A couple of years ago as I started to gather data and information about the prototype I am modeling, I realized I was very short of appropriate flat cars for my biggest industry: I had too many 40 footers when what I needed was 50, 53 and 60 foot flats. That is when I noticed that our choices for flat cars are rather skimpy. So when I’d go to train shows my primary search was for flat cars. I’d buy em and if they were ready to run I’d put them on that shelf; if they were TBB (“to be built”) I’d put them on that shelf. And the buying continued. So this weekend, as I surveyed my domain (i.e., looking for some excuse not to start the wiring and scenery work that really needed doing) I got to thinking, “do I still need flat cars?”
Yikes. I guess I totally lost track of just how many train shows I have been going to. Not only do I have enough flat cars, I bought multiple versions of the same car without even intending to. My brain (so-called) had been drilled to think “I need one of those” and somewhere along the line I forgot to hit the off button. Sort of like the Sorcerer’s Apprentice the basement is filling up with flat cars and how do I stop the madness? OK so now I know. Now I realize I am short of 1960s era tank cars (but so is the Walthers catalog!), so I might well be starting up the whole process all over again.
I guess I now know why I see guys at train shows with little spiral notebooks, looking at a page, looking at a car, looking at the page again, and putting the car back on the table. I started to create a list of cars in a little notebook but that is a lot of work to start from scratch.
I am not sure I am asking advice here or just telling a story or just preaching a “do as I say not as I do” sermon, but frankly I thought I had a better memory and notion of what I owned than the reality indicates. I am alm
I seem to have a good excuse, --er—reason too. My layout depicts a granger route. So what do I do? Buy up every dang little 3 and 4 bay hopper as well as 40’ grainboxes I can fall over at trainshows. Neat, huh?[|(] Now I have over 400 hoppers and over 220 grainboxes[sigh] The scenario with flatcars—tractors for at least 3 farm supply dealers. yeah right—has netted me about 100 of those as well.
As for the structure kits—I scratchbuilt at least 10 sets of elevators—all are now either on dioramas waiting to be placed or are on the layout already----I gave up on trying to figure out how many Kate’s Colonials I have[banghead]
I will be going around to various trainshows WITH a notebook now------yeah right—I’ll forget the dang thing at home ----[|(]
When you only have a 6.5 ft by 9.5 ft around the walls and it is a free lance you can only have so many cars --in my case 120 freight and passenger ( a few offline for RR that were in my area and the rest home grown )so I know what I have
Even at that I sometimes feel guilty about having so many
I’m running a freelanced railroad, so I can use almost any kind of stock that I want. It’s based on the area where I live, and there is a plethora of industries; coal mining, special baby chick trains (there was an article in Model Railroader about the special chick trains that would ship from Clinton, MO to Belton, MO. To keep track of my stock, structures, etc. I use a program called RRTrains to store information in a data file. It also allows me to use links to photos of the equipment, as well. It’s a good way to keep track of all of it for insurance purposes, too.
I continually fall in to the same trap of making a mental note of things I want and need and basing my purchases on my mental notes. I’m here to tell you, my mental notes aren’t worth the paper they’re written on! LOL There have been so many times when I bought something, only to come home to find that I already had one, or two, or three (!) of them!
So I, too, end up with multiples of the same item; rolling stock, locomotives, structure kits. I’ve gone through my kit inventory and sold off the duplicates (and excess!). I sold a few older locomotive duplicates and pared down my rolling stock by selling off those cars that weren’t totally appropriate for my transition-era layout (like, anything without a roofwalk!).
I have made a list of my locomotives and any proposed purchases can be compared to the existing roster. I’m planning on the same thing for rolling stock, which should be an enlightening, if not entertaining, experience! Every once in a while, my mental notes remind me that I need more hoppers or more boxcars or more reefers. Or more passenger cars! More passenger cars to me is like more sex to a nymphomaniac - there’s no such thing as enough or too much!
The really crazy thing is that my inventory is more appropriate for a layout about 20 times the size of my current layout! I’m working on plans for a new, larger, layout, but it still won’t be big enough to justify everything I have!
No doubt about it, it’s an addiction! But it’s a FUN addiction! While I have tempered many of my purchases, I still buy too much and I don’t see that coming to an end anytime soon. Or anytime, for that matter. I’m having too much fun. More fun that a human being should be allowed to have (with all their clothes on! Yikes!)
While waiting for the kids to graduate and “leave the nest” I continuously acquired rolling stock and structures for the future railroad. As the future railroad is a freelance road and not based on any particular prototype the management could justify just about anything. I always had a soft spot in my heart for Walther’s Oscar and Piker, I searched at every train show I could find but alas no luck.
Moving on, the final son finally graduated and left the nest so all the plastic containers which contained the entire inventory of the future railroad were brought out of storage in the spare bedroom and moved to the “trainroom”. Two conclusions became readily apparent: I had enough inventory to open my own hobby shop and I really didn’t need to continue searching for the Oscar and Piker…I already had two.
Oh well, at least I can get started building my railroad.
My railroad is fairly small at this point, 3 engines and 25 cars, but I start a couple weekago a spread sheet with the type of cars, manufacturer, length, railroad, and number. So when I got on a buying spree, I can see what I have so I can try to avoid getting duplicate numbers.
I actually have a pretty good memory when it comes to what I have. I do have a couple duplicate cars that I’ve purchased, but that was pure dumb luck. I have an express boxcar that’s factory painted from Athearn. When I was at a show, I found a custom painted express boxcar in the same paint scheme. I thought for sure that the custom painted car would be a different number than the factory painted one. I mean, really, what are the odds of them being the same? Well, when I got home, I found out that the odds were actually pretty good since they were, indeed, both the same number. Sigh. Why would anyone custom paint a car to match a factory painted car is beyond me.
The other example is that I have three NH hopper cars with the same number, 80516. Why? Because there’s a color picture of this car in The New Haven Color Guide to Freight & Passenger Equipment, and MDC/Roundhouse, Branchline, and Atlas all used the same source for their version of this 3-bay open hopper. I first bought the MDC/Roundhouse 80516 because I didn’t have one. Then I bought the Branchline 80516 because it had a better lettering job (the MDC/Roundhouse numbers were Arial font instead of Railroad Roman). Then I bought the Atlas 80516 because it is a much more accurate car. So now I have three NH 80516’s, each better than the last.
But other than those two examples, I don’t tend to buy copies. Just about everything I own is out on my layout in full view…I don’t have items stored away in a box and being forgotten. Maybe that’s the key.
And I am unanymous in that. Apologies to Mrs. Slocombe.
We love to have, to hoard, and to covet in this hobby. Most of us are pack rats who like squirreling stuff away, especially if it was a “good deal”. I have resisted mightily, and could write a book on temperance, abstinence, and justifying the odd exceptional expense for the hobby, but I would have no readers. Nothing new!!
Seroiusly, though, I have long since abandoned any hope of keeping a lid on my steam engine purchases, but I am down to one a year…not unlike good old Tom White. I haven’t purchased many cars in the past three years, except for three Rapido passenger cars for my future Sunset Selkirk…if it ever materializes. I must have 20 boxcars and other items of rolling stock, and three small passenger consists…that’s plenty for my layout, and even then I can’t keep it all on the tracks.
But I do know what I have. It is the small stuff…Kadee couplers, some tools, laid-by bags of ground foam…that sort of thing that I can’t keep straight.
Off the top of my head I wouldn’t have a clue what I own. I use a program called Yard Office to keep track of my inventory, do a search and download it for free. It took me a few months but I got everything entered into it. It’s a great program that tracks everything you can imagine. Now when I go to shows looking for something like a particular type of flat car I just bring up what I own already on my computer and write it into my little note pad before I hit the show.
I guess there’s nothing surprising about the replies in this thread. As I’ve pointed out on a number of occasions, the majority of hobbyists are much more collectors than modelers, purchasing far beyond the number of locos, cars and other items that could ever be employed on their layouts.
Although I most definitely have “collections”, they are of specific items intended as part of a display grouping and unrelated to my layout and its operation. When it does come to what I bought for layout use, there is little in the way of excess motive power, or rollingstock. I don’t think I’d have much difficulty listing from memory every loco and car that is directly associated with the layout.
My only weakness was in my purchasing of large structure kits prior to building my city of Jacksboro. There I probably bought 150% or even 200% of what I could honestly use, but that was largely because I really didn’t know just how things would eventually fit into the space.
Over a span of many years, a few hundred Yen here, ten dollars there, horsetrade hand-laid specialwork - and the final addition, a voluntary contribution (Thanks again, Bill.)
End result - a full (but not overloaded) roster of appropriate (to place and era) locomotives, DMU, EMU, passenger and freight cars. While the numbers were excessive for a spare-bedroom pike, they are just about perfect for my ‘last in this lifetime’ double-garage filler. Granted that most of them will be out of sight most of the time (My staging yards will hold 8+ times the number of trains that will ever be visible at once) they are all needed and all will be run on a regular basis.
So, what about those, 'got 'em, but really can’t use ‘em,’ specimens? About half of my through freights run from staging to staging with nothing but an engine change between. So, every couple of days a bright yellow tank car runs through Tomikawa on its way from Somewhere to Elsewhere. It helps to keep the consist filled to 20 cars, even though anhydrous ammonia isn’t a product I have much use for. (I actually saw the prototype once, in Yokohama, so my car has an accurate number!)
If you’ve planned a bridge route, that oddball car can appear at the ABC interchange, run the length of the line and then get dropped at the PD&Q or X&YZ interchange at the far terminal. My collery route does something like that with Japan-length unit coal trains. The up end is a live interchange with the JNR, while the down end is an empties in/loads out trade with a track in the Netherworld. (The up end is down in the valley at the bottom of a long sustained grade; the down end is at the top of that grade. Up and down refer to travel toward and away from Tokyo, not the topography.)
Wow, I must really be different from most people. I do have a lot of stuff, and off the top of my head might not be able to list “all” of it. But given a reasonable opertunity to make a list, it would likely be fairly complete (and I do keep a list of locos and rolling stock).
And I have lots of “duplicates” of locos and rolling stock, not by accident but on purpose. Because that’s what real railroads look like and my goal is for my layout to look like a real railroad.
Strings and strings of identical hoppers (except for the car numbers), same with reefers, piggyback flats, box cars etc. The current rolling stock count is about:
100 locos (includes RDC’s, doodlebugs, B units, motor cars for unit train streamliners, etc)
80-90 passenger cars
500 freight cars
For the intended operational plan I figure I still need about 200-300 more freight cars, maybe another 10-20 passenger cars, and about 10 more locos - when someone makes what I need.
Do I know what I have? - YES, and I only buy what the layout needs.
I have came across a few items that where worth remembering (have a bunch not worth remembering) that I forgot about. I would all so be hard pressed to find where I stashed all of the cars.
Far as inventory control, I do keep a list of what I have and apx what they are worth when it is time for them to be sold. (so my wife has a idea) What I did not do was keep a list of what I have gave away to other people. Last month I gave Jeremy something like 30 cars, did not take note of what they where.
Engines, now that has never slipped my mind as far as what I have, guess I need more?
The current layout room is an 800 sq ft heated and cooled room above my detached garage. The original layout plan for that space had a double track continious mainline of 8 scale miles with staging for 20 trains, a 3 scale mile branch line, an eight track wide, 20’ long freight yard, engine terminal and through passenger terminal with 4 8’ long tracks. All done on two sceniced levels and one hidden level.
The layout is now being rebuilt into transportable modules because we are going to move in a few years.
The new layout space will likely be a little larger as we a looking to buy or built a rancher of about 1700 to 2000 sq ft and the basement will be all mine.
The layout scheme is simple but large to allow nearly prototype length trains and will simulate division point operations on a large Class I railroad in 1954.
20 freight trains X 35 cars = 700 freight cars
20 freight trains X 3 powered units (average) = 60 locos
8 passenger trains X 9 cars = 72 passenger cars
8 passenger trains x 2 powered units (average) = 16 locos
Extra locos for switching, power changes, and to make the engine terminal w/12 stall roundhouse look cool = 15