what is donated; keep what we can use; and sell the rest at train shows to support construction of our layout. IN most cases, the donor agrees; when someone walks away we part in good company.
George In Midcoast Maine, 'bout halfway up the Rockland branch
A couple of years ago I was 'given' two boxes of trains that had been in a basement/garage for years and told to use what I can and sell/trash what I didn't want. Well I wound up selling most on Ebay for over $350 ( a couple of rare items!) and the rest I threw out. Most of it had mouse house bedding inside, even the engines! I had to clean everything and got most of it running to the point I could 'honestly' sell them on Ebay. I made sure they understood that these were old trains and wouldn' t be suitable for my layout. Everyone was happy; especially me!
-Bob
Life is what happens while you are making other plans!
I have been 'gifted' with an assortment of model railroad related items, mostly by my (formerly) yard sale addicted sister. Each bunch of miscellany was triaged:
My niece and her husband gathered up a SP 'Black Widow' F unit, an SP caboose and four other cars with SP reporting marks, culled from the junk at her mother's end. That train resides in a cassette, horn-hook couplers and all, available to run if they ever come to visit. I do run it, about once every two months, just to make sure it still does. (Don hired on with the SP right out of his post high school Army hitch, and retired from the UP a couple of years ago. I find the absence of UP cars in their gift interesting)
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)