What???
The Hogwart’s Freight and Ferry exists outside of time. What do you think they ran in the 1880’s?
jecorbett,
Your summary is exactly what I have gone through! I have decided that I will let the equipment dictate the future of my railroad…allowing me to whittle it down to a beginning time frame of about the late 60’s through the early 80’s. I know that it will require a little artistic license to get away using the Empire Builder paint scheme for the GN as they probably had switched over to the Big Sky Blue by then. It will also allow me to use the most select 40 foot boxcars as well as the 50’ and 60’ cars as well. I own about 100 ore cars as well as 96 coalporters, so there are plenty of opportunities for unit trains (loaded and empty) to pass through the layout. The plan is slowly being narrowed and finalized…
Thanks!
Don Z.
Texas Zephyr, I was just gonna say words to that same effect, about the truss rods and graffiti mix.Spacemouse is indeed a fitting handle.[:-^] However the overpopulated storage area of the originalposter leads me to repat my mantra.“Must Stay Focused,Must stay focused,must stay focused”.
Spacemouse ,I wish I were as creative.
reklein,
Your statement is one of the things I wanted to convey to people just jumping into this wonderful hobby…with proper planning, you can prevent yourself from making the same mistakes as I have.
Don Z.
We buy what turns us on- but ultimately, we have to deal with REALITY of limitations.
WE all have limits: Space - Skills - Money -Time.
(1) WHAT kind of railroading turns you ON? (2) HOW can you accomplish that?
PASSENGER trains need wide curves to Look and run right, Think 36"r - 44"r around the room or a dogbone along walls into 3 corners.
Real RR’s do 10o curves and #10 switches and @ 10 MPH yet. ONE really doesn’t need anything wider than 18" - except for loops.
RAILROADS pick up and deliver things - trees to sawmills, sawmills to lumber yards, Coal mines, to power plants and coalyards, grain to silos. etc.
Perishables are shipped to packing houses and warehouses, then trucked to restaurants.
Running in an oval every 12 -15 seconds gets old in a hurry. Picking up loads point A and deliver to B uses brains. Pick up and drop a car, throw switches, back in, head in is work, except not if it’s your hobby.
Want to just watch trains run? OK, just build a circle.
Blessed are they that run in circles, for then they can be called “wheels”.
Unfortunately many of us, myself included, Buy. Buy and Buy again till we wise up.
Jim
Wow, over 1000 collection. I am sure you treasure every piece of them. Perhaps you might want to consider these: 1. Stop buy and evaluate what you have. 2. Decide what you want to do with them - keep or sell them and use the money for your layout.
Although I do not have a vast collection like you, I am focus in what I want to model. I am looking into modern era diesel freight and passenger services. The small collection of 30 locos and other rolling stocks may still fit the modern era.
I agree with some of the comments that the next step for you is PLAN, PLAN and PLAN. That’s basically what I am doing now. I have joined forum and get manuy brilliant ideas from the experienced guys. I have read materials from Kalmbach - mags and books as well as from the internet. I am now putting all the planning ideas into a blog so that I consciously remind myself what I have (givens) and what I want (druthers). Most importantly, it is time you decide where you want to go. Begin with the end in mind.
Jimmy Low
Kuala Lumpur, Malaysia
http://mytrainmaster.spaces.live.com
lots of good replies so far so i’ll just add a little
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it’s your railroad , if you feel like running something because you like the way it looks , it’s allowed !
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if people never bought stuff and then decided they didn’t need it , ebay would have died long ago (remember when ebay was all just people trying to sell their stuff rather than ebay vendors ? )
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a 4 inch wide shelf around the walls of the train room just above head height can hold a lot of excess rolling stock . just lay some track on it , or even put down roadbed and ballast to make it look nice
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if you’re new and just getting started , plan plan plan and focus focus focus !
It would seem you may have fallen into the same pit as many other model railroaders in assuming the more “stuff” you have the better you are at the hobby(1000 pieces) how could you possibly use 1000 cars? either in a layout or even changing cars once a month, I would think building even a preliminary layout first, then purchasing rolling stock would be the route, just a thought-----with my 30 pieces of rolling stock. I see some of the writers suggest e-bay or some other source of thinning out your collection.
I fell into the habit of purchasing cars knowing that someday I would be building a layout. We own a large piece of land out of town, and I had dreams of building a 40x60 foot building for my layout. Well, life, work and money had other plans for me so that didn’t happen. In the meantime, I continued to buy rolling stock when I found something I liked. Since the cars were going into boxes in the closet, it was easy to forget the sheer number of cars I had collected.
Once I started working on building my layout at home, admittedly without a lot of research or planning, I started to discover that the wide variation of stock I had purchased would make it difficult to develop the railroad I had in my mind.
Trying to build a generic time-based and generic scenery-based railroad in an effort to hide time and location so I could run whatever cars I owned and have the train look prototypical is well above my level of knowledge and experience and I accept that. This realization is where the decision to pare off the rolling stock that doesn’t fit in to my fantasy railroad. I’d rather have a layout that looks and runs as if it really could have existed even if in reality the two roads didn’t interface. At the least, the equipment that runs will belong together.
Don Z.