The SIW has 7 operating locos 4 geeps 2 GE 70 tonners that usually operate as a consist and an 0-6-0 dockside steamer thst usually appears at the holidays.
I can only run maybe two locos at a time and like having one or two others idling.
So my question is how many locos do you own (not countin some non dcc shelf queens )and how many do you actually run?
Joe Staten Island West
I think there is no correct answer to this question. More personable than anything! I have 30 locomotives. I decided that would be the magic number. Can't buy a new one unless I get rid of another. Having enough for your layout to operate, plus a couple is, I think, a good way to judge the correct number.
The other obvious answer to that is when it starts to hurt your finances, you have bought too many!
I have about as many as Zumf but I'm currently in-between layouts. A fella in a MRRing club I used to belong to claimed to have over 400 locomotives - all STILL in their boxes - and he didn't even have a layout at home. To me - that's WAAAAY too many locomotives.
He also bought just about any locomotive type/RR line that appealed to him. I mainly concentrate on one prototype (NYC) so that helps limit the amount of locomotive purchases I make.
Tom
https://tstage9.wixsite.com/nyc-modeling
Time...It marches on...without ever turning around to see if anyone is even keeping in step.
joe323So my question is how many locos do you own...and how many do you actually run?
Hello all,
The equation is N+1.
N being the current number of your collection: locomotives, snowplows, cabeese, rolling stock, mountain bikes, skis, snowboards, RC vehicles, vintage cars, cats, dogs, et al.
One (1) being the number added to the current collection!
My current roster of locomotives, if put end to end, would occupy all the trackage on my 4'X8' HO scale pike.
"She who must be obeyed" will allow me more locomotives, but she will not allow me to expand beyond the current space for a layout.
That being said, I can run a 4-uinit coal drag on the mainline (GP40s), a 3-unit coal shuttle up a 3% grade (GP30s) and several switchers (44-ton, 70-ton and a SW1500 cow & calf unit) simultaneously.
I have a simple DCC system with a 5-amp booster.
Hope this helps.
Post Script: For the record "She" owns 3 mountain bikes and two sets of skis and we just adopted our fourth dog! N+1 seems to work for her too!
J.J.
"Uhh...I didn’t know it was 'impossible' I just made it work...sorry"
Yes of course. In the moment you realize that you don´t remember how much you have, it´s too much. Or when you realize that you only run the same locomotives over and over again while the rest is resting inside the boxes.
I have 18 locomotives so far, and with my last purchase in September 2016, my fleet is finally complete after it was started back in September 1989 . I´m not a collector. I just wanna have the trains that I love, and when I have them, I´m done. To be honest there are still 7 locomotives left that I would like to have, but the only reasons why I don´t have them yet is simply that satisfying models of these prototypes haven´t been produced yet and that some prototypes will most certainly never be produced as models at all because they´re either too unknown or are from countries where model railroading isn´t existant.
I can't have too many engines because all engines that go to staging get rotated off the layout. While my layout is an ISL, it is only a very small part of a much larger railroad. On a large railroad the same engines would not reappear at the same location day after day.
Yes. Or, no.
I originally thought three, maybe five, would be my upper limit, especially when I learned that many have several totes of unused engines, sometimes hundreds of them. Now, with my own stable nearing 30, I'm beginning to wonder when/how it will end. I keep finding a strong interest in a story, or in a photo I see, and I want to replicate that scenario on my layout.
As an example, I'm currently painting the far wall in my 9'X18' layout space. It will feature the Comox and Cliffe Glaciers and surrounding hills. Once I decided on that theme, I felt I needed to have the Comox Logging and Railway Co. represented since it built the towns of Fanny Bay, Royston, Cumberland, Courtenay, and Comox, where I live. What to get? Perused my favourite sites and found the Rivarossi HO Heisler on sale at Micro Mark. With LokSound. I had to have it...simply, that's what my purchases have all had as the impetus.
In conclusion, as long as I am looking for ideas, I'm going to be needing something in the way of rolling stock to fill them. Sometimes, it means I have to purchase. Unfortunately, I'm an ideas man. Okay, okay....fortunately, I'm an ideas man.
IMHO,yes many of us buys locomotives we don't really need simply because they caught our eye and the price was right and---well you know the out come.
Over the last year I sold off my excess locomotives and have a dealer interested in buying my older BB,Roundhouse,Bev-Bel etc cars at a attractive price. Even though this would be a golden opportunity to upgrade my freight car fleet I'm not sure I want to sell my IPD boxcar collection. OTOH at my age it might be a good idea to trim the excess baggage..
Larry
Conductor.
Summerset Ry.
"Stay Alert, Don't get hurt Safety First!"
How many is too many? That depends on how they are to be used, which is layout and modeler specific.
My layout can hide 16 freights, plus another dozen or so in cassette storage. A few are doubleheaders, but most are not. Then there are five locos committed to JNR passenger service (2 steam, 2 motors, 1 diesel-hydraulic) and a few spares of each type to cover for locos in scheduled maintenance. The JNR is adequately covered and I see no additions or subtractions in the forseeable future.
The TTT, my coal-hauling mountain goat trail, has no hidden staging in the accepted meaning of the term. I can hide a couple of the coal units that cover my empties in/loads out at the top of the hill loadout, which also accounts for an additional 2 JNR juice motors. I have a sizeable collection of small tank locos and a couple of articulateds. Some are obviously stored serviceable, destined to be cobbled into another articulated or two, available for the winter coal rush or if any of the currently-running teakettles die. This is very much in line with the practices of the coal-originating roads in Hokkaido at the time I am modeling. (Buy up other lines' retired locos at scrap prices, then squeeze a few more revenue kilometers out of them, cannibalize them to keep their sisters in service and hope for an uptick in scrap prices.) There will be no additions to the TTT roster, but may well be subtractions...
Which doesn't mean I won't buy another locomotive. I recently added five - kitbash fodder, destined for the Kashimoto Forest Railway. One N scale USRA 0-6-0 will become a model of Ikasa Railway #21, The other four are N scale heavy critters which will be re-detailed as HOe light critters. I still need several short-wheelbase 2-truck N scale diesels, one for kitbashing into the forest railway's 'big engine,' the others to serve as the bases for Harukawa Gorge Railway juice motors. Both the Kashimoto Forest Railway and the Harukawa Gorge Railway are HOe - 1:87 scale 9mm gauge. (I gave up on HOjn30 - no product support and HOn3 wheelsets are WAY too big for my prototypes. Re-gauging wheels is high on my, 'avoid if possible' list.)
I suppose you could call my nostalgia collection (four assorted 4-8-4s, a 2-10-4 and a GG1) 'too much.' They ran on the layouts of clubs I belonged to a long time ago, so they're steeped in nostalgia. Still, I admit, if finances get tight they will be the first to go.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - with a bunch of locomotives)
I depends on a number of factors, usch as the size of your layout, number of staging and switching yards, type of railroad ( flat or mountanous), etc.
My N scale layout is 121/2 X 39 feet with a center peninsula containing an operating hump yard with 10 classification tracks, 3 arrival and 3 departure tracks, 4 other smaller classification yards and a 10 track staging yard. It has the valley and a mountain divisions. I run long trains that require multiple engines, so my 100+ locomotives are not too many for me.
Okay do maybe 7 locos is notvso many but I don't have much more storage.
Yes one can have "too many" locomotives. One can have "too many" of any type of rolling stock. And I suspect many of us do. The real issue is ... what do we do about that? Let them sit and do nothing? Sell them? Give them away to a deserving beginner?
Dave Nelson
I have three Athearn Genesis F unit lashups, two ATSF, one MKT, one Roundhouse 2-6-0, an Athearn Genesis GP7 ATSF, and an Atlas RS3 SSW, I'm considering purchasing a Bachmann SF 4-4-0 that was released earlier this year.
In my case I have: 8 GP20s, 2 F7As (both passenger units. One of these is the first locomotive drive that I ever purchased. The shell has been replaced a couple of times, but the drive is still the original.), 2 F7Bs (one passenger, one freight), 2 GP35s, a GP30, 2 GP18s, an SD45 (It is the most recently obtained. It is still in the workshop in order to redo the cab and the handrails to match its proper prototype. I have the parts but it is not currently on the active list.), 3 S-4s, an SW1, an SW1000, 3 SW7s, and 4 2-6-0 steamers. Unless something really spectacular comes up, I think I'm done with engines. The layout, as it stands, is about 12 ft wide by 16 ft or so long. For that size, I probably have a few too many. (The S-4s and the steamers are for an planned expansion that I don't know if ever will happen.)
All of these are DC as I have no desire to go DCC. On the steamers especially I don't see how I would DCC them anyway.
Locomotives, I don't know, but we specifically have too few powered B units. Just saying.
Not nearly enough B unit hostling goin' on.
Julian
Modeling Pre-WP merger UP (1974-81)
All my B units are powered?
I have about 135 powered units, but considering most of my trains are pulled by 3-4 diesels or two steamers, that only represents 30 or 40 trains. The layout is designed to stage 30 trains.
When you model the early 50's, an ABBA set of F units is really just "one" locomotive......
Sheldon
tstage to claimed to have over 400 locomotives - all STILL in their boxes - and he didn't even have a layout at home. To me - that's WAAAAY too many locomotives. He also bought just about any locomotive type/RR line that appealed to him.
to claimed to have over 400 locomotives - all STILL in their boxes - and he didn't even have a layout at home. To me - that's WAAAAY too many locomotives.
He also bought just about any locomotive type/RR line that appealed to him.
To bad you're talking about me, because it's almost the same number I have. I dubbed in other roads too. Like the Penn Central, NYC, and others listed below.
I also have a few locomotives in the 1950s-1970s. I just had to buy the Amtrak SDP40F.
I model 1998-2007 in Union Pacific, BNSF, CSX, Norfolk Southern, and Amtrak.
1987-1995 Santa Fe, Burlington Northern, Conrail, Southern Pacific,... as listed above.
I have more Amtrak equipment than freight locomotives that I listed. But I do have more BNSF freight cars than railroad diesels.
I thinking of quitting soon on buying freight cars and start building but that never goes out well.
Amtrak America, 1971-Present.
How many do I have? More than I need. Dozens. Exactly how many I just don't know and don't want to count. Many are leftovers from my old DC layout which I decided were not worth retrofitting with decoders or they have the oversized Rivarossi flanges which don't do well on the code 83 track of my current layout. A few even have the old horn hook couplers. A few are fairly new but need repair. I'm guessing I have about two dozen, steam and diesel, currently operating on the layout which is more than I need to run all the trains I operate during a typical session but it never hurts to have a few extra.
At last count I had about 37 HO locomotives. Most of them are diesel, and 10 of them are 'critters'. Two of the critters are HOn30. The larger diesels are either InterMountain, P2K or Kato.
I have enough locomotives to run the trains and do the yard work that I want, but I'm not averse to buying more if the price is right.
The only locomotive I have that I would call surplus is a steamer from a President's Choice train set. I doubt that I will bother to convert it to DCC.
Dave
I'm just a dude with a bad back having a lot of fun with model trains, and finally building a layout!
How many:
O scale - 5 RTR, 2 unbuilt kits.
O gauge (3 rail) - 4 RTR.
S scale - 8 RTR, 4 unbuilt kits.
Sn2 - 1 RTR
HO - 8 RTR, 1 built kit, 5 unbuilt kits
HOn3 - 4 unbuilt kits to be kitbashed for Sn2.
So that's 42 total. Some of these date back over 40 years. Except for the kits, everything has been run a little. If nothing else, I have a 5'4" x 12' test layout where I set up track temporarily in different scales.
While I'm not actively pursuing any more locomotives, I will buy more as they interest me and the price is right. As an example, my last locomotive purchase was a pair of Atlas Sante Fe F9's from the 70's for $75.
This is a hobby, so whatever appeals to you (and you can afford) - why not. Besides, I'm willing to admit to being a collector.
Enjoy
Paul
The number of locomotives is irrelevent. You have a number of trains that you must run, and they need x amount of horsepower. You might run one train at a time, but you will have other trains in your staging yards, in your working yards, in your engine terminal, and in your backshop.
Route of LION now has 11 subway trains on the rails of him. Him also has many locomotives, some are work engines for the railroad, the money train, the signals dolly, all kinds of C-Division stuff.
Then I will build an image of Penn Station. Here will be displayed engines that I will no longer use, together with passenger cars that I will no longer use. They will be lit up and ready to go, and never mind the fact that diesels do not enter NYP. We will just assume that these locomotives have dual mode third rail shoes~!
YEAH Imagination.
ROAR
The Route of the Broadway Lion The Largest Subway Layout in North Dakota.
Here there be cats. LIONS with CAMERAS
I have no shelf queens; everything gets used, typically at least once a week. I use the MRC Tech 6 Sound Controller 2.0 to run in both dcc and non-dcc modes; lately opting to run everything in plain DC except one BLI steamer (I can kill the sound in dcc mode).
1. Key/Samhongsa unpainted Texas & Pacific Class H-2R (modernized) light USRA 2-8-2 #800 (other prototype road numbers differed in details)
2. PSC/Boo Rim Texas & Pacific 4-8-2 #906 (light green boiler)
3. BLI GN S-2 4-8-4 #2579 (glacier green)
And 3 plastic ATSF diesels...
John
PS Are the bills paid? Kids get some help with college costs? Do you have some money set aside for a rainy day? Retirement?
Then not too many, right?
BroadwayLion The number of locomotives is irrelevent. You have a number of trains that you must run, and they need x amount of horsepower. You might run one train at a time, but you will have other trains in your staging yards, in your working yards, in your engine terminal, and in your backshop. Route of LION now has 11 subway trains on the rails of him. Him also has many locomotives, some are work engines for the railroad, the money train, the signals dolly, all kinds of C-Division stuff. Then I will build an image of Penn Station. Here will be displayed engines that I will no longer use, together with passenger cars that I will no longer use. They will be lit up and ready to go, and never mind the fact that diesels do not enter NYP. We will just assume that these locomotives have dual mode third rail shoes~! YEAH Imagination. ROAR
Actually Amtrak does use dual power locomotives on its upstate runs out of NYP I remember the conductor saying.
joe323Actually Amtrak does use dual power locomotives on its upstate runs out of NYP I remember the conductor saying.
Yes, the LION does know this. Him has ridden on them.
But those do not include PA1s and F7s. Although the New Haven had some 9s that did that. Also got some GG1s that will be more at home in there.
Personally, I have an N scale layout that runs 12 trains plus four transfer runs per "day." I am heavy on hard operation and thus have 4 dedicated switchers. My trains over the mainline all run in consists of 2 locomotives. Right now I have 15 locomotives on the layout. Thus I have to "reuse" power out of staging on multiple trains per "day." My magin number is 24 locomotives that I would like to have on the layout, thus eliminating the use of power more than once in a session. For me, anything above 25 would be "wasted," although I am sure that I would simply switch out some power so all locomotives would get used. That is not a concern, however, as I do not buy lots of locomotives. At my current rate I would say I will be 10 years before I max out at 25. By that time some of my current locomotives will be 25+ years old and will probably be looking at retirement or at least rebilding, so any new locomotive funds would go to that.
Ron
Owner and superintendant of the N scale Texas Colorado & Western Railway, a protolanced representaion of the BNSF from Fort Worth, TX through Wichita Falls TX and into Colorado.
Check out the TC&WRy on at https://www.facebook.com/TCWRy
Check out my MRR How-To YouTube channel at https://www.youtube.com/c/RonsTrainsNThings
My original idea was to have one of each wheel-arrangement of standard-gauge steam locomotives that ran on my prototype railroad (Rio Grande) and leave it at that. Well, you can't, plain and simple. After obtaining most of the types over the years (I started in the 1960's), I found that I liked multiples of certain types, especially articulateds. And my setting was WWII and the immediate post-war years, so I found that Rio Grande had "borrowed" power from other roads. So I bought models of the other locomotives. And not just one. Rio Grande borrowed Missabe Yellowstones during the War. Is three on the roster too many? Well, not when you mix them up with a whole bunch of Challengers and 2-8-8-2's. And what about connecting roads? Southern Pacific, Western Pacific, Colorado and Southern? Can't leave them out. Even that Old Devil Santa Fe. But--and this is the secret--we're talking a major mountain railroad with heavy traffic, and you're not really going to see the same locomotives at the same place day in and day out, and none of my locomotives are "shelf queens." I've got a large roster, but it's a RUNNING roster, and I make sure it stays that way.
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!
Yes, one can have too many locomotives. Almost all modelers do. It is much easier and often more satisfying to buy a locomotive than to put down track, wire it up, build scenery etc.
I'm told it is also possible to have too many freight cars, books, magazines, and unbuilt structure kits, but this is something for the advanced modeler.
Graham Line Yes, one can have too many locomotives. Almost all modelers do. It is much easier and often more satisfying to buy a locomotive than to put down track, wire it up, build scenery etc.
For some, it's easier to buy a new locomotive than to repair one with problems that can't be fixed under warranty. Those people tend to accumulate hangar queens (roundhouse/diesel shop queens?) IMHO, anyone who has one such that hasn't been consigned to display behind a chain link fence has one locomotive too many.
If, by my comments, you assume that I repair and return to service, you got it in one.
My office is stacked with literal piles of books, model railroad, non-fiction (including learned tomes on the prototype) and science fiction. My wife thinks I have too many. If I can't find the reference to some elusive fact I recall from long ago, I would say that I have too few.
Chuck (Modeling Central Japan in September, 1964 - with interruptions)