I only have about 20 locomotives, or, more specifically, powered railroad devices, including trolleys and subway trains. Really, it’s enough, and my layout is dual-era, Steam and Transition. I have a few dummy diesels but I don’t count those. I have no powered dummies.
My only recent engine buy that didn’t fit my road and era is a GG1. I model the Milwaukee, but dang it, I had a Lionel O gauge GG1 when I was but a wee lad and I had to have one. I have no plans to buy any more engines. If someone produced one of the Milwaukee electrics like the Little Joe or the Bi-polar, I might get one, but the DCS-equipped ones from MTH don’t seem worth the trouble.
On the subject of promoting domestic tranquility, I remember a show I went to where one dealer as giving out sub shop sandwich bags to bring new engines home in and disguise a 2-6-4 as a large meatball with cheese.
I think that was me being quoted. I guess I meant powered unit.s that are not fully functional controlling locomotives, like an F7B.
This unmaintained forum software is really difficult to use on my tablet. They dump more advertising on us all the time, and the whole thing at the bottom of the page is not train related, so it just annoys me.
I don’t quite know what to say, Mr. B. When I first saw your reference, I was willing to give you a pass. I have a few powered locomotives that I have referred to as “dummies” or worse, but those words cannot be printed on this forum. [:$]
That does lead to an interesting question though. Do we count an A and B unit as two locomotives or one?
I’m going to start counting each pair of F units as one locomotive, after all that’s how EMD started marketing them. I have a set of Intermountain FP7A and F7B that won’t even couple to other locomotives or rolling stock, even though they come apart to be boxed. That for sure counts as one locomotive. I added a matchning F7B and usually run them together… and my C Liners look great as an ABBA.
Makes more room in the roster for fresh acquisitions. Overnight I’m down to under 40 locomotives from over 60 without selling anything. Good thing because my new pair of Genesis AC70 just arrived (now counts as one new locomotive) and I am expecting (the second coming of) my Rapido Ten Wheeler which will count as one, regrettably.
Mr. B, I had that problem (pop up ads) as well on my IPad. Taking a suggestion from Randy I switched browsers from Google to Safari and downloaded the app AdBlocker Plus. Since then I haven’t seen one ad. If you use an IPad give it a try.
Ya, I wouldn’t bet on that. There’s always newer / better engines coming along. Even engines from 20-30 years ago may not be all that great compared to newer versions of the same type of engine.
BTW I’m building a layout designed to rotate time frames, roughly from late steam era to early 3rd generation diesels…so roughly 1930s to 1990s. If all your engines are from one era, say 21st century, you could always start getting engines appropriate for earlier times.
Say you model BNSF now…you could start getting BN engines so you can model the same location, only in 1970s-90s. If that works out, you could get some GN engines and add the 1950s-60s era.
Course then you have to buy more era-appropriate freight and passenger cars. How about some steam engines? Hmmm…
I get excited and sometimes buy too much more than I should. For a multitude of reasons that maybe are better left out of this discussion, I realize that I only really need about 8 good engines to operate my railroad.
I tend to have a favorite engine, or group of the same engine model, such that others don’t get run much at all, and can easily be sold.
Right now I have about 30 extra engines for sale, some on consignment at a local train store now owned by my friend.
I find train shows are the worst place for picking up excess items. They are a mine field for impulse buyers of which I am one. I’ll find an interesting item at a very reasonable price and decide I have to have it even though it doesn’t fit the theme of my railroad. I was just straightening up my storage shelves and came across two such purchases. One was a set of 5 Rivarossi heavyweight B&O passenger cars in Pullman Green with interiors. They are really nice cars although they would need a few upgrades. The problem is it would be a stretch to have a B&O passenger train anywhere on my rails. The other was a Pennsy lightweight diner and kitchen dormitory cars. If it was a coach or sleeper I could work them in as through cars on one of my passenger trains but not these. Besides the passenger cars, I have several structure kits gathering dust that I picked up at train shows without giving a thought to where on the layout I could put them.
I have 10 RTR locomotives and 5 locomotive kits in S scale standard gauge and 1 RTR in Sn2. O scale 2 rail I have 5 RTR and 2 kits. O scale 3 rail I have 4 RTR. On30 I have 5 RTR. HO I have 9 RTR and 4 kits in standard gauge and 4 kits in HOn3. N scale I have 2 RTR.
For a total of 47 plus maybe 4 or 5 more that I have forgotten about. These have been accumulated over the 50 years I have been in the hobby.
For my current S scale layout under construction 9 of the locomotives will be used - although the other S scale locomotives may make an appearance from time to time.
I also have a test layout where I set up temporary tracks to run all the others from time to time.
I have a fondness for small steam, but I have already bought all that are/were available in S scale (as opposed to S hi rail) over the last 25 years or so that are not brass.
But I will buy others in S or other scales as they appeal to me. I enjoy the collecting part of the hobby as well as the operating part.
Call me crazy for only having three N&W locos–two for the main and a switcher one for the yard. I def need more. Too bad it’s near-impossible to find a decent priced N&W loco without sound included.
I am at this juncture or more aptly Junction. My solution is dot build 2 display cases for the excess and rotate my engines. I was trying to stick with late steam transition period and early 60’s but I’m beyond that now with no chance of clawing my way out of this hole.