How often do you strive to run every engine in your collection ?? I ask this as I finally took a stroke count of the engines that I own (59), and then tried to remember when each one ran last. I have NOTHING in my engine collection that is only a “showpiece”, so now I am going about a quest to let each engine operate a bit to keep it in running condition. For the record the brands of my engines are as follows: K-Line: 22 Lionel PW: 6 Lionel MPC: 15 Lionel LTI/LLC: 4 Marx: 8 MTH: 3 AF: 1 Ken
My table is a mess just because of that reason.
I keep them close for reference because some are not in running condition. 3 have serious motor problems. About 5 need some wheels or cowcatchers. I have only done 2 e unit repairs. My 2036 is on the track but only in reverse( large center wheel and all).
To avoid e unit problems between runs I store them in the locked forward position.
The collection is around 20 engines 5 diesel, 12 steam with some Marx and AF.
Some of these engine I have owned 20 year before I have gotten them working. My efforts have only been recent. I enjoy repairing them and this is my enjoyment. I just happen to prefer a worn 50 year old engine to a new one.
I don’t make any attempt to run the engines just to keep them in running condition. That’s too much work. I have two walls in my train room covered with trains and I get a lot of enjoyment by just sitting quietly among them. I run whatever I get a hankering to run. Enjoy your trains.
Earl
I just looked it up: I think I have 17 engines, all Lionel, mostly postwar, 1 prewar, 3 MPC. All but one have been run in the last year. A few need work. A few more are parked for clean and lube. Operating space and display space are both currently inadequate. I mostly rotate among those acquired in the last year - to establish their operating characteristics under various conditions.
runtime
“I run whatever I get a hankering to run. Enjoy your trains.”
I gotta go with Earl on this one. I have no specific running rotation, though locos do get maintenance on a regular basis. The vast majority of my locos are custom painted to a handful of my favorite roads. Sometimes I get in the mood for the 1940’s-1950’s so I’ll run roads and rolling stock of that time. Other times I get in a mood for the Lehigh Valley, and I have lots to choose from there.
I’m surprised though how I’ve come to favor current roads. When I got back into the hobby, the Lehigh, Reading, Penn Central, New Haven and CNJ were my favorite roads. Those choices were based on what I had actually seen, save for the New Haven which was a choice based solely on my childhood Lionel trains. I remember at that time, I avoided Conrail… man, have I changed.
Conrail, CSX and Norfolk Southern are now very well represented. Conrail is my number one represented road, followed by Norfolk Southern and the Lehigh Valley. Granted those rmodern roads don’t own S-2’s, or Alco FA’s but the CSX orange MOW scheme looks good on my Alco FA. Or the CSX “dark future” scheme on a K-Line S-2 and a Lionel Industrial Switcher. I rebuilt the long front hoods on two Industrial Switchers inorder to get the CSX and NS decals on them.
Once I get those Industrial Switcher’s rebuilt and re-weighted, they pull a dozen car train easily, as do my short MPC-era small steamers. I’m very fond of all those cheaper locos… they run far better now than they did when I got them… making improvements and kitbashing is all part of the fun for me.
I will take one out and run it for a couple of days and then put it away. Retrive another one and run that. Then I’ll dig out the prewar sets and run them for a couple of hours. I really don’t like to leave them out because alot of them are in pristine condition and when my dad bought them for me when I was a kid he said the where a “investment” and play with the new ones. But what good are they if you can’t play with them.
I could not agree more !! I have a job, my trains are for enjoyment. It’s funny, but when I see an auction advertising mint trains for sale, I think how sad that no one ever enjoyed running the trains. Ken
I agree in that I like to run whatever I am in the mood for. Some have special memories and I like to spend a little time just with them. One thing I need to do is get one of those BCR battery replacement units for my one MTH NYC Hudson. I have mostly Lionel, some prewar, mostly postwar, and some newer items. Also have K-Line, Marx, and Williams. Not sure how many I have, probably around 40 engines. I am still in the throws of Layout completion, so I don’t get to run them nearly as much as I’d like.
Dennis
I tend to go in phases when it comes to run time. I try to get engines balanced through on run time, but based on present fleet size, and my small layout, that is hard to do.
I have 45 locos on the display shelving. Of them, one is a wind up, and 2 have bad reverse units.
I do not have a present tally, but I would estimate that we have about 75+ locomotives of various makes in O-27. Probably another 30+ in S.
Most of the S locomotives were in bad shape when I got them. Some a running now, others are still in line for repair. The backbone of our S fleet is the 4-4-0 “Casey Jones” (At least 8 of them.)
Some get more run time, based on preference.
My 681 Turbine has been on the table for the last 9 months. We try to have a Marx 666 on the layout at all times. (Prolific smoker.)
Nothing we have is a display only model. Even our most prized engines still see some track time. And yes, that also means that we will run our wind up locos as well.
I guess that we need to go through and get a formal Tally up of our locomotives, and an actual tally of how many of each type do we have. (We have many Marx 400s, 490s, and 666s.)
James