My GF gave me a “train” clock for Christmas. Every hour, there are choo-choo sounds, whistles, and crosssing bells with flashing bells. On the hour, it goes off, startling me with its sudden sounding. This is something I will need to regift.
About a decade ago, my father gave me a similar gift except it was more complicated by having a short train circle the clock. Clock met dumpster. I was less socially conscious then, and less malicious.
Mark
I wouldn’t say I’ve ever received an irritating gift. my family knows what era I model (actually provide them with a favorites folder on the browser of which cars I’d like). Perhaps the most irritating was a Bachmann train set I received for my birthday when I was maybe 9 or 10 (this was before I discovered atlas, Kato, Intermountain etc. locomotives are excellent runners and the fact that those $30 bachmann locos weren’t worth $5).; The F unit didn’t work, and I got that set for the loco. Went to Hobby Lobby and exchanged it. Was annoying the engine didn’t run, but I asked for the set and appreciated it.
As to clocks, I have a railroad clock, though it is broken. However, the clock is round, has I believe a b/w photo of a steam engine on the clock face, and instead of numbers has different RR logos. Unfortunately one of the hands is broken, and the mechanism may need some work as well. someday it will be fixed. Think it was a present when my littler of my little sisters or my little brother was born, lol.
Sorry, I can’t help you.
I have never felt the need to go into a public forum and whine about a gift that someone who cares about me gave me in good faith.
Hi!
While I “trained” my children and wives (2) to understand that I am crazy about certain RR stuff, and abhor others, and for gifting occasions I will happily provide a “wish list” well before said date.
Even my Mother knew to get ideas from me beforehand, and then she would call Des Plaines Hobbies and have them ship stuff to me. She did this well into her '80s!!!
However… I have a sister 6 years older and another 6 years younger (both live up north) and they only recently have come to understand that I am not nuts over everything with a “choo choo” on it.
In example, about 15 years ago my older sister had Marshall Fields send me a large size ceramic beer mug with a hinged top, that had a European loco on top in pewter. Now I personally have no love for European trains, and that beer mug was well over $100. Two years later I got two wall hangings in stone, each in the outline of a simple type loco. Again, this was a fairly expensive gift.
For my birthday last May, my younger sister sent me a 1993 Walthers catalog she got at an antique store. Goodness knows what she paid for it. The funny thing is that I had sold 4 old Walthers catalogs on Ebay just 5 months earlier!
Now don’t jump all over me for being ungrateful. I certainly said my thank yous and all the oooohsss and awwwwwws that go with it. And, I still have the gifts. But gosh, it is a waste of money and I would have so much more enjoyed a gift card or the like!
Hey, at least I’m not the Lone Ranger here!!!
Mobilman44
Hey! Lighten up! This is all in fun. I AM NOT whining. I don’t depend on gifts for my happiness, but I do like to chuckle if not laugh.
Check the title of your thread. Sure sounds like whining to me.
My wife did right this year. She gave me a BLI Santa Fe 2-10-4, an AMB Santa Fe branchline combo kit, and a Branchline 50’ Pennsy boxcar kit in my stocking (Special Edition). All I got her was some nice jewelry. I should’ve got her one of the new Athearn UP turbines and the sound kit to go with it!!
Mark, I have no less than three clocks of various styles (plus one necktie) that make that “chime.” On my clocks, the sound unit is powered by a separate battery, so you could mercifully disable the sound and still have a functioning clock.
As for the tie, well, let’s just say I’ve not worked up the courage to wear it to church just yet…
Jim
Pretty much the same here. Then I disovered P2K locos could be bought for less than the LL/bachmann trainset stuff.
Gotta agree with Phoebe Vet on this one - whether you call it whining or mocking, it’s not exactly in the spirit of “it’s the thought that counts.”
I once got a pocketwatch with a steam locomotive on the front… I believe I was 9 at the time. WHAT were they thinking a 9 year old would need a pocketwatch for?
Ah, Smitty, you are a true Renaissance man. I’ll bet she would have been ecstatic with the turbine.
I, on the other hand have a Lionel clock that erupts in sound every 30 minutes. I keep it in the office so it can be seen by the giver every visit. Along with the pug coasters, note pads, pens, and can koozies. Crap, they aren’t even my dogs!
This sounds like one of the Lionel clocks. One of our club members brought it to the clubhouse and hung it on the wall because his wife said either it goes or she goes. It is extremely irritating to everyone except the person who brought it.
We take the batteries out that run the sound effects and hide them.
That’s my clock’s current status.
Mark, check the bottom of the clock or the back I bet it has one of those switches that makes the sound go silent, I know the one my wife gave me does…lol She was all bummed out that the sound stopped working I didn’t have the heart to tell her it was driving me crazy and as close to crazy as I am I don’t need to be driven it’s a very short walk. I finally did tell her about 5 years later.
My nut-job of a father insisted on giving me something really cool one Christmas no not when I was a kid only about three or four years back, like I’m still 10. Well It was a Spectrum J-class and he bought it because it was the nicest looking one in the show case. I told him he should have saved his money and boy he should have. It turned out to be the locomotive from hell. Well it seemed like the little Chinese guy who assembled it had the drivers out of sink on one side so the drive rod on the one side would actually lift the engine right off the rail causing it to just fall over on it’s side like the guy from Laugh in on the tricycle. It took me over six months to finally get it replaced from Bachmann who kept insisting that it was my track work and the curves were too tight etc. So I finally get a new one on the mail come July or so and when dad comes to visit he wants to see it run.So I bring him down in the train room and it’s pulling a half dozen passenger cars around and I tell him the whole story and how they finally replaced it. YOU MEAN T
My family learned to ease off the train gifts. No complaints here.
I had a crazy Christmas decades ago when I discovered a HO scale tanker car with assorted candy colors like a rainbow all over it. Followed by a Tanker car with coke in red and white with 6 axle trucks and so forth.
That little collection became fodder for repainting weathering skills later on in life.
Years ago I had a bachmann engine of the older standard (NOT spectrum) line and boy, it ran poorly, pulled nothing and failed to stay on the rails … for the money it would have been better to hold off and get a brass engine with a can motor. In those days they were everywhere for not much more.
No whining here, I have not whined about a gift in decades. My spouse hands me the checkbook and cuts me loose once a year into the hobby shop.
Mine wasn’t a gift per-se, unless you count it as a “gift to myself”-- but one year I was bidding on ebay for GG-1’s… and got into a “GG-1 frenzy”… and didn’t notice when I bid on one particular GG-1… and won it by handily out-bidding all of the other competition-- and received it-- only to discover it was the dreaded Tyco GG-1… that incredibly detailed and fantastically accurate model of the Pennsy loco we’ve all grown to know and love so well…
(… and I paid good money for the privilege too …)
[(-D] [swg] [:D]
John
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Mark, check the bottom of the clock or the back I bet it has one of those switches that makes the sound go silent, I know the one my wife gave me does…lol She was all bummed out that the sound stopped working I didn’t have the heart to tell her it was driving me crazy and as close to crazy as I am I don’t need to be driven it’s a very short walk. I finally did tell her about 5 years later.
My nut-job of a father insisted on giving me something really cool one Christmas no not when I was a kid only about three or four years back, like I’m still 10. Well It was a Spectrum J-class and he bought it because it was the nicest looking one in the show case. I told him he should have saved his money and boy he should have. It turned out to be the locomotive from hell. Well it seemed like the little Chinese guy who assembled it had the drivers out of sink on one side so the drive rod on the one side would actually lift the engine right off the rail causing it to just fall over on it’s side like the guy from Laugh in on the tricycle. It took me over six months to finally get it replaced from Bachmann who kept insisting that it was my track work and the curves were too tight etc. So I finally get a new one on the mail come July or so and when dad comes to visit he wants to see it run.So I bring him down in the train room and it’s pulling a half dozen passenger cars around and I tell him the whole story and how they finally replaced it. YOU MEAN THAT’S NOT THE ENGINE I BOUGHT YOU! whats the matter with you don’t you appreciate anything you have to go and exchange gifts people buy you. (This is why we call him Crazy man, Frank Barrone ain’t got nothing on dad.
I am by far not a Lionel guy, never even liked em all that much as a kid but one day just before Thanks Giving after getting out of the hospital after suffering a sciatic attack my little guy comes running down the hall yelling daddy daddy look what we got you in Walmart. yup you guessed it a Lionel T-shirt. K
Y’mean you actually counted 'em?
Several years ago a family member gave me a telephone in the shape of the Southern PS-4 “Pacific” steam loco. Nice looking but the first time it “rang”, I nearly jumped out of my skin-- with it’s “Chinese” RR sounds (whistle, bell, chugging). The batteries came out of that very fast! [:D]
Dave