i currently have about 250 freight cars that i am not using on the layout and twice as much power as i can comfortably use. a few sets of road power and several yard and transfer engines are plenty for the operation. any more than about 300 cars and the layout seems to get constipated with plugged yard and staging tracks. of course, as i lay more track, i can handle more cars but it seems like that won't solve anything if i use the extra equipment. how many of you have encountered the same problem and what are you doing about it? i guess i could back the trains up on the main line like trained pigs but then it would look more like a display than an operating railroad Union Pacific was doing that in Nebraska a few years ago but "uncle pete" was never one of my favorite prototypes. i am considering building some stackable trays with about 5 tracks in each maybe 3 feet long. sort of a car ferry operation. anybody tried this?
grizlump
Ah yes, buying ahead for that big layout to be built some day. That future layout keeps growing so I need to stockpile more cars, locomotives, and structures for it.
My solution has been to only open the boxes and/or build the kits that I can use now. Sometimes I think I'm really modeling a hobby store 1:1.
Enjoy
Paul
Well, one can see that that might be a bit of an issue. But then, we can always have a yard sale--
Actually, the question of too much stuff is kind of interesting in that one can plan to buy so much for a specific type of layout---change their plan and end up with a shortfall or excess.
One can layout a small ISL and need only two switchers and maybe 20 pieces of rolling stock--or end up with a triple layered layout that just grew of its own accord and need 100 engines and 1600 pieces of rolling stock. Either way I'm pretty sure someone, somewhere will say it is too much. The ISL got it too as I know--
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/
I have the same problem too many cars , too many locomotives and too many structures ., all in hopes of that future layout and from past layouts .
Part of my problem is my previous layout was 10 X 10 , and after a move my current layout is is 2 X 10 .
What I have doing is selling off stuff I don't use and upgrading to better equipment so slowly my fleet is getting smaller but better .
Hi grizlump9: ON my layout, I am to the point that i have to much "stuff", rolling stock, power units, etc. I just keep telling myself that I DO NOT NEED ANTMORE engines, boxcars, flatcars, hopper cars... My wife likes that idea also!
This has been a perennial problem for many hobbyists for decades but has been particuliarly exaccerbated over the last 15 years or so by increasingly limited runs of locos and rolling stock. These limited runs, the hobbyist feels, forces him to buy now or miss out...even when he has absolutely no current use for the item.
In reality a large percentage of today's so-called model railroaders are in fact simply collectors, without a current layout, nor even the likelihood of ever having one a faction of the size demanded by the quantity of equipment they own. Most average-sized layouts today would operate just fine with at the very most 6-10 engines and less than 100 cars, even when used in rotation. But, at least in the case of the former item, most hobbyists own a minimum of several times that number, often 10x so.
Smart hobbyists sooner or later come to the realization that they have bought far beyond what their actual needs could ever require or even ever use and begin divesting themselves of the excess...to the great benefit of eBay!
CNJ831
This is an issue? Honestly, why make up a problem when there are real ones to tackle. Tut tut and not to mention piffle, that's why God created Tupperware bins........
The Dixie D Short Line "Lux Lucet In Tenebris Nihil Igitur Mors Est Ad Nos 2001"
Garage-sale-it or donate it to a young modeler just getting started. One on the women I work with has a grandson who is immersed in railroading big time. But money is short for he and his mom so I funnel all my magazines and excess rolling stock to them - which makes my wife happy because we then have less clutter.
I bought a subscription to MRR as a Christmas present for him last year. He was so happy I think his mom would have given me one of her kidneys if I had needed it.
Not so much a curse as a challenge.
My Santa Fe is three decks in a space 29ft by 33ft give or take an inch. It was built for operation, but I too have way too much equipment, around 250 diesels and 1700 freight cars, a large number of which are grain covered hoppers as that is the area I am modeling.
I have a point to point main on the top deck, and a Santa Fe branch running from there down to the other two decks, the ATSF Enid District, and terminating in Waynoka staging. The staging at Oklahoma City on the top deck, also the Arkansas City staging top deck are both located in a "mole hole" area where the mole operator makes up and breaks up trains. There is a number of shelves, each designated for a car type and card holder boxes galore. So a good number of the "off railroad" cars are locate there and can be shuffled on and off the layout. the same is true of diesels. I use fixed consists that are all set up, so no consisting or breaking up consists is done during an op session.
I also have staging at Waynoka, and cars are staged and restaged between sessions from cars stored on shelves under Waynoka. Plus there is a fictional regional railroad, the Oklahoma Northern, which in my logic bought the Santa Fe line from Cherokee OK south in 1989 and it has staging for grain trains, again with the shelves etc.
Finally, I also model the BN line in 1989 from Tulsa (again staging) through Enid and to Avard and then Waynoka. More opportunity for train consist variations.
So, I am able to remove, add, change loco consists, along with car consists reasonably easy. But I have also reached the point where I am buying with care, and about the only freight car that will catch my attention is covered hoppers suitable for 1989 grain trains.
And no, I am not a collector. Built my first HO layout in late 1950's and the current one was started in 1986 and is complete as far as I am concerned.
Bob
I struggle with this, and am mostly slowly losing the fight to keep spending and my desire to be acquisitive to a controlled minimum. Trouble is, they keep making such darned nice trains! Rapido, True Line, Exact Rail, BLI's new Paragon and their earlier PCM, and even the fancy Proto Heritage steamers....where will it all end!?
But, my resolve is always to keep my holdings down. I no longer purchase rolling stock, and my engine purchases are running about three per year currently. My desire and hope is to get one more steamer, a lone brass one in my stable, and then stop. I'd rather design and build a new layout at this point than keep fueling my dreams by spending on items I can't use.
But, no Tupperware or Rubber Maid totes for me. When I get to that point, I have far too much.
-Crandell
I had that revelation years ago with too many kits, so made up my mind not to buy any more until most were built and running on the layout. For several years I built car kits and sold off or gave away what I didn't need. This was what I needed to do to get past the collection clog. Think what started this revelation is I had visited a friend that had stacks of boxes of brass engines and freight car kits that he had planned to detail, also had drawers full of Cal Scale castings. But the fact was when I had visited him 30 years later, he had the same brass engine he was detailing still on his desk unfinished. He didn't know he was an armchair collector that had his own hobby shop. Am glad to see diesels and freight car kits that come assembled and all they need is some weathering. For me, building one freight car kit is fine, but it gets a bit tedious when a Block of all the same cars are needed
Like many of us I too accumulated too many pieces of rolling stock. Because many of them were purchased 15 or 20 years ago and were of the athearn BB lineage, they did not meet my current high standards of detailed rolling stock. So I simply sold the "sub par" rolling stock and purchased much higher quality stock that now is available for sale, like atlas and athearn genesis box cars.
So, sell the junk on ebay and use your profits to buy less, but better detailed rolling stock.
griz,I understand that problem all to well...
As many may recall I am very fond of short line IPD boxcars and I ended up with 214 of 'em.However,these cars where use at both HO clubs so,that leaves me out as a collector.
I had 87 locomotives and 14 of those was short line locomotives that was used at both HO clubs.Again leaves me out of the league of collectors.
Many will also recall I sold 66% of my HO and later sold even more keeping enough to use at one club since I went on the inactive list at the other HO club.
My N Scale collection is becoming a mix bag of N&W,NS and CSX and is filling my needs..N&W for home and NS/CSX for club use.
I agree with Bob..There's nothing like having enough engines and cars for variations in locomotives and especially freight cars.In fact all of my past ISLs used a freight rotation system..Cars bound for interchange was removed and stored for at least 6 operation sessions before reappearing on the layout.
Larry
Conductor.
Summerset Ry.
"Stay Alert, Don't get hurt Safety First!"
One thing you can do is pack some away and rotate them a couple of times a year. Nothing like giving things a new look now and then.
Springfield PA
Gee, I thought I was bad. My yard is over-filled, and I've usually got my passing sidings occupied with trains. There are boxes of trains under the layout, and 15 or 20 cars still with horn-hooks from The Wonder Years. I've only got a couple of working engines off-layout. I'm down to 4 car kits in the basement, unless there's one or two under the pile of structure kits. Maybe half a dozen Jordan vehicles still in their boxes, too.
But, I've been good lately. The last engine I bought was a replacement mechanism for an old F7, and before that a trolley over a year ago. Lately, I've been doing sound installations to upgrade my engines without buying new ones. But I was at my LHS a couple of days ago, and I was looking at the short Rivarossi heavyweight passenger cars. They'll run on my tight curves. I was so tempted...
In the fall, I've been promised no opposition to adding an extension to my layout. That's the solution.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
CNJ831Smart hobbyists sooner or later come to the realization that they have bought far beyond what their actual needs could ever require or even ever use and begin divesting themselves of the excess...to the great benefit of eBay!
Which leads me to wonder ---how many of these various kits may have been re-re-recycled over 'X' periods of time----
And could one suggest that just maybe there is an overall surplus of lokes and rolling stock out there----HHMMM
I've been building wall mounted display cases for my overstock. My thinking is "they are models and they should be on display" Building the cases is a little vacation from modeling too.
I should sell off some of the overstock,things that I can't operate realisticaly on my layout,large steamer and long passenger cars, but they look nice in the cases. BILL
Great Western Rwy fanToo Much???? There's no such thing as "too much Trains!!"
I would have agreed with you till I saw Ebay pictures of that guy that collected cheap Tyco/LL stuff. His basement was packed to the rafters. It looked like you couldn't even walk through it. That almost looked like a mental disorder.
loathar Great Western Rwy fanToo Much???? There's no such thing as "too much Trains!!" I would have agreed with you till I saw Ebay pictures of that guy that collected cheap Tyco/LL stuff. His basement was packed to the rafters. It looked like you couldn't even walk through it. That almost looked like a mental disorder.
That one made me worry! What is the rest of his house like?!
My dream-superlayout is very much a work in progress, and my rolling stock collection (sized to be a bit too much for the completed layout) has been complete for years. My solution? cassettes; 54 inch lengths of steel stud with Atlas Code 100 flex caulked to the inside, rain-gutter style. By no coincidence at all, 54 inches is the 'standard' length of my local freights - so each cassette can hold a dozen 4-wheel goods wagons plus motive power.
The 'ferry slip' for the cassettes is a spur off the lead to one of my (to be) hidden staging yards, so adding or removing a train from the layout is a simple matter of placing the cassette, then a quick pull-forward/back up maneuver. Usually, I exchange one train for another. Of course, there are a few items that don't leave cassette storage very often - a four-truck machinery flat isn't something that would make frequent appearances, nor is my wedge plow.
Cassettes, loaded and empty, are kept on shelf brackets on the one wall that doesn't have benchwork against it. The car cards for the loaded cassettes are placed in the cassette so they won't go astray when that train returns to revenue service.
If, in the future, it appears that I have a surplus of cassettes, I'll simply kitbash a few more trains.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964)
I have three large old dressers whose drawers are carefully packed with rolling stock. Okay, I've got Squirrel blood, LOL! About four years ago, I gave away around 250 pieces of rolling stock to my nephew that didn't 'fit in' with the era I've decided to model. Didn't make a dent.
I do a lot of alternating on the Yuba River Sub. And as soon as I get my staging yard in (he said, hopefully ), I'll be at least able to do some on-layout rotating without carefully unpacking and carefully re-packing.
I will admit that my MAJOR problem is refrigerator cars. I cannot pass by the shelves in my two LHS' without picking up one or two. Right now I could give PFE a MAJOR run for their money as far as rolling stock goes.
But then, and I don't know about the rest of you--but I was brought up on the old Adage: "He who dies with the most toys WINS!
Tom
Tom View my layout photos! http://s299.photobucket.com/albums/mm310/TWhite-014/Rio%20Grande%20Yuba%20River%20Sub One can NEVER have too many Articulateds!
Can you have too much stuff?
I have more rolling stock then I need to operate my layout. The excess just gets rotated on-off through interchanges. Some cars, like my coal hoppers are always on the layout, but the rest make an appearance every 3rd operating session or so. When not on the layout, the cars live in plastic crates under it.
Nick
Take a Ride on the Reading with the: Reading Company Technical & Historical Society http://www.readingrailroad.org/
Well, after seeing way too much of myself in several of the posts here, I've decided (I work in the mental health field) that I am delusional... I have much, much more in the way of structure kits than I could realistically put on my layout if I had the spare bedroom to use (right now, the layout is 8 feet long by 2 to 2.5 feet deep, with more to be added if I want any roundy-roundy or even enough track to do some switching using the passing track on my mainline.
I think my problem (I'll speak for myself) is that I see a kit (freight car, caboose, structure), details, or loco that I like the looks of, and "Gee, that'd look nice beside the grain elevator (which is also still to be built)..." instead of planning ahead and saying "Okay, if the final size for the layout will be (for example) 11 feet by 11 feet, what structures, scenery and details can I fit on it, and how many locos, freight cars, people and vehicles will fit on the layout, too?"
I don't very much succumb to the craving for one of those limited run/edition cars/whatever, since I have only so much available in the way of funds. Once in a while, but not generally. But oh, those delightfully crafted sale flyers that those 'devils' at Walthers put out each month, in luscious color, stimulating all kinds of MRR-lust in me.... (Yeah, it's their fault, that's it!)
Sorta like the old statement about "My eyes were bigger than my stomach" - just reworked into "My eyes were bigger than my available layout space" (or available space in the county, for some of us.
LOL - in the words of Pogo: "We have met the enemy, and he is us."
Jim in Cape Girardeau
JimRCGMOLOL - in the words of Pogo: "We have met the enemy, and he is us."
"May the good lord smite me with such a curse ..... and may I never recover!" Tevye in Fiddler on the Roof
Ray Seneca Lake, Ontario, and Western R.R. (S.L.O.&W.) in HO
We'll get there sooner or later!
Don't look now, but there's a prototype for, "Too many cars for the railroad."
During the height of the per-diem boxcar bonanza, there were so many boxcars carrying the reporting marks of the Bonhomie and Hattiesburg Southern that, if all were to return to home rails at once, there wouldn't have been enough track to hold them all.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - with too much rolling stock)
I've off sold a lot of the Blue Box cars and locomotives that I bought back in the 70s and early 80s. With my around-the-wall layout, for me owning 100 freight cars would be too "over the top". For the industries I will have, boxcars, covered and centerflow hoppers will dominate the layout. The old BBs and Roundhouse cars that I still have will be "freight train fillers".
I now have about 40 freight cars and 25 passenger cars. Unless I find a P2K RF&P E8 unit on ebay, or somebody produces a U36B or SDP40f, I've decided not to purchase any more locomotives until the majority of my current fleet is DCC decoder equipped.
My wife's cousin has 150+ freight cars and 40+ locomotives. . Many of them are parked on his folded dogbone layout, giving it a very crowded look. I visit him often and have seen him take locomotives that sat on a shelf or in a box for months......put it on the track and instantly present problems. IMHO, he's having difficulty keeping up with the required routine maintenance. I've seen similar problems with his car fleet. On one occasion I helped him install 30+ Kadee Coupler springs on cars that had lost them over the course of time!
He couldn't understand why I shrank my fleet. I explained to him that with a huge fleet there would be a lot of Kadee couplers, trucks, axle sets, adjustments, and dust to take care of. For a lone wolf like me, an ideal fleet size is 50 freight cars max, 30 passenger cars max, and 25 locomotives. This would provide me with plenty of operational satisfaction, while keeping the required maintenance, manageable.
Even though my focus now is on metalizing my passenger cars and installing DCC, I'll continue to buy a quality freight car or passenger car "here and there" from time to time, but I'm disciplining myself to maintain or stay below the numbers I described above.
"I like my Pullman Standards & Budds in Stainless Steel flavors, thank you!"
You sound like one of the original nice guys in this hobby. Might I someday be like you if I am not already so.
Rich
good idea, chuck. maybe i can lease them out to other model railroaders. what is the average HO scale per-diem? about 3 cents a day?