Can you ever have too much rolling stock?

[Texas Zepher]

wholeman

What do you all think?

No, as long as one doesn't try to cram it all onto the layout at the same time.

[blownout cylinder]

I guess there are going to be discussions about how much is too much---if I'm looking at my operational aspect of this layout I'm almost at the point of turning off the floodgates. Then again, what if there is/was a different scenario? A mine opens up, or another potash processing plant shows up, or some other thing?

Always excuses for more---innit?

[pastorbob]

Well, I guess I feel like/am a glutton.  With todays arrival of 6 IM Farmland grain covered hoppers, I crossed the line according to my computer with 1502 freight cars.  Now I do have a fairly large layout, operating sessions, cars are rotated between sessions, the railroad can handle just over 600 cars during a session.  I run lots grain trains, and the covered hopper fleet is the biggest on the roster of all types.

I have also donated surplus cars to a couple of teen layouts that meet in church basements, and a few get retired by stress/old age.

But, there isn't much more out there in the grain car models that I don't have that fit my era, so am slowing down now considerably on purchases.  I probably caused the "bust" in the ecnomy when I did.  Incidentally, I have 51 of those Farmland cars not counting the new ones, and all were built from kits several years ago when IM still had kits.

Bob

[jeffrey-wimberly]

 I have 53 pieces of rolling stock on the layout at this time. Is that too much? No. I have more rolling stock packed in a big trunk under the layout and in a cupboard over the layout and in a few boxes in the closet. Is that too much? Apparently not since I'm buying more every time I hit the LHS or Hobby Lobby. Sometimes I come across a real gem, such as the G&D boxcar I recently came into possession of.

[desertdog]

I have added more rolling stock and locomotives in recent years mainly because so much more is available.  I also have to admit that the manufacturers' limited production policies have forced me to buy cars that I would have waited on in the past.

 

John Timm

[twhite]

Of course I have too much rolling stock.  I've been modeling since 1956, for cryin' out loud and I have Squirrel Blood. 

It's a Guy thing.  Remember:  He who dies with the most toys, WINS!

Tom

[Packer]

When you either:

A: lose track of how much you have

B: Have boxes full of it that occupy a good chunk of your room.

I've gone and done both, probably close to 120 cars and 27 engines, for having no layout.

norfolk23

[snip]I model present day and although I could make a case for having a caboose, the reality is that if you are fortunate enough to see one today, you better go buy a lottery ticket right after you do. [snip]

Darn.... I saw and photographed a BN caboose a few weeks ago, guess in that case I should have bought 2.

[chatanuga]

Sperandeo

My take on this discussion is that while you may not have too much rolling stock in your basement (or train room, wherever it may be), you can have too much on your layout. If your operations devolve into one of those puzzles of moving the empty space around, it's a good idea to store some of your cars off the layout.

When we operated the old MR&T club layout we acquired more cars than we needed, especially for the carload freight or manifest trains and transfers. We started rotating the consists of these trains in the staging yard between operating sessions, putting last week's cars into storage boxes and taking cars out of other storage boxes to make up the staged trains for the next session. Cars that were "in play" on the onstage portions of the railroad stayed where they were.

Every car was used, but not in every session, and operators were less likely to notice the same distinctive cars in the same trains over and over again.

So long,

Andy 

That's what I have been doing on my layout.  When trains arrive at either of my two stub-ended staging yards, the cars are pulled and put in the storage cases under the layout with cars in storage rotated back onto the layout.

Kevin

[cv_acr]

Sperandeo

My take on this discussion is that while you may not have too much rolling stock in your basement (or train room, wherever it may be), you can have too much on your layout. If your operations devolve into one of those puzzles of moving the empty space around, it's a good idea to store some of your cars off the layout.

When we operated the old MR&T club layout we acquired more cars than we needed, especially for the carload freight or manifest trains and transfers. We started rotating the consists of these trains in the staging yard between operating sessions, putting last week's cars into storage boxes and taking cars out of other storage boxes to make up the staged trains for the next session. Cars that were "in play" on the onstage portions of the railroad stayed where they were.

Every car was used, but not in every session, and operators were less likely to notice the same distinctive cars in the same trains over and over again.

So long,

Andy 

 

Agreed.

At my club we do the same thing; we use car cards and waybills and when a car reaches the end of it's last waybill cycle in staging, it's not automatically rebilled. This keeps cars moving in and out of storage between sessions so the exact mix is always a bit different.

[fwright]

CNJ831

The overwhelming majority of hobbyists today do seem to be more in the way of collectors than actual model railroaders and I've many times encountered guys with hundreds of pieces of equipment which have never once turned a wheel on a layout! Even in the case where folks have viable layouts, most are modeling such small railroad operations that they can't possibly justify the amount of equipment the they have available. Then again, I suppose if it weren't for the large collecting faction, we'd never have seen the great diversity of equipment produced over the past decade or so. If the manufacturers depended only on the buying habits of the really serious guys they'd probably have gone out of business long ago!

CNJ831

The last point is one I forgot to make.  If it weren't for the large collections of rolling stock, we wouldn't have the great diversity of models available for purchase.  So feel free to ignore my advice on how to limit your rolling stock fleet.  The model train manufacturers thank you.  And thanks CNJ831 for reminding me.

Fred W

[Sperandeo]

My take on this discussion is that while you may not have too much rolling stock in your basement (or train room, wherever it may be), you can have too much on your layout. If your operations devolve into one of those puzzles of moving the empty space around, it's a good idea to store some of your cars off the layout.

When we operated the old MR&T club layout we acquired more cars than we needed, especially for the carload freight or manifest trains and transfers. We started rotating the consists of these trains in the staging yard between operating sessions, putting last week's cars into storage boxes and taking cars out of other storage boxes to make up the staged trains for the next session. Cars that were "in play" on the onstage portions of the railroad stayed where they were.

Every car was used, but not in every session, and operators were less likely to notice the same distinctive cars in the same trains over and over again.

So long,

Andy 

[MisterBeasley]

  Does your wife have too many shoes?

There is some "eye of the beholder" aspect of this, remember.

I have too many freight cars.  I've got passenger cars that sit in a box 95% of the time, because the only place for them is on the main line, and my largest non-subway station is half the length of one passenger car, and even that station is in a box right now.  And, I have to rotate my freight cars to leave room on the layout for switching the yards and sidings.  Besides that, I've got 2 whole eras worth of freight cars, each set too big for all my yards and sidings combined.

So, what do I need?  A yard sale?  No, I need a bigger layout.

[tatans]

I know I will hear from the above (the people with "too much") This is the one aspect of model railroading I cannot understand, why would a person buy so much "stuff" if  it is never put to practical use, regardless of the excuses made,and there are plenty, I know 2 other MR and none of the 3 of us has an over abundance of stock, maybe 7 or 10  EXTRA cars and certainly not more than 10 locomotives. I've visited other layouts and they seem to be in the same category, I have never met any one that has these enormous piles of extra stock, I did meet some MR at train shows who sat around and bragged about how many locomotives and cars they have, we didn't believe them. (but now I am begining to) In answer to the question, YES, you can have too much rolling stock, as you can have too much of anything, unless you are one of the people WITH too much stuff.

[wjstix]

The problem, as John Armstrong once pointed out, is that the cars really never wear out unless they get dropped or something, so they do tend to accumulate.

I suppose at some point you could "upgrade" what you have - determine that all your cars have to meet a certain standard (metal wheels, separately applied handrails and grabirons, etc.) and get rid of cars that don't meet the standards and/or aren't worth the time and money to upgrade.

Of course, if I were to go thru my stuff and applied that standard, I'd have a set of cars that is much more real looking, which would increase the appearance of my layout. But I'd only have about 5% of the cars I had before!!

[BRAKIE]

Will,This discussion came up several times at the N Scale club..

 Its a tie.

Half said no,you can never have enough...while the other half said there has to be a stopping point.

 

I agree with the last half...

There has to be a stopping point and that point should be reached when you have a tad more then you need for operation.

[norfolk23]

I've found that if I pick and choose what I want from the get go, I tend to eliminate impulse buys or things I don't really need. Making a list seems to curtail the hand to wallet reaction based on ooh and aah.

 Sticking to a specific era helps too. For example, I model present day and although I could make a case for having a caboose, the reality is that if you are fortunate enough to see one today, you better go buy a lottery ticket right after you do. Having said that, I'm sure one day I'll come across a caboose I like and buy it just to have it. The trick is to not buy 10 of 'em. That's where guys get into trouble and are simply stashing stuff like squirrels.

 On the flip side of this is when you find one of those guys who has more stuff stored than he knows what do do with and will never use. I've bought many a car from a guy like that. Again, taking only what I can use and leaving the rest. I've had guys say "I forgot I had that" many, many times.

I suppose if money isn't a problem, buy and collect all you want. If I had stash after stash of stuff I didn't use, I'd probably pay my $20 or whatever and set up at a train show and sell it. As other's have said, if you don't need it dump it. Besides, I go to train shows all the time anyways, it would be nice for someone else to hand ME money rather than the other way around.

[CNJ831]

wholeman

That was a question a friend asked me.  I told him no because the more rolling stock the longer the trains and more possibilities to run more trains.  I thought that was a question that seemed philosophical.  What do you all think?

The philosophy that, "I can always use more rolling stock (or locomotives)", is usually a reflection of being more of a collector, rather than a model railroader. If you have more equipment than you can actually run over the course of half dozen operating sessions, then you probably have an excess.

The overwhelming majority of hobbyists today do seem to be more in the way of collectors than actual model railroaders and I've many times encountered guys with hundreds of pieces of equipment which have never once turned a wheel on a layout! Even in the case where folks have viable layouts, most are modeling such small railroad operations that they can't possibly justify the amount of equipment the they have available. Then again, I suppose if it weren't for the large collecting faction, we'd never have seen the great diversity of equipment produced over the past decade or so. If the manufacturers depended only on the buying habits of the really serious guys they'd probably have gone out of business long ago!

CNJ831

[fwright]

I believe it's very, very easy to have too much rolling stock (or too many locomotives) - and I really already have too many locomotives.  My thoughts:

1) If you have a functional layout, and you haven't used a given car or locomotive in a year, why are you storing it?  I'm not talking about unbuilt kits here, but items that are (or should be) in running condition.  I don't look at my collections that are stored away for years on end, so why am I bothering with providing space, light, and heat for said collections.

2) How much rolling stock can you effectively use on your layout?  Smaller layouts are more limited in the effective amount of rolling stock that can be used than we want to believe.  Add to that how much you can effectively (or can be bothered to) rotate on and off the layout for variety.

3) How much rolling stock are you willing to maintain in running and viewing condition?  Couplers need adjustment and wheels need cleaning.  Details sometimes get broken off, and fingerprints get left from excessive handling.  How much time are you willing or able to devote to rolling stock maintenance?

Selecting a specific time frame and prototype (free-lanced in my case) has helped significantly with slowing the acquisition rate.  As has my limited budget.  Building from more difficult kits also slows the acquisition rate.  Getting rid of impulse or bulk acquisitions that don't fit my era or prototype is another step in the right direction.  Deciding to replace instead of add helps improve what I have with respect to detail, era, and prototype.  All these practices help put off the date when I have too much, and help neutralize SWMBO's objections.

my thoughts, your choices

Fred W

[wholeman]

tomikawaTT

If you are an operator and you have rolling stock that can't be operated without the intervention of the Giant Hand of God - you probably have too much rolling stock.

If you have a 4 x 8 HO layout and 1000 cars coupled to 200 locomotives in cassettes that can be hitched to the cassette dock whenever the urge strikes, you can add more rolling stock.  Just build more cassettes.

If you claim to model one prototype era, but your collection includes everything from The Best Friend of Charleston to Acela (with side trips to Der Adler and Shinkansen) - you might be overextended.

If you are a collector, all bets are off.

I just built a half-dozen new cassettes.

Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)

Well put!

[Penncentral]

I think I passed "too much". I have about 200 loco's, 200 passenger cars and almost 1000 freight cars. Thats 20 years of collecting, but I know clubs with less stuff and they have fun. I love my trains, but I could have bought a new pick up.

[tomikawaTT]

If you are an operator and you have rolling stock that can't be operated without the intervention of the Giant Hand of God - you probably have too much rolling stock.

If you have a 4 x 8 HO layout and 1000 cars coupled to 200 locomotives in cassettes that can be hitched to the cassette dock whenever the urge strikes, you can add more rolling stock.  Just build more cassettes.

If you claim to model one prototype era, but your collection includes everything from The Best Friend of Charleston to Acela (with side trips to Der Adler and Shinkansen) - you might be overextended.

If you are a collector, all bets are off.

I just built a half-dozen new cassettes.

Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)

[bogp40]

Well after many, many years of almost fanatical binge buying, "the got to have", I have figured out I have way too many pieces of rolling stock. Has to be well over 200 pcs. Lately, I find myself buying certain type cars for a specific need to fit more to a prototype.

I run in a club enviornment, where so many members also has numerous pieces themselves. I don't need to fill many huge yards. Building/ aquiring kits or RTR for unit trains, coal drags or passenger sets is what I do now. I will probably offer most of the unused stuff on  a "White Elephant" table or just pass them off someday.

There are shelves/ boxes in my basement w/ kits that have been placed only to collect dust.

Ya Know, all those great intentions of the time......

[aloco]

I say you can never have too many locomotives.  The more locomotives, the better.

Having lots of rolling stock helps too.  I've accumulated a wide enough variety of equipment that I'll never get bored when I run trains.  

[wholeman]

That was a question a friend asked me.  I told him no because the more rolling stock the longer the trains and more possibilities to run more trains.  I thought that was a question that seemed philosophical.  What do you all think?