"You have enough/too many trains."

It's funny, the family members who keep telling me "That's too many!" when they themselves are hypocritical packrats. I need a bigger family of enablers.

 

It helps that my Dad passed the train passion down to me. and its going down to my sons as well.
But ive always done what ive pleased no matter who says what about it.

 

Hah. My g/f told me today: "It's our layout not theirs, they don't like it, there's the door, don't let it him them on the way out." That made my day

 

I think that I have enough when I have enough and not until then. Sure I have some cars that I will never run but they are for collecting purposes only. The rest of them and the locos will operate at some point in the future. But until then I keep buying what I want and need. I dont get much of a fussing over it as long as all bills are paid and it stays in the train room.

 

Hi all,

My other half told me I had too many when I had 5 locos and a dozen or so cars and more than two tables of T-TRAK modules. I now have ten locos with DCC and a few DC locos, heaps of rolling stock to go with it. However, I am trying to keep the theme nailed down. Now if I can get a CPR 2-10-4 Selkirk in N scale, I would be very happy.

I have friends and aquaintances who ask me "isn't model trains expensive?" . These days I related the cost to something they can appreciate, like "about the price of a couple canoes" or "mountain bike", something I know they spend money on.

Cheers

 

HI,

I have too much, I admit it.

I have slowed down purchasing in the past few years. I may buy a car now every 4-6 months and a loco about one a year. Can I have all of my collection the layout at one time NO! But I am not parting with any of the cars, or locos, or buildings, or ...

Have a GREAT New Year,

Gary

 

If we want to be totally honest regarding the question posed, while it is somewhat a matter of perception the reallity is that nearly every model railroader today seems to own around five or ten times the amount of equipment that he/she actually would require to fullfill their model railroading/layout needs and intent. Many have no layouts at all, just vast accumulations of equipment unlikely to ever turn a wheel.

Especially over the past dozen years or so I've observed that for the great majority of hobbyists model railroading has become much more of a collecting hobby than one about building a realistic layout that truly represents what real railroads do. This is, of course, great news for the maufactures, but it does not represent the original intent of the hobby as it existed for many decades, when the amount of hobbyist-owned equipment was in more reasonable scale to the sort of railroading being modeled.

NYW&B

 

In my case, when I was able to participate actively in the hobby before personal circumstance forced a hiatus, I would bring some of my cars down to my club to run on the layout, having made sure they met the club standards first, and were checked by a Standards Committee prior to being cleared for operation on the club layout. So my stuff - at least the cars - got some track time.

My interest in the hobby lies in operations, an interest further reinforced by my time as a freight conductor for a large Eastern railroad, so I make it a point to make sure my equipment is roadworthy.

However, I sold off about twenty-eight percent of my roster in 2010 chiefly as a "rationalization" of sorts, in light of my planned switching layout's focus. The majority was sold via eBay, and consisted of cars I'd bought before my switching layout was even a gleam in my eye, because they caught my interest for some reason. Even with this sale, however, my fleet still runs to about 240+ cars and engines.

However, my mother STILL thinks I have "too many trains," and advocate that I sell off some more...to the order of ALL of them. (She has never agreed with my interest, either as a hobby or career.)

But to get this thread back on track (no pun intended), have any of you had the experience of a family member who believed you have "too many" trains, and have even advocated/pushed for you to get rid of some of them? I'm not talking about sarcastic comments about a bunch on one's workbench.

Dieter Zakas

 

I have had no such experience, but I still think your mother is telling you something about what she feels is a defect or deficiency in you. She would rather see you do something else, something more constructive (this might be what she would use for a term, I'm just guessing). Maybe she worries about your social life, or lack thereof? Perhaps she feels you are too single-minded and that the trains amount to everything you are when you are not at work or eating, or sleeping. You should, if you are interested in my advice at all, consider her 'meta-message'. Her words read by an observer might suggest one thing, and perhaps that coincides with what you take from her words, but I think there is something more going on. She is worried, or vexed, maybe both, but she is certainly disapproving to a healthy extent about what you do with the bulk of your disposable money and time.

I am sure you realize you are not alone in this. I think most responsible men who indulge themselves in this hobby (cuz that's what we do...we indulge ourselves) work hard at keeping it under control, both in terms of the temporal and financial resources it can easily command, but also in terms of the neglect of other social and objective responsibilities that most men face in about a couple hundred other non-toy train ways. I think your own choice of aphorism in your signature is telling. You understand that what you have chosen as a passion is something taken to be weird, and it smarts. If the person the most critical shares a domicile with you, whether mate or parent, you are likely to begin to harbour resentment and a couple of tons of self-doubt.

That's my last two-cents worth. Good luck to you when you finally decide to plunk it all on the kitchen table and deal with it the way it plunks.

 

The first part I agree with, but I'm not sure that one really has choice over one's passions. Surely the definition of passion is something that swings you by the ankles and smacks your head against the wall.

 

Mike, most of us have a number of passions, some concurrent and some in succession, and some recurrent. The point is that our time is finite, both when passing and when eventually past....or 'up'. We often tend to lose both ourselves and perspective when one or more of our passions succeeds in co-opting our time and other resources to the point where other people express resentment or reservations, perhaps even genuine concern. I will agree that we don't have much control over what gets under our skin, or what makes our hearts flutter.

I hope I won't cause too many eyes to roll when I resort to a passage in the Good Book that is somewhat relevant. In Matthew, he says, "Lay up for yourselves treasures in heaven, where neither moth nor rust can corrupt, and where thieves cannot break in and steal them. For, where your treasure lies, there lies your heart, also." We all have our treasures, and in them we place our hearts. Trouble is, others find our hearts there as well. I wouldn't be the first person to suggest that a person who places their heart largely or wholly in their material things and pastimes is probably missing something important that he won't appreciate until it is much too late.

I am not intending to sound judgemental because I don't know our friend, or his mother, or their circumstances. I don't have the whole picture, not by a long shot. However, just as a gut check, it is sometimes worth one's while to look up, look around, and to take stock of things that are moving past unnoticed. I would admit to being single-minded to the point where my wife has openly objected to the way I approach some projects. I appreciated her honesty and courage at raising the matter, rather than keeping silent and boiling over at some point. When I tried hard to look at my situation objectively, as much as I could, I realized she had a legitimate concern, and told her so. That allowed me to take a breath and to consider my path forward from that moment on. I wanted it to include my wife.

 

Thank you Crandell for bringing up the Bible quote. Some people are obsessed with THINGS and that isn't healthy. My modeling is just this , a hobby, a meens to have fun. There are certainly lost worse things to spend my money on ( been there done that! ) . As long as I am able to make my finincial responsibilities , my family is alright with me spending a bit here and there on my hobby. And yes I probably do have more equipment than I need, but I don't forsee me not buying something I like as long as I can afford it. Therefore do I have too many trains??? NOPE...LOL.....Mike

 

You mean like me tuning an eclipse to run the same speed as a ferrari and taking break neck turns on an auto cross course trying to post the best times WHILST my Fuel Pressure Gauge is actually mounted in the cockpit (my track approved the work, which I did not do, a tuning professional did)? *innocent grin* yes i wear a seat belt and a helmet.

 

No I don't.

19 engines, 96 cars... Nope, I don't have enough. There are a couple more KPEV engines that I don't have yet. My entire collection fits in a 2.5X3 foot display case, so space is not an issue.. I don't have a layout yet, as I'm working on the benchwork. Just a temporary 16X60" dogbone so that I can at least watch them run. But no, no one's told me that I have too many...yet.
I'm a modeler, not an operator. I'm building my layout so that at the end of the day I can sit back with a cold Mountain Dew in my hand and watch. Sometimes I want a long freight with a big engine, sometimes a short passenger with a small tanker. But everything I have will be run once in a while, just depends on my mood.
If someone comes into my house and criticizes my choice of hobbies, I'll just ask them to carry the garbage out with them as they leave.
My home, my hobby, my rules.
And my girlfriend thinks model trains and layouts are an art form. She gets it, she really gets it.