how do you veterans do it? do you just pay the $15 per car and have a string of 30 of these cars on your layout? thats a heavy 450 ! just wondering if theres something im missing or maybe i just have to suck it up if i want a decent length coal train. some of you guys with 50 some cars are quite impressive, not only in the spectacle in the image produced from the layout but just the sheer cost! or maybe most of everyone here is retired with some money to burn...any advice for a college student other than mowing lawns haha?
I'm not sure if there is a specific prototype your wanting to model, but for instance Union Pacific runs some of its coal trains with a mix of car types and roadnames. If your interested in that style of train you could probably pick up an assortment of cars on ebay fairly easily, and save a lot of money. Just a thought.
From my experience I can tell you that the number of cars or the layout for that matter didn't happen over night. Due to the sheer cost of it. But that is one of the nice parts of this hobby to me; building it over the course of time. And enjoying the trip along the way. Of course there are always those that have Big disposable income, but in this economy I would think that number is small to say the least.:tb-wink: PS: Never worry about trying to keep up with the Jones, unless your name is Jones.:tb-wink:
Keep an eye on the auction site, I bought my first coal train that way fairly cheap, about $8 a car for around 40 LBF cars. Others I found at train shows for about %50 off retail.
I think, for the large majority of us, we don't run 30 to 50 car trains. That may be possible on club layouts or large modular setups, but it would look foolish ( or, be impossible ), on most home layouts. I have a room size ( 9 x 9 x 10 ) "N" scale layout, and my trains average about 12, to 18 cars at most. Poke around Ebay, & hit train shows. You'd be surprised how many NICE $5 cars you can find. Since I have caught flak in the past for naming retailers, try a certain well known "used" dealer in Denver, he always has quite a few nice cars. They can be had for the looking.
Not all of the 'veteran' model railroaders plunked down large sums of money for their consists. The problem is that the hobby has drastically changed over the past 30 years [mostly the last 10 yrs]. I began in N scale in 1982... 28 years ago... and I certainly was not a 'deep pocket' model railroader... more like shoe-string budget. Back then... you could spend less than $3.00 on a piece of rolling stock because they were mass produced and were on store shelves for years. That would eventually cause deep discounting to move merchandise... which is when I used to get a bunch of stuff... usually by mail-order [now superceded by e-tailers]... and postage for parcels was cheap too. Things aren't like that anymore... we can to get 35-40% off of MSRP... but those MSRP's have skyrocketed over the past decade... due somewhat to lower volume caused by 'built-to-preorders'. While its good for manufacturers and probably the hobby stores... its causing a lot of angst with folks that can not make room in thier budget to get limited issued items. On the good side of all of this... we are getting a much broader variety of N scale products and with superb detailing. As mentioned by a few above... patience may be a virtue of new model railroaders with limited funds. Some of us 'old-timers' will retire our older models which are being replaced by newer more detail ones... usually by selling them on eBay or swap-meets. Since we got them cheap to begin with... we probably will not be to concerned about what we sell them for... usually less than $5.00 a car. A few years ago I sold-off several older Atlas, Roco and ConCor stuff for about what I got them for. NOW... if you're looking for us to sell-off our Bluford, Intermountain or Trainworx hopper cars... you're going to have to deal with severe 'sticker shock'...
Just look at the inventory of a large shop like woo woo woo woo woo woo and sort by price: Atlas coal hoppers for $ 6,99 and $ 7,99, hoppers from Bowser for $ 8,99, or a 5-pack from Athearn for $ 39,99. These are good cars for an affordable price.
Shop around for prices and do what you can with what you got. Before you know it those 5 cars will turn into a train you won't know where to park. I was in my late teens early twenty's (about 10 years ago) when I started with just 6 Trainworx D&RGW quad hoppers. Although I haven't purchased any in about 5 yrs now, I have about 80 of them now...all were kit form too. I also had the extra expense of MT trucks too. All that from my small wages of being a auto parts delivery driver, and NO, I didn't live with mommy n daddy either. Get what makes you happy, don't settle for less and realize it might take some time and alot of $$. The manufactures are almost always making more #'s of the same cars, so don't get bent out of shape if you miss a few, there'll be more.
yea i guess patience will pay off. i was thinking about doing a UP lash up. but i do like the seamless look of a BNSF coal train...but even those arent always all uniform. i guess i dont have to be 100% prototypical. thinking about a SP SD70 + UP AC4400 leading just to mix up my collection a bit + 20 cars :tb-wacky:. thats unheard of when i have tuition to pay. lol. i only shop at MBklein when i have a mass order otherwise shipping kills the deal and i might as well get stuff on ebay or something. i gotta hook up with some swap meets in my area (san francisco). havent done my research yet to see where and when they are
San Francisco you say? College student as well? Well that makes two of us! I haven't seen any info about any train shows coming up, but if I do, I'll be sure to let you know. There's been quite a large collection of freight cars at the last two shows I've been to. Of course I was only looking for cheap loco deals and passenger cars, so I didnt really give freight cars much more than a glance. Another thing about swap meets, if you find the right vendor, you can cut an even cheaper price if you buy large quantities. They may offer your coal cars for 8 bucks a piece, but say the vendor has 10, they might cut it down to 50-60 for the lot.
Patience can be a virtue when it comes to looking for a fleet. keep your eyes open at these sites. Marketplace here atTrainboard, ebay, N scale Yardsale in Yahoo Groups and also N Scale Supply has a really good used n scale site. I recently picked up over 50 older C&O hoppers for $3 a piece. Cut off the rapido couplers and added MT 1015s and darkened the wheels.
When I place an order at woo woo woo woo woo woo or the English webshop Model Junction, I order 1 or 2 coal hoppers to fill up the 'empty space' in de box. Result: I have a nice and growing fleet of hoppers.
Your best ally in putting together a large fleet of rolling stock is time. I never purchase stuff all at once. Instead, its a matter of getting a few items each month and let time build the numbers. I have two 40 car coal trains that cost from $500 to $600 for each train. But I purchased them over the span of 2 years so it came to less than $50 per month. This did require some work with ebay as the same items are not always available for more than 6 months at a time. Two year may seem like a long time to wait, but that was about 8 years ago and I have gotten a lot of enjoyment out of the trains over that time. Just figure out what you want, check its availability and be patient. Daryl
(1) Set eBay search alert to e-mail you, search for "UP Coal" or the like (2) Hit the swap meets and train shows. While not COMMON, I've come across coalporters for $5-8 and Atlas 90T hoppers for $3-5. (3) Think quality, not quantity. Yes, the long coal drags look great at shows. But as has been mentioned most home layouts can't handle that. My home layout standard is to handle 21 coalporters. Sure, it doesn't look as good as a longer train but it gives the impression of a coal drag. It takes about 9-10ft of passing siding to handle that a train of that size. I've found that around 27-28 cars is where the train really starts looking "long" on a larger layout and if I had "unlimited" space I'd still only probably do something like 36 cars. My thought is...if I have the time and money to get to the point that I drive the golden spike on a layout that can handle 36 cars, I probably can afford to buy the additional 15 cars at that point. (4) If you're going the UP route, look for the Kato CHTT bethgon 8-pack. They are "filler cars" on many UP trains and will look good mixed with the yellow UP cars. I have seen them at good prices ($8-10/car) over the years and they're good cars. If BNSF, well they run trains with ALL KINDS of cars so you can mix and match any BN or BNSF schemes and still have a pretty prototypical train.
I have an extensive collection of coal hoppers and I have to say it didn't happen over night I had to get them over time. I have C&O, Chessie, U.P and CSX I started by buying them anywhere I could find ebay, LHS, online hobby store and train shows. It took me months to get all of them, I have a small budget for my trains so I don't spend huge amounts of money on my trains, but if I extend it over time I can do just fine.
I have 150+ coal hoppers, and like several others have mentioned they were acquired slowly over several years. The exception to this is my Inland Steel unit train. I bugged Pat for 3-4 years to do the INLX livery on the trainworx quad hoppers, and he finally relented and did them to shut me up. Since that was going to be a once in a lifetime chance to get those I bit the bullet and bought 80 of them all at once. Thank goodness for overtime at work! The other 70+ hoppers I have are the Atlas 90 ton in various roadnames, but mostly L&N, Clinchfield, Seaboard System. I just watch the Trainstore ads, eBay, clearance sales, swap meets etc and have managed to get most of the Atlas hoppers for less than 8 bucks each. Mike C
Not much to add, but I agree that most coal trains have a mix of even the Coalporters and it seems like the private owner cars are often on sale at many outlets, as most focus on a clean UP or BNSF train. With Athearn just announcing a new run of Coal Porters, maybe the old ones will go on the block to get rid of some stock, so your timing may be good.
My "addiction" is grain hoppers. I have more than I can put in my yard. Like the others they were accumulated over time. When I had to stop buying I told myself - "they are just plastic things" which made me feel better as I watched more pretty models go by. Don't get caught up in the "I have to buy now or will never have another chance" that the industry wants you to feel. Even if you do loose out there will be something else when the time comes, well, hopefully.
Another thing to consider is that if you try to fill a roster a couple cars at a time, the shipping eats up any savings on the cars themselves. To find the nice cars like Kato, Trainworx, etc. at a dirt cheap price is very rare. I don't know if you are of thinking of getting nice cars for $3-5 each, but unless you get real lucky, it probably won't happen. The retailer that you mentioned earlier regarding shipping has Kato Bethgons in BNSF Swoosh for $69.99 for an 8 pack; their shipping is not unreasonable ($7.20 for USPS Priority to my house in Nebraska). Buy an 8 pack once every 4 months and you will have a 24 car train in a year.
