Ya know, there comes the rare time where ya just gotta clean up and clean out. I did this in my garage just a few days ago, just got rid of the junk I don’t need, or just tired of dealing with. Even if it can be fixed but I’ll never get to it. Very liberating!
Well, the layout has it’s share of poor runners, permanently shelved projects that I cringe when I look at, clutter I just don’t want to hassle with. Crusty looking vehicle projects I botched years ago, or too cheap looking to ever be on the layout still eating space, or leftovers from eBay scores. Plus little random boxes of parts that weren’t good enough to use when stored, much less now.
It started out slowly, a bottom drawer of outdated clunky noisy amp sucking beater locomotives and other broken items that I honestly know I’ll never update or repair. These are so outnumbered by good runners like P2K and Kato, what’s the point in wasting time and space?
The more I weeded out the better it felt, this just frees up storage space and eliminated visual clutter, both on the layout and the work areas
Finally after some lubing and tuning, if the ones I’m indecisive about still dont cut it, (making clunky noises and running poorly) stop putting it off! (Gotta do this while im in the rare mood)
As in the garage blow-out, by the time this can is emptied out, I won’t hardly remember junk I got rid
Wow, can I come over grab that pail? Looks real interesting to me. All of the locos alone look like stuff I would use, or take a second look at, like the Cotton Belt loco on top. Looks like a far better quality motor and drive than a “blue box”. As long as I’m able to enjoy and work at my hobby, I’ll keep what I think is relevent and usefull.
My idea of junk, is the Tupperware storage container I have full of old “train set” quality freight cars. But then again, I picked through it a while ago, and found 4 more tank cars that I can use.
If a loco or piece of rolling stock does not fit my layout plan, I sell it on eBay. If it is defective, I note that in the description. If it is beyond repair, I toss it in the garbage instead of setting it aside. I toss unwanted structures and sections of removed track work. It makes no sense to me to leave such stuff set aside with no intent to use it in the future.
Spring’s a great time for decluttering and reorganizing. Yes, I’m guilty of starting/stopping projects. Keeping things organized and clean is a constant challenge. Thansk to others, I have a list of projects that I want to handle.
Spending some time cleaning and organizing is more important to others. I guess to each his/her own.
Looking at the discard pile in image 1, I am surprized you tossed what looks like a perfectly good crane boom (unless the hidden side was melted in a solvent accident or equivalent mess), and didn’t attempt to salvage those wheels/tires on those road vehicles - unless they were completely toy-like (a featureless disk with a hole for a metal axle, with no hub or thread detail), those are always useful (hard to tell from the image, but the wheels seemed OK on the orange truck).
OTOH, yeah I can see tossing crude/damaged rolling stock & motive power, especially if the details like horns and handrails are too crude to bother with - I’ve done it myself.
I also have useless junk. Broken steam locomotives, diesels, and freight cars. I try to hard to place them in the trash. But the other side of me tells me not too.
That’s a hanging offence here too. I have a pair of Xxxxxxxx F7s (A&B) that seldom made a full loop on my mainline between major repairs but they’re still sitting in my bummer bin box on a shelf after 15 years.
I bought them new and they’ve never been worth the power to blow them to Hexx but they are still there.
Here in my little kingdom train stuff is train stuff whether it works or not. It took me over a year to get up the willpower to sell my Bowser UP Big Boy on eBay and I still miss it. [:‘(][:’(][:'(]
It was the only locomotive that I couldn’t disguise as being Southern Pacific so after 58 years I sold it. It was a beautiful running locomotive and I felt it should be on a UP layout somewhere it could run an play like the rest of my locomotives.
When we moved to Bakersfield in 1987 I did toss the HO steel rails and Atlas Tie Strip leftover from my 1951 shelf layout.
When I was a teenager back in the 1960s, I had an HO layout built with brass track. I saved that entire layout, including boxes of junk from back then. It was just last year that I took all those boxes of brass track to a train show. I found a dealer that sold the stuff and gave it to him. Not sold, gave. It was worth nothing to me, but someone will buy it and be happy, and a small businessman (he was about five-foot-four) will make a small profit.
I am with you on this. Hate to have anything around that cannot be used, or is not worth collecting. Some junk piles are not even worth the effort to ebay. I am no longer afraid to use the trash can.
