So here is my I idea. We run excursion trains on each others layout! Is what we do is set up a thread were someone puts bid’s in each month, and we vote for what we want to see. A bid is one of three things (or all 3).
The first one is the biggest, the layout! To bid take only five photos of your layout for us to help vote, and few words of why your layout? What is it?
Now this part will be taken care of by the layout owner as well, and that’s the fun of the excursion’s power? It could be anything from a Mantua 4-6-2, to an Cabforward , or even Pa’s, F’s, E’s, Old RS3’s or even brand new locomotives with steam, what ever it takes to get the odd mix up of cars around the layout. Limit 15-20 car long trains on the bit layouts each month (tool car, waterbottle, or crew car do not go against the car limit.)
For those of us with out a good layout, bid to have YOUR car on the train. Be it something rare? Something you painted? Something you kit smashed? Something you would want in real life? I know this would be a hard one to do… and I am guessing this is one reason why this wont work. You need to box up the car, and mail it to someone you don’t really know for two, or so weeks so that all the cars can get there, and a bit of time for railfanning to be done! All you do is tape your name to the bottom of the car, or tape a photo of your car to the box for easy returns, with return postage in the box as well it could go vary smooth.
So in review to bid…
Five photos of the layout to vote with, and photos of what you plan to pull the excursion with. Put a few locomotives out to vote on. (Unless you just have one big steamer you have in mind). For others bid for your car to be on, if you don’t have a layout.
How voting could work?
Anyone can who feel the want to vote on what layout, locomotive, and car’s even if they are not bidding
I think it be a real fun thing to do! Just need to do it once to show it will work… but getting the old guys to give up one car could be a hard thing to do lol.
1} If this is done too…guys may not want to open up their home and layout to visitors. Although we should all have interest in the hobby,. many have complained on here about “loosing stuff” or 'stuff missing" after having guests over. there haven’t been any such threads lately but used to be quite a few.
2} those who have smaller layouts that have, say, 18R curves only may be out of the running if large scale models are to be run on the layout.
3} the bigger the layout and better it is scenicked, the more likely it will be to win votes. Consquently those with small layouts or rough unscenicked layouts will lose out.
4}The amount of time to return cars could be outrageous…and time consuming for the “winner” to rapack and mail back…even if everybody included a check for the return of their equipment…
5}sending off my favorite RRcar to be run and pics or vids of it just isn’t the same as “being there”. See#1.
6} the trust issue is a biggy. I may not know who I am sending my equipment to on here.
7} what about those in other countries? It could cost them a lot to participate. Is it only limited to USA…adn CANDA can do its own thing? what about other countries?
8} I think you just killed time as it doesn’t sound like such a good idea to me.
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I agree with Galaxy. I think you’ll get a pretty small following - if any. If everyone were in the same town it wold be one thing. However, when different states and countries come into play, the cost for shipping could get pretty prohibitive.
No worry about the owner of the layout losing any of his stuff because the train would be mailed to him. No slacker loser to take things from him.
Not true at all, those with smaller layouts can have their own thing and do short 5-8 car trains. Those with larger layouts will have say a Daylight with Dash-9s and a 20 car train.
Yes that is vary true, the better scenicked the more votes. But as long as its a different layout each time, and after you win you cant reenter for a year. Or something to keep it moving along, just like I said in number two, people will sort out were and what kind of layout they would want to send to.
I don’t think so at all, I have done shipping on a big scale and its easy. This is sooo much more easy then you are thinking I feel. You put the car back in the package it came in, and drop it off in the mail/fedex/brown how ever it chosen to be shipped back… seem like cake. If I can send out over 2000 boxes in one day, I feel the max of 20 boxes would be nothing but what 10mins? really how long dose it take you to put a car in a box?
No it is not the same at all, but for people like me who do not have a layout? I just like to see my stuff used and not getting dust on them.
YES this is the big one, but you now all of here are the same really. All of us have that make a deal over a cup of coffee or beer with a hand shake. Most of us are grumpy oldl men who don’t want to screw people over. Plus its not like we are going to pick a new persons here, we would use someone that has shown they are real and good.
Well the cars would have to couple up, and some what look like it could happen in real life. I mean we are not going to send a superliners to a bunch of Germans lol It really depends if a Canadian wants to ship the car there, and back why not?
Well that’s why the hobby is dying, no one wants to try anything new.
This is an idea that can and has worked, at least in similar form. I think what it needs to succeed is to be set up among a group of modelers who already have a relationship of some kind.
The group I belong to that does this is the Yahoo group, HON3Chat. One of the prime instigators has put together a small group of figures that travel around between the various members’ layouts, where they appear in photos as they have an adventurous trip over the line.
This, of course, neatly solves the issues with min. radius, DC vs DCC, etc.
I’ve been giving some thought to putting together a “luxury cruise train” to make the same circuit, but haven’t had the time to make the commitment to it yet. Then you have the issues of postage costs (I suspect that small packet of figures gets around pretty cheap, but a loco and cars in HO or HOn3 won’t.)
So I think the OP’s idea is an interesting one, just needs to find the right format or group to make it work.
Flat rate box’es are cheap! Like a medium flat rate box’s that will fit a Walthers box and fit packing all around. Its domestic rate is $11.35 at the Post Office, so that’s less then $25. I know people who spend that in coffee each day.
Thank for sharing! Yes doing a full train would cost a arm and let, but I am asking one person for one car! Cheap! That’s the problem no one trust anyone, and everyone is to cheap anymore lol
And if a poor college kid like me is willing to spend, and ship one of my cars, anyone can.
For the past 3 years I have participated in a nationwide car interchange with a small group of about 8 modelers on another forum. A single car from each modeller went out and did the circuit and each month we post photos of that months visiting car. On the final month all the cars end up back with the original owner. This worked very well for 2 years amongst a small group that had become quite well acquainted through the forum. Then some newbies joined in and the whole thing went awry. Cars were not being shipped on time and it all rather went sour. Now it is not to say your idea would not work, but it seems to me that you would really need to stay on top of administering it. Also, there is one thing sending an old Athearn kit off to some strangers, a whole other story sending a complete train. You would have to be very trusting that the recipient was both honest and careful.
That’s what I am looking to do, this is not everyone’s cup of tea excursions, we really do not need that many people. Just 10-20 people to have fun… seems like it be fun. If you could have a car in real life, and run it on a excursion what one car would you pick off your layout? The mix of paints could be crazier then when Amtrak started lol
I don’t know, I thought it be a real fun thing to do, and people be up for it… but I guess rails don’t like trying new tricks. Just seems like a lot of paranoid old men worried about other paranoid old men stealing their stuff [(-D]
I was assuming that the person who had the cars mailed to him/her would also be responsible for mailing them to the next destination - wherever that is. 20 pieces of weighted rolling stock could weigh quite a bit more than the $11.35 domestic rate postage you quoted - i.e. assuming that everyone is domestic.
Since I’m not one of those who drinks coffee; nor would spend that much for the caffeine rush in a day’s time, that’s still a chunk of change for me. I would also have to know the majority of the participants before sending something from my layout that I could part with if it either got damaged or was lost in the mail. I guess I’m not willing to do that at the moment.
Lastly, not paranoid nor old - just cautious and wiser for it. [:D]
In another web forum I have seen the much simpler variant of sending a dedicated car on a tour of member layouts, with people posting pictures of car visiting their layout.
Takes a lot longer than you think for the stuff to get shipped on or back, you get some breakage, and on one occation the tour someone (a eenager, not a paranoid old man) just dropped out and stopped responding to emails, holding on to the car instead of passing it on. It took literally weeks of efforts by the tour coordinators to finally get through to the kids parents who made the kid return the car.
You want to add the additional flourishes of having people competing for the “honor” of receiving a random bunch of cars from strangers, run them as a train on their own layout, and then returning them to their rightful owners.
Lots of work for the layout owner, some cost in postage, some risk of conflicts - people claiming that the layout owner broke or lost their car or failed to pack it well enough for the return shipments - for very little gain for the layout owner. That’s the obvious negatives.
What are the potensial positives? A video of a train consisting of a random jumble of cars running on someone’s layout.
That people point out some pretty obvious challenges with your ideas doesn’t necessarily make them paranoid
This would become messy and costly to mail as the train gains cars and especially if some of those cars are up to RP20.1 weight.
Food for thought.
1.If the cars goes missing in the mail the last modeler would be on the hot seat in several ways to include those that doubts the cars was even mailed-even with proof.A ugly scene could raise its ugly head.
2.Breakage-we all know how accidents happen and how a package can become a “air supply drop”.
3.There is always that broken link that takes weeks or months to mail the cars to the next modeler on the list.
4.Heaven forbid but,what becomes of the cars if the modeler that has them has a untimely demised?
I’ve seen this tried on other forums with “forum cars” and at one point nobody seem to know the car’s whereabouts or even who had it last…
It may well be fun, having already participated in a similar thing, it is very nice to see your own model on a well done layout that you would otherwise not see. It is also fun to try and be imaginative with the photos and story lines that develop around these visiting cars.
However, there are very real issues that crop up. These things need to be sorted out ahead of time and included in the “rules” that you would need to develop and administer. What a about couplings for example? Would there be required standards? Now I realize that by pointing this out I open myself up for further ridicule.
I have never understood why someone would post an idea, ask for input, and then insult those that reply just because the responses don’t fit in with what the OP wants to hear? You asked for folks to “hear you out”, the least you could do is the same for the responses.
Model Railroader did something similar to this, I believe in 1984 for their 50th anniversary issue. They created identical models of a Milwaukee Road Hiawatha with 4-4-2 steam engine and cars, and sent them around the country to be photographed on the layouts of several prominent model railroaders of the time.
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