My GF gave me a "train" clock for Christmas. Every hour, there are choo-choo sounds, whistles, and crosssing bells with flashing bells. On the hour, it goes off, startling me with its sudden sounding. This is something I will need to regift.
About a decade ago, my father gave me a similar gift except it was more complicated by having a short train circle the clock. Clock met dumpster. I was less socially conscious then, and less malicious.
Mark
I wouldn't say I've ever received an irritating gift. my family knows what era I model (actually provide them with a favorites folder on the browser of which cars I'd like). Perhaps the most irritating was a Bachmann train set I received for my birthday when I was maybe 9 or 10 (this was before I discovered atlas, Kato, Intermountain etc. locomotives are excellent runners and the fact that those $30 bachmann locos weren't worth $5).; The F unit didn't work, and I got that set for the loco. Went to Hobby Lobby and exchanged it. Was annoying the engine didn't run, but I asked for the set and appreciated it.
As to clocks, I have a railroad clock, though it is broken. However, the clock is round, has I believe a b/w photo of a steam engine on the clock face, and instead of numbers has different RR logos. Unfortunately one of the hands is broken, and the mechanism may need some work as well. someday it will be fixed. Think it was a present when my littler of my little sisters or my little brother was born, lol.
Sawyer Berry
Clemson University c/o 2018
Building a protolanced industrial park layout
Sorry, I can't help you.
I have never felt the need to go into a public forum and whine about a gift that someone who cares about me gave me in good faith.
Dave
Lackawanna Route of the Phoebe Snow
Hi!
While I "trained" my children and wives (2) to understand that I am crazy about certain RR stuff, and abhor others, and for gifting occasions I will happily provide a "wish list" well before said date.
Even my Mother knew to get ideas from me beforehand, and then she would call Des Plaines Hobbies and have them ship stuff to me. She did this well into her '80s!!!!
However........ I have a sister 6 years older and another 6 years younger (both live up north) and they only recently have come to understand that I am not nuts over everything with a "choo choo" on it.
In example, about 15 years ago my older sister had Marshall Fields send me a large size ceramic beer mug with a hinged top, that had a European loco on top in pewter. Now I personally have no love for European trains, and that beer mug was well over $100. Two years later I got two wall hangings in stone, each in the outline of a simple type loco. Again, this was a fairly expensive gift.
For my birthday last May, my younger sister sent me a 1993 Walthers catalog she got at an antique store. Goodness knows what she paid for it. The funny thing is that I had sold 4 old Walthers catalogs on Ebay just 5 months earlier!
Now don't jump all over me for being ungrateful. I certainly said my thank yous and all the oooohsss and awwwwwws that go with it. And, I still have the gifts. But gosh, it is a waste of money and I would have so much more enjoyed a gift card or the like!
Hey, at least I'm not the Lone Ranger here!!!!
Mobilman44
ENJOY !
Living in southeast Texas, formerly modeling the "postwar" Santa Fe and Illinois Central
Phoebe Vet I have never felt the need to go into a public forum and whine about a gift that someone who cares about me gave me in good faith.
Hey! Lighten up! This is all in fun. I AM NOT whining. I don't depend on gifts for my happiness, but I do like to chuckle if not laugh.
markpierce Phoebe Vet I have never felt the need to go into a public forum and whine about a gift that someone who cares about me gave me in good faith. Hey! Lighten up! This is all in fun. I AM NOT whining. I don't depend on gifts for my happiness, but I do like to chuckle if not laugh.
Check the title of your thread. Sure sounds like whining to me.
My wife did right this year. She gave me a BLI Santa Fe 2-10-4, an AMB Santa Fe branchline combo kit, and a Branchline 50' Pennsy boxcar kit in my stocking (Special Edition). All I got her was some nice jewelry. I should've got her one of the new Athearn UP turbines and the sound kit to go with it!!
Mark, I have no less than three clocks of various styles (plus one necktie) that make that "chime." On my clocks, the sound unit is powered by a separate battery, so you could mercifully disable the sound and still have a functioning clock.
As for the tie, well, let's just say I've not worked up the courage to wear it to church just yet...
Jim
"I am lapidary but not eristic when I use big words." - William F. Buckley
I haven't been sleeping. I'm afraid I'll dream I'm in a coma and then wake up unconscious. -Stephen Wright
Packers#1 I wouldn't say I've ever received an irritating gift. my family knows what era I model (actually provide them with a favorites folder on the browser of which cars I'd like). Perhaps the most irritating was a Bachmann train set I received for my birthday when I was maybe 9 or 10 (this was before I discovered atlas, Kato, Intermountain etc. locomotives are excellent runners and the fact that those $30 bachmann locos weren't worth $5).; The F unit didn't work, and I got that set for the loco. Went to Hobby Lobby and exchanged it. Was annoying the engine didn't run, but I asked for the set and appreciated it.
Pretty much the same here. Then I disovered P2K locos could be bought for less than the LL/bachmann trainset stuff.
Vincent
Wants: 1. high-quality, sound equipped, SD40-2s, C636s, C30-7s, and F-units in BN. As for ones that don't cost an arm and a leg, that's out of the question....
2. An end to the limited-production and other crap that makes models harder to get and more expensive.
Gotta agree with Phoebe Vet on this one - whether you call it whining or mocking, it's not exactly in the spirit of "it's the thought that counts."
I once got a pocketwatch with a steam locomotive on the front.... I believe I was 9 at the time. WHAT were they thinking a 9 year old would need a pocketwatch for?
Ah, Smitty, you are a true Renaissance man. I'll bet she would have been ecstatic with the turbine.
I, on the other hand have a Lionel clock that erupts in sound every 30 minutes. I keep it in the office so it can be seen by the giver every visit. Along with the pug coasters, note pads, pens, and can koozies. Crap, they aren't even my dogs!
This sounds like one of the Lionel clocks. One of our club members brought it to the clubhouse and hung it on the wall because his wife said either it goes or she goes. It is extremely irritating to everyone except the person who brought it.
We take the batteries out that run the sound effects and hide them.
cacole We take the batteries out that run the sound effects and hide them.
That's my clock's current status.
markpierceMy GF gave me a "train" clock for Christmas. Every hour, there are choo-choo sounds, whistles, and crosssing bells with flashing bells. On the hour, it goes off, startling me with its sudden sounding. This is something I will need to regift. About a decade ago, my father gave me a similar gift except it was more complicated by having a short train circle the clock. Clock met dumpster. I was less socially conscious then, and less malicious. Mark
Mark, check the bottom of the clock or the back I bet it has one of those switches that makes the sound go silent, I know the one my wife gave me does.........lol She was all bummed out that the sound stopped working I didn't have the heart to tell her it was driving me crazy and as close to crazy as I am I don't need to be driven it's a very short walk. I finally did tell her about 5 years later.
My nut-job of a father insisted on giving me something really cool one Christmas no not when I was a kid only about three or four years back, like I'm still 10. Well It was a Spectrum J-class and he bought it because it was the nicest looking one in the show case. I told him he should have saved his money and boy he should have. It turned out to be the locomotive from hell. Well it seemed like the little Chinese guy who assembled it had the drivers out of sink on one side so the drive rod on the one side would actually lift the engine right off the rail causing it to just fall over on it's side like the guy from Laugh in on the tricycle. It took me over six months to finally get it replaced from Bachmann who kept insisting that it was my track work and the curves were too tight etc. So I finally get a new one on the mail come July or so and when dad comes to visit he wants to see it run.So I bring him down in the train room and it's pulling a half dozen passenger cars around and I tell him the whole story and how they finally replaced it. YOU MEAN THAT'S NOT THE ENGINE I BOUGHT YOU! whats the matter with you don't you appreciate anything you have to go and exchange gifts people buy you. (This is why we call him Crazy man, Frank Barrone ain't got nothing on dad.
I am by far not a Lionel guy, never even liked em all that much as a kid but one day just before Thanks Giving after getting out of the hospital after suffering a sciatic attack my little guy comes running down the hall yelling daddy daddy look what we got you in Walmart. yup you guessed it a Lionel T-shirt. Kinda nice black with a bunch of locomotives on it. but still kinda dorky. He was so proud of himself for picking it out and he said look I got one too so we can wear them when we play with your trains. What do you say to that. I love that dumb shirt and pitty the guy who makes fun of me wearing it. Some times it's the most annoying or dorky gifts that are the most special.
My family learned to ease off the train gifts. No complaints here.
I had a crazy Christmas decades ago when I discovered a HO scale tanker car with assorted candy colors like a rainbow all over it. Followed by a Tanker car with coke in red and white with 6 axle trucks and so forth.
That little collection became fodder for repainting weathering skills later on in life.
Years ago I had a bachmann engine of the older standard (NOT spectrum) line and boy, it ran poorly, pulled nothing and failed to stay on the rails ... for the money it would have been better to hold off and get a brass engine with a can motor. In those days they were everywhere for not much more.
No whining here, I have not whined about a gift in decades. My spouse hands me the checkbook and cuts me loose once a year into the hobby shop.
Mine wasn't a gift per-se, unless you count it as a "gift to myself"-- but one year I was bidding on ebay for GG-1's... and got into a "GG-1 frenzy"... and didn't notice when I bid on one particular GG-1... and won it by handily out-bidding all of the other competition-- and received it-- only to discover it was the dreaded Tyco GG-1... that incredibly detailed and fantastically accurate model of the Pennsy loco we've all grown to know and love so well...
(... and I paid good money for the privilege too ...)
John
Allegheny2-6-6-6Mark, check the bottom of the clock or the back I bet it has one of those switches that makes the sound go silent, I know the one my wife gave me does.........lol She was all bummed out that the sound stopped working I didn't have the heart to tell her it was driving me crazy and as close to crazy as I am I don't need to be driven it's a very short walk. I finally did tell her about 5 years later. My nut-job of a father insisted on giving me something really cool one Christmas no not when I was a kid only about three or four years back, like I'm still 10. Well It was a Spectrum J-class and he bought it because it was the nicest looking one in the show case. I told him he should have saved his money and boy he should have. It turned out to be the locomotive from hell. Well it seemed like the little Chinese guy who assembled it had the drivers out of sink on one side so the drive rod on the one side would actually lift the engine right off the rail causing it to just fall over on it's side like the guy from Laugh in on the tricycle. It took me over six months to finally get it replaced from Bachmann who kept insisting that it was my track work and the curves were too tight etc. So I finally get a new one on the mail come July or so and when dad comes to visit he wants to see it run.So I bring him down in the train room and it's pulling a half dozen passenger cars around and I tell him the whole story and how they finally replaced it. YOU MEAN THAT'S NOT THE ENGINE I BOUGHT YOU! whats the matter with you don't you appreciate anything you have to go and exchange gifts people buy you. (This is why we call him Crazy man, Frank Barrone ain't got nothing on dad. I am by far not a Lionel guy, never even liked em all that much as a kid but one day just before Thanks Giving after getting out of the hospital after suffering a sciatic attack my little guy comes running down the hall yelling daddy daddy look what we got you in Walmart. yup you guessed it a Lionel T-shirt. Kinda nice black with a bunch of locomotives on it. but still kinda dorky. He was so proud of himself for picking it out and he said look I got one too so we can wear them when we play with your trains. What do you say to that. I love that dumb shirt and pitty the guy who makes fun of me wearing it. Some times it's the most annoying or dorky gifts that are the most special.
Just be glad you don't have to press "2" for English.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=zQ_ALEdDUB8
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6hqFS1GZL4s
http://s73.photobucket.com/user/steemtrayn/media/MovingcoalontheDCM.mp4.html?sort=3&o=27
Several years ago a family member gave me a telephone in the shape of the Southern PS-4 "Pacific" steam loco. Nice looking but the first time it "rang", I nearly jumped out of my skin-- with it's "Chinese" RR sounds (whistle, bell, chugging). The batteries came out of that very fast!
I would not say this is really an irritating gift it was given in good faith by a non model railroader. My Mother-in-law found a Lionel RR X-ing bank. That is what is said on the box, plain brown no markings and what have you.
You all know what I got... I clear plastic tube with a cheesy RR crossing sign for putting coins in.
What she thought she bought me was a model of a bank at a RR crossing to go on my layout.
Needless to say she was a litte upset when I told her that I let my son have the bank and that it would not fit on my layout. It would make a whistle sound whenever you put a coin in it and the lights would flash, he loves it. She to this day will not send X-mas presants to me because I didnt put the "bank and crossing" on my layout. She has even seen the bank together and in my sons room and does not believe me that is what she sent.
A Veteran, whether active duty, retired, national guard, or reserve, is someone who, at one point in his or her life, wrote a blank check made payable to "The United States of America" for an amount of "up to and including my life."
After many years and many "RR" gifts I now have my family trained to give me cash. I can then go to the "Springfield" show in January (this year the 30TH and 31ST) and buy what I want. No usless stuff and no hurt feelings, everyone wins.
"I've spent most of my money and time on trains, the rest I've just wasted."
Modeling the fictional B&M Dowe, NH branch in the early 50's.
Hey - we all have received gifts that need to be 're-gifted.' I remember one year for ex-father-in-law got me a tie - and not just any tie - it had to be one that came from the 40's (actually probably from his closet) and could only be worn with a 'zoot-suit.' Granted this isn't a MR gift, but it has happened to everyone. Just don't re-gift it to the original giver. HA!
There's never time to do it right, but always time to do it over.....
steemtrayn Y'mean you actually counted 'em?
Y'mean you actually counted 'em?
"The true sign of intelligence is not knowledge but imagination."-Albert Einstein
http://gearedsteam.blogspot.com/
I got a train set one year for Christmas. It was in HO. My parents got it for me and I still have it. Well, my aunt thought I had to have accessories so she got me a building, a few other cars, and some vehicles.
Oh I almost forgot to say that they were in O scale. She got mad whenever I told her that they wouldn't work.
Will
MRAMTRAK Several years ago a family member gave me a telephone in the shape of the Southern PS-4 "Pacific" steam loco. Nice looking but the first time it "rang", I nearly jumped out of my skin-- with it's "Chinese" RR sounds (whistle, bell, chugging). The batteries came out of that very fast! Dave
Dave:
Aw, NUTS! Now you had to go and ruin it for me, LOL! I got mine as a gift ten years ago and I''m still answering it.
Okay. Well meant but HUH? My son and his wife got together and bought me a little steamer for Christmas. It's a Bachmann Spectrum 2-10-0. Tommy said that Anna thought it looked really 'cute'.
Well, it is. But the railroad I model never had a 2-10-0. So I tried to figure out how I could amalgamate it into my loco fleet without too much trouble. I went to my RIO GRANDE STEAM LOCOMOTIVE book and tried to think of exactly where I could fit the "Never Was" Decapod in. Besides, Anna was right, it's 'cute' as a button and runs like a little Swiss watch.
So, I figured, if I could have my Rio Grande running 'never was' 3900 series Yellowstones, I could sure find a spot for this little lady. Now, the Rio Grande 2-10-2's were the 1400 series. AHAH! Rio Grande never had a steam locomotive in the 1300 series (superstitious?).
So, as soon as it's painted and decalled, 2-10-0 #1300 will start chugging around the Yuba River Sub with some short freights.
Where there's a will, there's a way. And frankly, the more I look at the little gal, the 'cuter' she gets.
So: Irritating? No way. Unexpected? You BET!
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!
Well, it's not irritating, but,
An odd-shaped gift handed to me on Christmas morning was a box containing 5 N scale cars. Four of them fit my layout (ATSF 1950s), but the 5th was an 89' auto rack with modern-era autos attached to it. On the plus side, two of the four suitable ones were brand-new Micro-Trains 50' gondolas.
The Location: Forests of the Pacific Northwest, OregonThe Year: 1948The Scale: On30The Blog: http://bvlcorr.tumblr.com
The only irritating MR gift I ever received was from one of my Exs (I have more than one). It was 5 Lbs of plastique with the detonator/timer set to 6:00 AM Christmas morning. It may not exactly qualify as an MR gift, but the wrapping paper did have choo choos on it. Thank goodness that woman always forgot the batteries for every gift she's ever given.
Goofiness aside, I've never received an "irritating" MR gift from anyone. I've received train clocks, watches, wooden locomotive sculptures, and once (while in my 40s) a plastic train set meant for a 2 year old child, and I appreciated each and every one. The sentiment was there and that's what made each gift unique and meaningful.
And besides, anytime there was an MR gift that I really wanted I went out and bought it for myself.
Happy New Year all!
Vic
Modelling the span between the real and the N-sane...
I would not really call an irritating MR gift, but my wife gave me a train clock for christmas some years ago. It is supposed to be a recreation of a clock once installed in New York´s Central station. Thank god it does not have any annoying sounds build in, but it has two sides - each with its own clockwork. Now the dang thing shows two different times, unless you adjust it twice daily