Just list whatever engines you’d like to have in your roster, but be at least somewhat realistic. Don’t just list every locomotive you can think of. You’re list ought to proportional to your layout size.
I only have a 5’x9’ layout in HO, so I only need about four to eight locomotives at the most. I also have only freight traffic on my layout, so I don’t need any passenger locos (although I do have a few Athearn heavyweight passenger cars that I use every once in a while). I also model Union Pacific during WWII, so my roster would look like this:
switching:
Bachmann Spectrum 2-8-0
or
Stewart Hobbies VO-1000
or
Life Like Proto 2000 0-6-0
(I might get two of those three)
freight locos:
Athearn Genesis 2-8-2
Bachmann Spectrum 4-8-2 (the only locomotive on my list that I currently have)
Rivarossi 4-8-8-4 (this is probably the one that I’m least likely to actually get)
or
Rivarossi 4-6-6-4
or
Athearn Genesis 4-6-6-4
or
Lionel 4-6-6-4
El Parro, our layouts are about the same in total area.
I would like to include in my roster:
-Rivarossi Grayhound FEF-3, for the Gray UP smoothsiders I don’t have yet. [xx(]
-Rivarossi SP AC-11 Cabforward, for my SP heavyweight passenger train and PFE/ATSF reefer block. [:D]
-BLI SF 4-8-4, for mixed freights and the reefer block too. [^]
-Proto NKP 2-8-4, as a visitor from the east. [:p]
2 x Allegheny’s
1 x 2-10-4 either a CP Selkirk (Brass) or a C&O 2-10-4 by Broadway
2 x 4-8-4 Canadian National Northerns c/w Elesco Feed Water Heaters
2 x 2-8-2 CP “Mikes” c/w Elesco Feed Water Heaters
2 x 4-6-4 Hudsons, one CN one CP
1 x 2-10-2 CN T2a
2 x 2-4-0 CN c/w Elesco Feed Water Heaters
2 x 0-6-0
Me needs are modest:
0-6-0T for yard work
2-6-0 for mixed use
4-4-2 For high stepping
2-8-0 for heavy freight work
Perhaps a Russian decapod, although not strictly era appropriate I’d like to try my hand at rolling my own boiler to really put some weight on the wheels.
My eventual goal is to scratchbuild all my motive power, not simply superdetail existing locomotives.
I leave the really big iron to the kids with the 18" inch radius questions[banghead]
Randy is very right…small layouts with BIG locomotives invariably leads to frustration for those attempting that combination.
Yes, hobbyists have every right to try and run big rigid-frame units and even articulateds around industrial radius curves…as long as they do not expect good appearance or good operation.
Conventional wisdom ( ie: in the hobby press), has always stressed the use of short equipment on tight radius curves.[:)]
regards,
Mike
Hear, hear for short equipment and tight radius curves!! It’s not how long your locomotive is–it’s how well you switch it!
dream roster, for my planned empire, which will take up about two-thirds of an 8x16 garage, and quite possibly about 20 square feet of my living room:
Sacramento Northern:
Freight equipment, including yard switching duties:
2 General Electric 60-ton steeplecab electrics
2 Baldwin-Westinghouse Class D steeplecab motors
1 homebuilt SN 420 heavy boxcab electric
2-3 assorted SN wooden box motors or flat motors
Passenger equipment:
3 Niles passenger motors, pref. at least 1 combine, 1 passenger motor, and 1 observation car
1-2 Hall-Scott passenger motors (labeled for later Maintenance of Way use after end of passenger service.)
Central California Traction, freight equipment:
2-3 electric box motors, including 1 forner Cincinnati & Lake Erie all-steel box motor and at least 1 of their old wooden motors.
This would be added to pre-date and supplant the current 1953-1967 roster of 44-ton and 70-ton GE diesels (and a recently added SW1) on my current layout. Note that about half of the above is available in long-out-of-production brass, the other half will have to be scratchbuilt. So even though there are quite a few locos there, I’m not too worried about overloading my layout anytime soon.
If I had infinant money:
HO
3 Trix Big Boy’s
2 Rivarossi Big Boy’s
2 Rivarossi FEF-3’s (one in dark/lightgraphite and one in grayhound)
1 Lionel Challenger
1 Athearn Genesis Challenger
1 Rivarossi Challenger
2 IHC 4-8-2 Mountains
2 Trix ALCO PA’s
1 (whatever makes it) UP “Big Blow” Gas turbine
1Proto 2000 Fairbanks Morse
2 Spectrum 0-6-0T’s
4 Spectrum 2-8-0’s
UP M-10000 Streamliner
And a few E’s and F’s (ex: E6, E8, F3, F7…)
But as of now this is impossible. (where the heck would I come up with enough money to buy 3 Trix Big Boy’s!!!???[:0][:D])
Well I just posted my loco roster on another thread in this Forum. This is the stuff I already have. Thankfully, the list is almost complete, though it took the better part of a dozen years to acquire it all for the railroad I’m modeling, The Chicago, Burlington & Quincy in the late 1960’s.
Consequently, the list of diesels I need to complete my roster are, thankfully, on a much shorter list:
E5, A & B units (and strictly speaking, the last of these were off the property by, IIRC, 1968)
how about 20 AC4400’s, 10 SD9043MAC’s, 40 SD40-2’s, 10 GP40-2’S, 10 chopped nose GP9’s, 4 M636’s, 10 C420’s all in CP livery of course.
2 - 4-6-4 Royal Hudson’s, 2 - 2-10-4 Selkirks, 4 - 4-6-4 Hudson’s including 2816, 2 G4 Pacific’s & 3 G5 Pacific’s
All four D&H PA’s, 7 D&H GP38-2’s & a D&H Challenger.
Is this too greedy?
In N-scale:
Micro Trains FTA and -B in B & O livery (want)
Model Power Mikado in B & O (want)
Model Power Pacific in B & O (have)
Kato F7A & B in B & O (want)
EM1 in B & O (want)
In HO scale:
Kato F7A and B in B & O (want, as I have several Athearns)