I just bought an undecorated Athearn GP-35 on eBay because it was a killer-good price, and GP-35s were my favorite locomotive back when I modeled 1968.
It was the last thing I needed, and I will probably not do anything with it for 10+ years, but it was less than $30.00!
-Kevin
Living the dream.
Lakeshore Sub Came to my own reality check the other day. With a 2 level 8'X 19' layout, having 20 locomotives probably isn't too bad but the new reality is that I've been fighting to get at least 6-8 of them working reasonable. All of them are least 15 years old with old Digitrax fleet decoders so it seems silly to spend time, effort and money to try to get them working reasonably. It might be time to cut the losses and start looking again. Scott Sonntag
Came to my own reality check the other day. With a 2 level 8'X 19' layout, having 20 locomotives probably isn't too bad but the new reality is that I've been fighting to get at least 6-8 of them working reasonable. All of them are least 15 years old with old Digitrax fleet decoders so it seems silly to spend time, effort and money to try to get them working reasonably. It might be time to cut the losses and start looking again.
Scott Sonntag
When I started my layout about 20 years ago, I had already made the decision to go DCC and had a lot of DC locos from my old layout, mostly Rivarossi steamers and Athearn BB diesels. My plan was to install decoders in all and repain/reletter them for my new layout. I also picked up about a half dozen Athearn BB F-units from Trainworld at a blow out price of $30 apiece. When I made the decision go with code 83 track, that wiped out my Rivarossi steamers as a viable option because they all had the old pizza cutter flanges. When I finally got enough track laid to actually do some running, I bought my first factory equipped DCC loco with sound and saw how much better the detailing was on the new locos. I soon forgot all about retrofitting my Athearn BB diesels and began buying all new locos, either factory equipped or DCC-ready using plug-in decoders. I never regretted that choice. When you weigh the cost in time and money to upgrade the old vs. the better quality the new locos have, it was an easy decision for me. I was able to recoup some of the cost by selling off much of my diesel fleet to my LHS. I see older Rivarossi steamers are still fetching a decent price on ebay so I think I'm going to go that route.
Tophias....
"My point is it's a bit disappointing that I won't be buying any additional locomotives, and I'm wondering how you all feel about this?"
Doesn't bother me at all your disappointed. Means more for us! (just kidding!)
Hmmmm, have seen this thought/topic a few times.
Its part of the 'disease'. Very much like an addiction. "Oooooh look at that, gotta have it"! Nothing wrong with that as long as your bills are paid, and the wife is either 1) ok with it, 2) doesnt care, 3) doesnt know, 4) all the above. Kids dont count - they should be seen not heard. So why stop just cuz your layouts too small? Sledgehammers and walls were made for each other.
Remember, money is printed every day. Its only printed to spend. Your giving a train a good home. The train will bring you enjoyment. Its pretty much win-win, as long as conditions 1-4 above are met.
Now if the kid needs purple hair and an iphone, or the cat is gonna have puppies... yeah, take care of those first. But after thats paid off id be wiping my forhead going "whew, i need a Lionel" or "its Mantua time".
This is prolly one of the very, very few hobbys where having too much is not even a thing. If your life is on track, and you have time for a hobby (youve had 20 years), its provides you with the returns you seek from it.... then why not indulge in the good thing.
Besides, what if tomarow you hit the purly gates and Peter Paul and Mary ask you how many trains you have? I hear anyone with 20 or less gets to clean the Big Guy's bathroom. (someones gotta do it).
Lastly, in the time it took you to read this nonsense, you coulda bought yourself something nice on that 'bay' thing. Now, how do you feel about it? See? So go buy something, youll feel much betterer. Every time, i promise.
PMR
My reality check came a couple of years ago. We had had a house fire in 1996 which seriously damaged my Lionel equipment which was in boxes in the closet the fire went through. At that time I decided to switch to HO.
As the new house was taking shape, wife and I walked up the stairs to the 2nd floor. She looked to the right and said "that's the trainroom." Needless to say I didn't argue about accepting a 13x22 space.
Did't have a lot of time to get started, as I was still operating a small dairy and driving school, but.... I did go to shows and watched ebay and bought things I thought would go on the layout; trains, buildings, scenic materials, vehicles and figures.
Before I got transitioned from dairy to beef (much less time) son moved home, youu gurssed it, into the train room.
There was a small room (7x14) in the basement. That's about 1/3 the size and had boxes of "stuff" enough to fill the room.
It took me awhile to change my buying mode. An inventory found some 36 locos, about evinly divided between steam anad diesel, 357 freight cars of which 145 were box cars, 23 cabooses and 23 passenger train cars. I'd have needed the whole upstairs to have them all on the rails.
A show came to town and I decided to try and sell some stuff. I have now done several shows, but COVID haulted that, with plenty of stuff to go.
Finishing the room proved to be a challenge, existing 4x6 layout sat in the middle of it, making working difficult. I finally bit the bullet this fall, sold the layout and started to work on the room. Got the room sheet rocked, then painted Christmas day. This weekend my eldest son helped me finish up the electrical work and put up the grid for the suspended ceiling with the lights in. Have some painting to touch up now that I have good light.
Will we finish the ceiling next weekend? When will I get the shelf up? When will I get the backdrop done? Will there be a show in March to sell some more stuff, so I dont fill the space under the shelf with unsold "stuff"?
I still buy things occasionally, but reality makes purchasing much more fussy and I still have a lot of decisions on what buildings and vehicles to keep.
Should be retired so I could wok on the layout more, but I enjoy what I am doing (except on days lide today, 12" of snow or 20 degrees below 0 with 30 mph winds), so progress will be sporatic.
Have fun,
Richard
A very interesting thread.
How do I know when to stop buying more locomotives?
Dawn says I should have stopped ages ago.
To be honest I have now drawn the line of no more locomotives.
With 59 diesels and 32 steam locomotives that is it. Way too many for a layout 11ft x 8ft.
If we move to a bigger house ------?
I then thought if we did move to a larger property, what kind of layout would I have? No matter what I thought, it always came to the same answer. A new layout would still be Leeds Sovereign Street and Crown Point Yard with more scenery.
David
To the world you are someone. To someone you are the world
I cannot afford the luxury of a negative thought
FergmiesterMy solution is to build 2 display cases for the excess and rotate my engines.
I have something similar.
I own a lot of locomotives that do not run, and I will never make in running condition. These are what I call the "prop fleet", and they are used for phtotographs only. These spend their days on a shelf until needed for pictures. Then they see the layout in staged scenes... then back to display.
I have some running locomotives that are one breakdown away from joining the prop fleet.
I am at this juncture or more aptly Junction. My solution is dot build 2 display cases for the excess and rotate my engines. I was trying to stick with late steam transition period and early 60's but I'm beyond that now with no chance of clawing my way out of this hole.
http://www.trainboard.com/railimages/showgallery.php?cat=500&ppuser=5959
If one could roll back the hands of time... They would be waiting for the next train into the future. A. H. Francey 1921-2007
Call me crazy for only having three N&W locos--two for the main and a switcher one for the yard. I def need more. Too bad it's near-impossible to find a decent priced N&W loco without sound included.
I have 10 RTR locomotives and 5 locomotive kits in S scale standard gauge and 1 RTR in Sn2. O scale 2 rail I have 5 RTR and 2 kits. O scale 3 rail I have 4 RTR. On30 I have 5 RTR. HO I have 9 RTR and 4 kits in standard gauge and 4 kits in HOn3. N scale I have 2 RTR.
For a total of 47 plus maybe 4 or 5 more that I have forgotten about. These have been accumulated over the 50 years I have been in the hobby.
For my current S scale layout under construction 9 of the locomotives will be used - although the other S scale locomotives may make an appearance from time to time.
I also have a test layout where I set up temporary tracks to run all the others from time to time.
I have a fondness for small steam, but I have already bought all that are/were available in S scale (as opposed to S hi rail) over the last 25 years or so that are not brass.
But I will buy others in S or other scales as they appeal to me. I enjoy the collecting part of the hobby as well as the operating part.
Paul
I find train shows are the worst place for picking up excess items. They are a mine field for impulse buyers of which I am one. I'll find an interesting item at a very reasonable price and decide I have to have it even though it doesn't fit the theme of my railroad. I was just straightening up my storage shelves and came across two such purchases. One was a set of 5 Rivarossi heavyweight B&O passenger cars in Pullman Green with interiors. They are really nice cars although they would need a few upgrades. The problem is it would be a stretch to have a B&O passenger train anywhere on my rails. The other was a Pennsy lightweight diner and kitchen dormitory cars. If it was a coach or sleeper I could work them in as through cars on one of my passenger trains but not these. Besides the passenger cars, I have several structure kits gathering dust that I picked up at train shows without giving a thought to where on the layout I could put them.
Tophias Stix, you're killing me! So, just send a check to cover the cost of all these additional engines and we're good!!
Stix, you're killing me! So, just send a check to cover the cost of all these additional engines and we're good!!
Rich
Alton Junction
wjstix Tophias My point is it's a bit disappointing that I won't be buying any additional locomotives Ya, I wouldn't bet on that. There's always newer / better engines coming along. Even engines from 20-30 years ago may not be all that great compared to newer versions of the same type of engine. BTW I'm building a layout designed to rotate time frames, roughly from late steam era to early 3rd generation diesels...so roughly 1930s to 1990s. If all your engines are from one era, say 21st century, you could always start getting engines appropriate for earlier times. Say you model BNSF now...you could start getting BN engines so you can model the same location, only in 1970s-90s. If that works out, you could get some GN engines and add the 1950s-60s era. Course then you have to buy more era-appropriate freight and passenger cars. How about some steam engines? Hmmm.....
Tophias My point is it's a bit disappointing that I won't be buying any additional locomotives
Ya, I wouldn't bet on that. There's always newer / better engines coming along. Even engines from 20-30 years ago may not be all that great compared to newer versions of the same type of engine.
BTW I'm building a layout designed to rotate time frames, roughly from late steam era to early 3rd generation diesels...so roughly 1930s to 1990s. If all your engines are from one era, say 21st century, you could always start getting engines appropriate for earlier times.
Say you model BNSF now...you could start getting BN engines so you can model the same location, only in 1970s-90s. If that works out, you could get some GN engines and add the 1950s-60s era.
Course then you have to buy more era-appropriate freight and passenger cars. How about some steam engines? Hmmm.....
Tophias--
I get excited and sometimes buy too much more than I should. For a multitude of reasons that maybe are better left out of this discussion, I realize that I only really need about 8 good engines to operate my railroad.
I tend to have a favorite engine, or group of the same engine model, such that others don't get run much at all, and can easily be sold.
Right now I have about 30 extra engines for sale, some on consignment at a local train store now owned by my friend.
TophiasMy point is it's a bit disappointing that I won't be buying any additional locomotives
SeeYou190 NittanyLion Halfway there Does that mean you have 4 1/2 of them? -Kevin
NittanyLion Halfway there
Does that mean you have 4 1/2 of them?
There's a slug on the roster built out of a GP40-2 and I have an extra GP40-2 frame, so... Sorta?
MisterBeasley SeeYou190 Tophias I have no powered dummies. What is a "powered dummy" locomotive. -Kevin I think that was me being quoted. I guess I meant powered unit.s that are not fully functional controlling locomotives, like an F7B. This unmaintained forum software is really difficult to use on my tablet. They dump more advertising on us all the time, and the whole thing at the bottom of the page is not train related, so it just annoys me.
SeeYou190 Tophias I have no powered dummies. What is a "powered dummy" locomotive. -Kevin
Tophias I have no powered dummies.
What is a "powered dummy" locomotive.
I think that was me being quoted. I guess I meant powered unit.s that are not fully functional controlling locomotives, like an F7B.
This unmaintained forum software is really difficult to use on my tablet. They dump more advertising on us all the time, and the whole thing at the bottom of the page is not train related, so it just annoys me.
Mr. B, I had that problem (pop up ads) as well on my IPad. Taking a suggestion from Randy I switched browsers from Google to Safari and downloaded the app AdBlocker Plus. Since then I haven't seen one ad. If you use an IPad give it a try.
richhotrain I have a few powered locomotives that I have referred to as "dummies" or worse, but those words cannot be printed on this forum.
"Dummy" would have been the nicest thing I ever called my N scale Bachmann 4-8-4 I had in the mid 1980s.
MisterBeasley Believe me, Kevin, I felt like some kind of moron, oxy or otherwise, when I read what I had written!
Believe me, Kevin, I felt like some kind of moron, oxy or otherwise, when I read what I had written!
MisterBeasleyBelieve me, Kevin, I felt like some kind of moron, oxy or otherwise, when I read what I had written!
Oh boy, the number of times I have written dumb stuff could fill a volume or two.
SeeYou190 MisterBeasley I guess I meant powered unit.s that are not fully functional controlling locomotives, like an F7B. OK. Thanks for the clarification. It was not a term I had heard before, and it sounded like an oxymoron when I read it. -Kevin
MisterBeasley I guess I meant powered unit.s that are not fully functional controlling locomotives, like an F7B.
OK. Thanks for the clarification. It was not a term I had heard before, and it sounded like an oxymoron when I read it.
It takes an iron man to play with a toy iron horse.
MisterBeasleyI guess I meant powered unit.s that are not fully functional controlling locomotives, like an F7B.
It’s a loco with a bad decoder.
TophiasI have no powered dummies.
I only have about 20 locomotives, or, more specifically, powered railroad devices, including trolleys and subway trains. Really, it's enough, and my layout is dual-era, Steam and Transition. I have a few dummy diesels but I don't count those. I have no powered dummies.
My only recent engine buy that didn't fit my road and era is a GG1. I model the Milwaukee, but dang it, I had a Lionel O gauge GG1 when I was but a wee lad and I had to have one. I have no plans to buy any more engines. If someone produced one of the Milwaukee electrics like the Little Joe or the Bi-polar, I might get one, but the DCS-equipped ones from MTH don't seem worth the trouble.
On the subject of promoting domestic tranquility, I remember a show I went to where one dealer as giving out sub shop sandwich bags to bring new engines home in and disguise a 2-6-4 as a large meatball with cheese.
[/quote]
good marketing!
I been questioning my locomotive roster and freight car cap. I have several locomotives in different regions.
My main roster is Amtrak, NYC, and Conrail. My ideal number for a decent diesel roster 8-12. Unfortunately that number was been overwhelmed by my love of Amtrak locomotives.
I've somewhat learned what to buy and not to buy. I'm still missing Auto racks, containers, maxi stack, refrigerator car, flat car, gondola, tank cars. Rethinking about modeling the 1990s since I can't afford forcing myself getting Auto Racks and Maxi stacks with containers. To fully model the actual timeframe I desperately wanted. The late 1980s was my second choice including the New York Central.
If all else fails I will have a variety of equipment to sell in the next 20-30 years.
Amtrak America, 1971-Present.
NittanyLionHalfway there
richhotrain NittanyLion My prototype only has 9 locomotives in the first place, so there's a bit of a cap there. But do you have all 9? Rich
NittanyLion My prototype only has 9 locomotives in the first place, so there's a bit of a cap there.
My prototype only has 9 locomotives in the first place, so there's a bit of a cap there.
But do you have all 9?
Halfway there