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
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
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
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.
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"
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
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!
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 .
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/
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
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