I recently sent my other half a bunch of emails with links to various locos and RR cars I was interested in for xmas presents. It would seem All I wil get this year may be trains.[wow][yeah]
My other half lost some emails by accidental deletion, so I constructed a new consolidated email with links to everything I had sent previously in one single email for perusal and purchasing options for xmas presents.[:'(]
Since my other half is into trains too, and I already purchased a GG1 that was requested, I am lucky that we speak the same language.[;)]
Then I began wondering. I really have enough to run already in several different eras so I won’t get bored and can swap out eras.
So my question is:
WHEN do you think you will have “enough” locos and RR cars???
Well, I can’t speak for others naturally, but in my case this will porbably happen at about the same time that I quit breathing, until then “ooooooooo, I gotta have that”!!!
There is only one simple answer for my side - never! My interest in trains and model trains is very broad and my “Me Wants” list is more than a mile long, but
I don´t think I´ll be ever in a position to mark off more than the first three items on that list!
I have had enough for a few years now. But I don’t let that get in the way of buying more.
I have, however, gotten more selective and price hikes over the last couple of years may slow me down a little in the future. But part of the fun in this hobby is getting something new and running it around the layout or even just a test loop. So I don’t think I’ll ever stop acquiring more.
The question has many answers. Some would argue that, compared to so many on the planet who can’t get enough food and clean water to sustain themselves, even one locomotive is too much. On the the other extreme, some might say they want one of each kind, or ten…
The majority of us are satisfied with one or two purchases each year, give or take a loco and some cars and structure materials or kits. But, by the time we have ten years of MRR to look back on, that means many of us have hundreds of rolling stock of various descriptions. Even if we haven’t a single inch of track, a power source, and a layout with some scenery and structures, it amounts to several thousand dollars of toy fun. Who can say it is too much, except an authority figure or influential partner/friend who would be able to convince us that we have indeed exceeded our reasonable self-indulgence, or at least its upper limit. Assuming, of course, that we are unwilling to impose such a limit on ourselves.
Really, as is the case with so much about this vast hobby, it is a personal decision.
It’s funny that you made this post as I was ready to make a similar one.
Just this morning at the STRONG urging from my Wife I started to clean up the my area of the basement . What I found really surprised me. There was so much material, details, decals, paints vehicles, etc… Naturally there was a lot of duplication of stuff as well.
As a result I’ve declared a buying moritorium until I get more of my layout finished and use up some of what’s on hand. I have clear pastic containers and marked them with a majic marker. This will work unless I cave in on the moratorium.
But that’s only until I see the next must have item. lol
Why do we want that new camera, or set of golf clubs, or new tool for the woodworking shop, or a new airbrush? If you have an interest in something, acquiring new or more things is just part of the hobby. If I think I have to much of anything, I stop buying or give stuff away to the less fortunate. I rarely sell used things I have. If you have loco’s and cars piled up in the closet or crawl space who cares if it’s what you want.
[soapbox]Not a day goes buy when I don’t think of all the starving people in the world and how the $10.000.00 I’ve spent on trains could have fed a lot of them. Reality sets in and I remind myself that without a diverse economy we would all be a lot worse off. Supporting business like the MRR industry only provides more wealth that eventually filters down to the less fortunate. In short the more hours we work, the more money we make, the more money we have to spend, the more jobs are created. So make as much money as you can and spend it on things you enjoy.
Someone, somewhere will benefit. What is more benefit to an inpoverished family. Giving them the occasional $1.00 to feed themselves for a day or paying them to build model Boxcars for $2.00 a day, everyday. If this carries on, things, albeit slowly get better for everyone.
Totally depends on one’s modeling goals. I will never have enough because my modling interests and goals include things without bounds. I wan’t a model of an Alco PA in every paint scheme created in the prototype. I want a caboose in every variation ever run on the AT&SF. I want a decent model of every named passenger train that ran in the USA (just got the FV Hiawatha!). I want to simulate an NP log train (logroll) aka NW Oregon in the late 40s early 50s. I wan’t fantasy reefer cars based on real fruit crate lables. etc…
Enough is when ones storage area is piled floor to ceiling and there is no space to contain yet one more train. I ened up even filling the isles so it is solid when one opens the door and has to dig stuff out to get to things in the back.
This is a general question with no specific answer, except that each individual must provide an answer that applies only to himself. Both "Gottahavit’ Harry, who lacks track space on his layout for more than a tenth of his roster, and “Mister Uintah,” who is modeling that prototype in HOn3 in one half of his 2 Lear Jet hangar and, since he already rosters #50 and #51, doesn’t even feel tempted by new, improved releases of the former Mantua 2-6-6-2T, are 100% right.
For myself - I actually reached the, “Just about enough,” point some time late in the last century. Since 2000, I have bought a string of four-bay hoppers and 2 cabeese, which will be kitbashed into a pair of ‘no known parentage or prototype’ unit trains for my coal-hauling private railway when the necessary track for their operation has been completed and certified. Any other purchases are on hold until I can demonstrate a need to fill a specified timetable requirement - and the timetable (the prototype’s) is set in stone.
I am not holding myself up as a shining (or dull, dinged and rusty) example. That’s just me. I’m an operator, and I use my rolling stock to operate. If I need some specific item to fill a hole presently occupied by a foobie I’ll do whatever it takes to fill it (including kitbashing that foobie Bachmann 2-8-0 into an approximation of a JNR 9600 class consolidation.) If Mr Manufacturer’s latest and greatest doesn’t find a ready use in my interpretation of Central Japan I’ll pass, thank you.
Let us know how long this lasts Bob. Or putting it another way, when’s the next train show?
I will say that my buying habits became more selective, or at least, more disciplined, when someone showed me an actual monthly list of the inbound and outbound cars for what will be – if i ever get off the darned internet that is – my layout’s biggest industry. It brought home in very forceful terms that I needed 1) way more flat cars of the 53 to 60 ft range and 2) more cars labled EJ&E.
So the lesson here is, prototype research (thank you Tony Koester) can reinforce the fact that … no, of course you don’t have enough …
Can I have enough? Depends on the category, and I believe “enough” can still result in a minor trickle now and then.
Freight Cars: Yes. As the industries can only serve so many anyway. That being said, my future layout is also doing lease and storage. The only other additions would be consist sets for older era engines and photoshoots, but as far a sthat goes I’m basically set.
Locomotives: Depends. Again, for lease and host roads, yes. For museum service and excursion, HECK NO.
It’s fun to buy stuff and part of the hobby. I’m now trying to sell some things bought long ago and newer is better. One of many good things about HO it takes up 1/2 the space of O when stored or displayed along with on the layout. I have a lot of O also.
Well, looking at the situation objectively, there does seem to be a general correlation between the degree of seriousness the hobbyist approaches model railroading with and the amount of “excess” equipment he is likely to have.
Those with a truly serious approach to the hobby, who may model a specific prototype, or build a prototypically realistically but freelance pike, will tend to have significantly less motive power and rollingstock simply because a much more limited selection of equipment will exist that is suitable to his layout’s theme/era. Similarly, the hobbyist appreciates that a modeled representative segment of a railroad would be unlikely to see the full range of the railroad’s motive power, unless perhaps it is modeled as the road’s main shops. Thus, in the case of one-man-operations layouts of typical dimensions (the most common situation), vast collections of locomotives and cars make no sense as excesses quickly become dramatically obvious, unprototypical and thus unrealistic.
Conversely, the closer to the dabble end of the hobby spectrum one gets, the less restricted and selective the hobbyist usually becomes, resulting in multiple purchases of items that would never all appear together on a single segment of a given railroad. Then, too, this hobby segment should also probably include the pure “collector”, as well as those guys that are buying for that future layout they plan to someday build (and likely never will!). These folks really have no actual limiting factors to restrict them, leaving them with a very wide latitude for purchasing what at the moment happens to grab their interest. However, with their collecting spread over countless years and with changing attitudes, it eventually becomes just chaos.
I have to agree with CNJ, at least to a degree. My layout is large, and supports a lot of operation/equipment. But I began to notice that the shelves that hold diesels (most in consists) that are ready to spring into service if a regular loco on the layout has to come off, is beginning to outnumber the regular ones. In other words, I have invested too much in motive power, so I have established an embargo on new diesel purchaes. For example, I got off on a kick picking up Kato SD40-2 mid production units in Santa Fe (I am not talking about the first ill fated Kato SD40-2’s with the no wire pickup system, olthough I did keep a few of them and hardwired them). As I added the latest one to the roster from the mail order guys, I suddenly noticed the sring of these units on the computer was quite long. On my roster spreadsheet I number lines so I know how many of each loco I have. Horrors! I have 41 of the SD40-2’s now. So about half are on the layout in consists at a given time, the others remain on the shelves waiting their rotation onto the layout (that’s what I tell my wife). I won’t even start to talk of the fun of renumbering those Kato jobbers with the thin paint.
So, I buypass the tempting ads by the different shops advertising the units at 119 plus shipping or 130 plus shipping, while Kato wants around 200 a piece for brand new ones, instead I tell myself each night when leaving the train room “I have enough units (and backup units)”.
I won’t even get started on the Exactrail ATSF Pscd grain cars I have accumulated… But, I know I am helping the economy, and my wife never gets on the laptop in the basement…
I am close to the point where I have enough rolling stock and locos to commence the operational scheme I want. I have a couple dozen unassembled kits that will pretty much put me at operational capacity. There are two special locos I want to add, the Dreyfus Hudson and the Empire State Express Hudson. Both are available from MTH and its just a question of when they fit in the budget. I also want to get either a doodlebug or Galloping Goose type railbus for my branch line. Other than that, I have enough locos to pull all my trains, do the switching, and provide helper service where needed. Most of my new dollars will be spent on structures and scenic materials.