I agree; many modelers are … what is the pajorative term? “collectors”.
It is especially much easier to buy a locomotive and not build a layout when you don’t have space for a layout as I did for a around 15 years until my wife kindly made it a priority to find a home with a small basement. I suspect its true for many others who may be looked down on for being a “collecter” and not building a layout.
But often there is more to the story than just going for a quick satisfaction or not being bothered enough to build a layout due to lack of space. What about clubs for those with out space? Been there too, not always an easy answer. My first 3 years in the DC area I tried to get involved with a club to run trains since I could do no more at home than to put up circle of track under foot in the small living room space my wife and I had. I got “crickets” when trying to get a response from the modular clubs in my area.
I don’t consider myself an advanced modeler but I’ve been in the process of ridding myself of magazines over the past 6 - 8 years, although I have kept some of those which are good references. The old MR magazines, in many cases, are so out dated as to be of little use anymore especially with many other how-to resources or sources of inspiration on the internet.
As for too many freight cars, I’ve been whittling away at many of my freight cars which I have been selling off as I back dated away from the late 1980’s and early 1990’s. I figure if I am going to co
Graham Line and Rio Grande, very good points, even the ones that don’t apply to me…
I have about 800 freight cars, the layout might require as many as 1000 when completed…since I have never switched eras, and don’t require perfect accuracy for every piece, I have never sold off anything…my Varney metal cars look just fine to me…(the enemy of good is better)…especially as 40 of them roll by at 35 smph.
Magazines, well since my signal and control system is partly based on stuff MR published in 1970 and before, I think I will hang on to my 1954 to present collections of MR and Craftsman…I fail to see how that knowledge base can become completely obsolete?
I am a very delibrate person who only buys things based on specific goals, but if the goals are big enough, it might mean a lot of stuff…
MOORES LAW - some is good, more is better, too much is still not enough…
Lost interest in hauling stuff to a club at a very early age…
I got rid of all train magazines some time ago, excepting one in which an article I wrote appears. Once I’ve read them, I find I just don’t need them…I like great pictures, but usually, nowadays, can find the pictures I might need in online photo archives, so there is absolutely no reason for me to keep magazines anymore.
I admit to enjoying the 1970’s and 1980’s issues of Trains, but even after buying copies of some of my favorites and re-reading them, I enjoyed their much more colorful writing style, but just simply didn’t need to keep them, and passed them on to other rail nuts.
I guess you could say I’m just big on “out with the old and in with the new”. I have samples of some of the very newest, most detailed freight cars including several Moloco boxcars and 1 Scale Trains rivet counter tank car, right now 15 freight cars total, with more Moloco boxcars in the mail as I type this.
Books: I generally don’t keep those either once I’ve read them, partly because in some I found egregious factual errors…The only two books I currently have being Howard Zane’s book which contains exceptional color photography of his layout, and Dan Glasure’s brass book which contains exceptional color images of many brass models. Any Texas & Pacific books I acquire, I’ll certainly keep.
When I find that I’m not using certain engines, or books, or whatever, then I typically sell them for whatever I can get to defray the costs of other items I want more.
Well, according to the boys in the 1:1 world, yes, you can have too many locomotives. Each one has to keep it’s paper work in order, and its inspections up to date. That costs money. Better to get rid of them. You can lease units when you need more power, and that is cheaper than keeping extra stuff on the rooster.
Without collectors, the hobby will diminish greatly (possbily not survive). It’s the collectors who keep many of the manufacturers in business making new models. Otherwise they can’t sell enough product to survive.
It’s hard to see this in HO, but in S and O the scale market is so small that it’s obvious the toy train collector market keeps them alive. But without collectors N and HO would have a lot less product available.
Many hobbies, i.e. stamps and coins, are built around collecting. So why not collect train models, books, etc? After all this is a hobby where we’re suppposedly having fun - not a job where we have to be efficient and frugal.
So while I have a layout under construction (12’x31’) I also collect trains as they appeal to me - in 3 scales yet.
There seems to be a lot of bad feelings and/or outright derision on the part of some “modelers” for those whom they label as “collectors”, as though the modelers are somehow superior to those of us who may lack time and skills and thus prefer to buy finished models we cannot build ourselves for whatever reason…I have left other forums partly for these reasons.
There is room in this hobby for all of us. I like my engines to run and earn their keep but others can never have too many…as long as one can pay the bills isnt that good enough?
John, a few thoughts, speaking only for myself, on this topic we have covered before.
There is nothing wrong with collecting, or those who collect. There is nothing wrong with those who prefer RTR for whatever reasons. I buy my share of RTR, although very little of it makes it to the layout without some little bit of work…
I do think it is fair to say that regardless of the number of locos a person owns, collecting, and ONLY purchasing/running RTR equipment are related and puts an individual in a specific version of this broad hobby, be it high rail O gauge or HO.
Some collectors of equipment go forward to build layouts, some basic, some exceptional, that makes them, to one degree or another, modelers and collectors.
Others choose a path that involves more hands on creative activity, they like to build stuff, engineer stuff, create new stuff from existing stuff, be it the trains or the layout.
It is my opinion that most in this hobby are mix of “modeler” and “collector”, but the mix varies a lot. Take me for example, not much of a collector - EXCEPT - I enjoy the better vintage pieces that can be easily upgraded a little.
So I do “collect” stuff like Athearn and Varney metal freight cars from the 50’s and early 60’s - well I collect them in the
I met a ‘collector’ a few years ago when I was giving him a quote for windows. One wall of his den was completely lined with obviously expensive HO scale British steam locomotives. There were dozens of them! I complimented him on the collection but I didn’t get into details about his layout. I have no idea how often he ran them or if he ran them at all. I will say that the effect of seeing so many beautiful locomotives in one spot was rather exhilarating!
Perhaps Sheldon may have misread me a little bit. I personally can choose to think less is more, but I also specifically said that as long as one can pay the bills then one doesnt have too many trains. ie dont be like my friend who charged $30000 in ho trains and never paid it off.
I humbly submit that if one is running a $30,000 credit card balance of model trains and does not pay it off, one might have too many trains.
Some build layouts they can never finish or cannot maintain, and I have seen too many friends and customers always accumulate but never even get more than a short test track built on which to run them. Both in a way are a little sad to me. I think trains should at least get out into the air to be appreciated once in awhile.
I had a different friend actually a very nice guy named Don Nyce who built a club sized layout but got very ill and never even finished troubleshooting the trackwork much less really starting scenery prior to passing away…So I remember Don and choose for those reasons to stick to…less.
I think it goes without saying that people should not buy things they cannot afford, trains or otherwise, but that is likely not an approperate topic for this forum…
Just like for some the hobby is collecting, for others it is the journey of layout building - finished? when are they ever finished?
Just like you fail to understand those who have more than they might be able to “complete”, I will never understand those who buy, then sell, then buy, then sell, then buy…each time loosing money in most cases…
But then again, I don’t like the process of selling, I’m not crazy about the “hunt” either, and I actually know what I like and want, with model trains and other things in life.
One of my mottos - I was well rounded, until I lear
I guess on thinking about this thread that I started I fall a little bit on the collector side. After all in addition to the 7 locos the SIW has I have six or so trainset locos that I have deemed unworthy of bring upgraded to DCC but nevertheless for various reasons ( mostly because they were given to me by relatives) I have not parted with. These shelf queens get the plastic knock off couplers glued in (as all my operating stock has Kadee couplers) placed on left over EZ track from my last layout and left on display.
I know exactly what I like, now, after all the trying and trading different things.
I have a very short list of less than 5 models I really want to have just one of.
I’m not trashing anyone for having big rosters; I just have kids that will need some kind of post-secondary education, and I would feel terrible making them borrow 100% of it as my relatives helped me greatly…so I personally am not at a point in life where I can accumulate much. I don’t think I ever said it was wrong for others to do so, only that I personally don’t see a need for myself to do that.
If I can make a little cash on my hobby in 4 years when child number 1 goes to college, by selling some brass at that time, I will…but i don’t think it likely (oh, in our state, i’d be penalized on financial aid for having any cash at all in the bank).
Short answer yes… There is a running joke among my modeling buddies about making very long trains just from locomotives.
As to what constitutes too many??? That I think is really determined by the inividual (with the exception of putting yourself or family in financial trouble by buying too many expensive locos).
I have a modest roster of maybe 30 locos…Mine are runners. I don’t need that many to fullfill the OPS plan for the layout. I have friends who have 100’s and 100’s of locos.
If only we all could be as organized and certain of what we want as you Sheldon. Unfortunately most of us are a bit more flawed. :-/
For a long time I wanted to model what I saw so my purchasing tended to favor “modern” through the early 1990’s. But eventually I became disatisfied with “modern” as it morphed into lobotomized and patched diesels, no cabooses, vandalized freight cars and other things.
Another reason I have sold off way more cars than I can count on my hands and toes is this, I like to run models that look like the real thing, not generic foobies that look generally like American freight cars. Perhaps it’s because I read too many Highlights magazines as a child and I could readily see the details that others can’t; that translated into me replacing many foobie train cars with cars that actually look like the real thing. Just quirk I have I guess.
Yes. I’m always amazed at what some of my friends still have on hand, too. Some of them are buying the newest, latest greatest Genesis, Fox Valley, etc. diesels, yet they retain Blue Box units on hand just I guess because there is intrinsic value in them for the time, place or even gift that they were/are.
I loved, loved the blue box diesels back in the day and vividly remember when some of them were brand new releases…that was awhile ago. Some of my friends have been accumulating closets full of trains since the blue box days and never got to the building a layout stage…
Often people hold on to old engines for sentimental reasons. I kept a blue box SP F7 for a while and then realized I couldn’t just keep buying newer, more accurate engines without clearing out some of the older stuff; That cured me of my sentamentalism and I have only a few blue box engines left and I should probably sell them them off.
I think that all of us should remember that the object of the game is to have fun. Collectors, builders and runners have fun in different ways. How to have fun with model trains is an individual choice, not subject to negotiation or arbitration.
I (me, the guy in MY socks) have been accumulating very specific items, each having a place in a master plan that was cast in bronze fifty-two years and two months ago and has remained unchanged since. Since I seldom had a layout for the first 40 of those years (a 15" x 96" module, built in 1980, hardly qualifies as a layout!) I was a collector, so I have no heartburn with the breed. (I DO have a problem with the individual who threw a hissy-fit after seeing my re-detailed Toby Baldwin 0-8-0T, which HE needed to complete HIS collection!)
I then had a totally inadequate layout along two walls of a spare bedroom, with trains being moved around on cassettes between three levels of shelves. I managed to test-run all of my assembled power, only to discover that most of it was unhappy with 18 inch minimum radii. Still, wheels rolled, if only in test track mode.
Finally, after the big post-retirement move, I had an adequate layout space. I transitioned smoothly to builder mode and made a fair amount of progress before I was blind-sided by some health problems which reduced the rate of progress from turtle to sickly snail. Fortunately I had built enough to allow wheels to roll. That is a two sided blessing. Time spent with throttle in hand is time not spent erecting roadbed, laying track, stringing wire or sculpting landforms. However, I’m still having fun. If I wasn’t, the garage would be a lot emptier and my bank account would be a lot fuller.
Agreed, it has been my experiance in life that few people know what they want, Chuck and I are unusual in that regard…
I have a friend who has a good saying:
“You can have most anything you want in this life, you just can’t have EVERYTHING you want.”
I am far from perfect, but I have avoided a number of pitfalls in life, and have no regrets about the things I skipped to have and do the things I like most.