What do you typically do with the new products you purchase? Do they go into use right away on your layout or are you building a fleet for a future layout?
Please vote then share your comments below.
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I take it home, put it on my work table, and check my email. That’s the best, most reliable way to contact me… About 2-3 AM, I may decide to start assembly. (Life’s great for a teenager in summer with good friends, good habbits, and good hobbies!)
This is more an HO poll rather than an N poll since almost all rolling stock is RTR in N. Also if you are only a percentage of your layout being built while you buy items, its difficult to answer as some will be put to use right away, others may wait. I do know that many individuals that build items are “hoarding” items to be used latter on the layout.
The way I build is to buy stuff and store it until I get enough to complete the scene I invision. Actually the way I do it’s not listed, I buy, build, and store, but I DO have a layout. Just not the part that the part is part of. I used the word part three time in on sentence. Wouldn’t my Engli***eacher be proud?
I am currently building my first HO layout and a new purchase doesn’t stay unbuilt for too long, so the finished model ends up on my 22foot long test track for a few weeks, before finding it’s way back into the box.
The reward for nine years of work by my friends and me is the ability to put a new car, loco or vehicle to immediate use. Structures or scenic items may be delayed a while, but now I’m purchasing for specific use, not a future dream.
I agree with hegulley. You don’t know anymore if you’re going to be able to keep finding an item that currently for sale, so you buy it for the layout you are going to build. Someday.
Agreed. I do build for NTrak modules, but most structure kits are saved for the home lay-out (whenever that may be…). Rolling stock usually gets built and run at the first available opportunity!
I’m still in the process of building my layout, but the main line is done so & can run everything I buy right away. So I would have to say I’m somewhere inbetween buying & using to buying & storing as most of my stuff is still stored in boxes unless I want to see them run.
I model N-scale. Started my 4x8 layout about 2 years ago. As I continued buying things and adding them to my “vision” of the Burnshirt Valley Rail Lines, I discovered I had made a fatal mistake. I started by setting grade, laying roadbed and track around the outside edge of the layout. Now, I can’t work on the track and detail I want in the center areas, without damaging what’s already done!!
Solution: Out come the wrecking tools…and conversion from a 4x8 table to an around-the-wall layout, no more than 2 feet wide at any point except the end loops.
Ah. yes…A modeler’s work is never done!
I am a homeschooled teenager with plenty of time on my hands. Most of my rolling stock are standard Athearn kits, and most of my motive power is standard Athearn locomotives. I put together the cars ASAP. I usually run the locomotive around a few times before I install the had railings.
It’s simply not as simple as the four possible answers you guys have designed into the pole. And being rail nuts you surely realize this. Why? We (all right, I) buy stuff for all sorts of reasons. Most, say 67%, I certainly buy for assemble and immediate use. But then the layout gets mostly up and running. The buys shift to rolling stock (a chronic, long lingering and certainly fatal disease the Ediors carefully avoid in print, probably to let us die peacefully rather endure pangs of whatever sort or recourse to a 12-step group.)
One buys for gratification, right? We already have a full-string fruit express, but an aching need for just one more ore car to flesh out a decent size unit train (and what is right size may stretch over time, right??). so that’s buy-assemble-use.
But the industry knows we Crave. [:D] So they run one-time-only-or-you’ll-never-see-it-again limited (only three containers, hey) runs. And local club, organization and memorial labeled runs are out there, too. Maybe buy to protect against want, whether its ever built &/or used or not.
Finally, there is a sub set of the buy and hold group. That’s the guy/gal who buys to amass the most extensive inventory of rolling stock kits as gillions of boxes set up in endless book cases.
Really, finally, there’s also structures, scenery, people & critters (that last a really weird sub-sub group of critter collectors dotes on maxing out the critter population HIDDEN in plain sight on a layout. Lot more 'n four categories, really.
With so many “limited run” items out there today, if you think you might need it, you must “buy it now” otherwise it might not be around or easy to locate when you really do need it.
It varys quite a lot. Some things are bought, built, and put into immeadiate use. Others are bought and stored until they are needed.Limited run locomotives, if they are going to be needed later have to be bought when they are available as do some freight car kits in certain schemes. The result is quite a bit that is stored but that will be built someday. I have a layout which is still under construction so time must be split between building kits and making progress on the railroad.
I currently store most everything I buy. I had a layout, but moved and have not started my new empire (or workshop) yet. Even when I had a layout, I could never seem to keep up with all my purchases. Besides, I like to have several projects going at the same time. It helps me avoid boredom and frustration. I purchase mostly undecorated kits too, so you often have to grab 'em when you find 'em! [8D]
I voted for future assembly and use. That’s primarly because a number of my purchases are either limited run or produced in batches with no assurance of when the next batch is coming. I work in S scale and while there is a lot of stuff available at any given time, it is not always the same stuff. Of course some of the items I purchased thirty years ago in HO scale are still kits, a little later in O scale. Some of these like the old Central Valley kits (not the same as the current Central Valley) are collectors items. To me they are future projects in case I decide to change scales again.
Enjoy
Paul
Right now, I’ve got a very, slightly used diesel engine that I just had to see work, so I tried it on a couple of pieces of snap track to test. I don’t have a layout yet! I’ve also got a brand new doodlebug, undecorated, that I’m trying to get up the nerve to paint. These are both N scale! I’ve even got a new airbru***o use when I do it and a bottle of frisket to keep it straight! I’m still trying to decide which RR to model aftrer, although I’m pretty sure I’ll go with Rock Island - my used engine is of that livery!
I belong to a club which I use HO scale for when we have shows. etc.