Here is the challenge issued with an open time limit. Lets say I am giving you $10,000 (or equal value in your nation’s currency), using the internet tell we what you would do with it.
Rules
Make an initial pipedream estimate post, this will help with goals setting.
Make a internet search of materials you want, including scenery, track, landscaping and trains.
You may get with in $100 of $10,000 (a bit of a cushion)
You may define the parameters of what you want to do, small things…large things…a series of things over time.
Take your time, the posts should all be interesting.
You must use all the money when your plan I complete, save the $100 cushion which will give you a 4200 margin of error)
I wish I could give you $10,000 dollars (or receive it) No one is going to check your work…you can edit anytime you want if your dream changes.
Wow! $10,000 US! That’s 8,451.30 Euros! Or 455,460 Afghanis, huge! I wonder how many trains you could buy with those 450,800 Bhutan Ngultrums, or even how much LGB you can take home with 20,705.7 Tongan Pa’angas! That’s a whopping sum!
I’m afraid I’m entirely too practical, so things like college funds and paying off debt would obviously take first priority.
Now, if the challenge came with the stipulation that it could only be used for the hobby…
Squirrel a few thousand away for the building of a live steam EBT mikado in 1:20.3. I don’t want someone to build it for me, but I would like the money there to pay for things like cutting the frames, wheel castings, and materials.
Spend the rest in the development of inexpensive (under $200) 1:20.3 passenger car kits. I think that would provide a nice return on the investment over a reasonable period of time. I like my money to work for me.
Invest every penny of it in good stocks, bonds, cd’s; then let the earnings support my train habit. When I kick the bucket they can cash in all the investments and use them to build me a train casket!
In actuallity, I already have well over the 10 Grand invested in my layout. ---- Hey, you gotta have some vice!
That’s 132,263 Estonian Kroons or 63,717.0 Lesotho Lotis, Wow!!! I wonder what kind of railroad you could dream up on 35,449,949 Zambian Kwachas! Unbelievable generosity from Capt Carrales!
I’ve GOT to build an international railroad and realy make those 46,031.0 Israeli New Shekels work for me!
every LGB loco and car and a circle of track
minus those GG-1’s
[^][:D][:o)][:I][8D][8][}:)][:)][:P][;)][angel][alien][bow][C=:-)][C):-)][(-D][{(-_-)}]
I wonder if LGB would accept 27,990.8 Samoan Talas? Maybe 159,617,458 Vietnamese Dong would buy your dream Mr. Feed! Maybe we could makeCapt Bob an Abraham Lincoln style train with my 54,313.0 Botswana Pulas that the most generous other Captain gave me!
I really could make 292,428 Gambian Dalasi work the railroad with internet pricing! This is exciting!
I’m afraid there would be some other priorities before railroading, that is a bit on the backburner out of necessity. But out of an amount of that size I’m sure I could reserve a bit for a nice string of Hartland shorty cars and some dito engine blocks, to keep me into conversion/scratchbuilding material for quite a while!
Right now, I’d have to figure out some way to double that to $20,000 or so in order to buy a brand new card. (Or at least a very young car.) It IS railroad related because if I can’t get to the hobby shop I can’t get more trains. (My car’s getting old.)
Now that I pointed out that loophole, let’s get to the loop of track in the yard:
Turnout or two - $100
Snow removal equipment - $250
New Locomotives to push snow removal equipment (battery powered please) - $750
Hey-- I live in the midwest where it could snow a foot one day and then by the weekend you wouldn’t even know it was there. As the “residents” on my line get used to having trains (and homes lol) shutting down for snow just cannot be tolerated.
Anderson Powerpoles - $100 (For quickly connecting track power. Also used in the Ntrak recommended practice.)
More track - $300
American Style rail cars - $500
I don’t believe the LGB 2-axle cars run as well as the 4-axle versions around curves. Without the second axle on a truck to guide it, they kinda flop all over.
Ok, that’s $2,000. Sorry, Capt, I don’t think I can make $10,000 without some serious spending. I’m also constrained by the fact that we’re not going to be in this house forever. I want to keep things light so that when the time comes to move it’s easy on me.
Removing that consideration, let’s just say the rest of the $8,000 is going to spent on
Tools (Makita portable power tools. Pick one up and see why.)
Materials (Probably everything will be scratch built or kit bashed.)
People (Someone’s gotta live in the buildings I make.)
Ballast, roadbed materials
Garden plants (I like the edible kind.)
Protection money for certain enterprising individuals. These are the guys who control the supply of locomotives and track in the area. They’d much rather you bought from them rather than “import” it from somewhere else. (-; (-:
Please note just how familiar TJ is with all those currencies!
His most famous saying is “Join the Army and have the taxpayer foot the bill for sending you all over the world so you too, can spend money in 137 denominations and 60 currencies, each in its own locale!” Now that’s reality when you spend money in the country it came from!
SHHHH!!! BOB! That’s a military secret! Now I’ll have to hunt down and kill everybody who has internet access and can read this forum! Sheesh, as if I didn’t have enough to do already![;)]
I think everybody is kinda missing the point here. You have $10,000 US (convert to your local currency!) for a thought experiment in garden railroading. The task is to take 87,768.7 Ethiopian Birr or 62,204.0 Swaziland Lilangeni and build a dream railroad. No car payment, mortgage or other expenses exist. It is a perfect world as far as we are concerned. I know most of my “money” will be spent on landscaping and track. Somebody else might forgo the landscaping for huge runs of track. The task is to see what kind of railroad YOU would build with 17,700.0 Aruban Florin.
I think this is the best idea to come out of the forum since the whimsy build off!
Thanks to your philanthropic offer I’m going to spend the money as follows: $5000 for land clearing, bulldozing, fill, and landscaping. The other $5000 goes to Accucraft 1:20.3 locos and 1:20.3 rolling stock as well as more R/C equipment for the locos. If there’s any left over, it will go toward code 250 track.
Please forward the check as soon as possible, Vinny (DaKneecap) Testosterone is already demanding the upfront money for the landscaping work.
Capt.,
Don’t have the time for all the necessary research…but. I would start on it as soon as we move outside of Winnipeg. Five acres should do it. I could very easily spend half doing all the necessary prep work. A fence would needed to keep the deer from eating everything. The other half would be for track first and then some rolling stock. Maybe a couple of locos in the form of GP7/9’s. I know the money would go fast. As for the actual size of the layout? The bigger the better of course! Later eh…Brian.
Ok, I’ll throw this in the ring just 'cause it’s different.[:)]
I would use the $10,000 to build my dream town in miniature. It would be a conglomerate of the towns from “The Turman Show”, “Pleasantville”, and every small town depicted in Fannie Flagg novels. I would start with the town square, including a brick courthouse, a bronze war memorial and a band shell. I would then build homes and local stores, slowly moving out to the farm houses and barns on the outskirts. We can’t forget to throw in white picket fences, rose bushes and laundry on the line in the backyard. The train station would always be crowded with family members coming to visit and kids going off to college.
Some of the money would go into buying the small details like windows and doors from Grandt Line and building supplies from Topez or Garden Texture. But the majority would be used on all the extraneous stuff that takes a garden railroad village from filling in space between the tracks to making you want to be small enough to live there.
So that is my contribution, Capt. Carrales. I hope it is what you were looking for. [swg]
(My car’s getting old.)