The lion's share of my collection fits my era, but... my (constantly in flux) plan for a 1955 Pennsy branch line, which I don't even have the benchwork for let alone track, has already stretched to include a FVM 1935 Hiawatha, a present-day Kato UP 844 excursion set, several billboard reefers, a streamlined K4s with a handful of Fleet of Modernism cars, a WWII-era troop train, and a pair of pre-1900s 4-4-0s.
Also model the ATSF transition era, but when the camera is put away, sometimes have to run the LL GP-20. Ran some of them on the prototype during the six years I worked for the Santa Fe, 1972-1978. BTW glennac, on the run between Slaton and Amarillo, the storage track at Abernathy was filled for a while with wood sided ice hatch reefers. Was told they were used for the onion harvest. By my next trip that way, they were gone. This was about 1975. Robert
My railroad, my rules and stretches of those 'rules.' So, when I finally get a N&W J-class with cars, A B&M Minuteman set or....I'll be happy! Eclectically so! Or, in true steam fashion, eccentrically so!!!
Initially I was looking at mid-50' to late 60's era to 'limit' the locomotives and rolling stock purchases. But... the reality is that I like models of all locomotives which were used in the western US. My guilty pleasure was to add 'reasons' to have several different locomotives used before the late 1960's. That actually caused me to include many western railroads (and the Pennsy for the GG1) which I normally would not have bought. That weakness also led to backdating into the 1940's to include large articulated steam and other unique steamers. Then... we have the D&RGW SD40T2... which I felt I just had to support IMRC for taking a bold move to make. Well that will make a good reason to get 1970-1980 rolling stock... SHEESH... I might as well buy everything put out!! LOL
My situation exactly! That is why the whole hobby is a guilty pleasure. Now I have way more than I can run over the rest of my lifetime......
I model modern era, but I love Pennsy stuff. Haven't collected much, but I have a an AB set of Pennsy F-units.
Are you kidding??? I barely have enough money to model within my preferred era of modeling... and don't even have much of that!!!
Aaaha! Now you have hit on the great limiter of our guilty pleasures! That FVM Hiawatha set, ( or whatever item,) doesn't fit my era or locale or....but, the over-production of saliva being induced by gthe reviews, sight and or sound of it. Well, who needs dinner this week, anyway?
I've done it and probably most of us have at a point or two throughout our hobby time. But I try not to anymore since I know what I'm modeling.
My modeling era is ... roughly last week. My main "guilty pleasure" is I have a (small) collection of 30's era 55ton C&O coal hoppers and a Mallet to haul them with. I also have a small collection of older rolling stock that were either gifts or were bought because they looked cool. I keep them around for sentimental value, and run them as "museum pieces".
So I *try* to focus on N&W in the 50's. That timeframe best fits what I like (A,J and Y class locos everywhere on my railroad...) However I also have created a free-lanced road with all kinds of steam motive power that I just like. Both the N&W and the free lanced road run together as the free-lanced Crooked Creek has rights over this part of the N&W. The upper deck of my layout is all logging, which kind of transcends decades without changing much, so it fits right in as well... The CC has stuff from the 1920's all they way up through the late 50's. There are a *few* token diesels that sit on shelves in boxes that blow way out of era.
For myself I find modeling the SP in the Mid 60s, but I always fall back on WP in 70's with high line pool power.
Fortunately for me... a lot of stuff I accumulated was done before the great recession. I've been on somewhat of a train buying 'diet' for several years now. Speaking of diets... I can use to miss a few meals a week in exchange for trains. BTW... didn't you know that having food to eat is over-rated!
It's all about priorities.....food, schmood! I do have a long list of non-era /locale specific wish list items. Or drool inducers that could, possibly grab a coiuple of meals off my plate. Like a Pennsy K4s with varnish, or.........
I pre-ordered a Shay... And just bought another B&P GP-38 off the Bay in the same week. Sent from the magical mystery box
That "Western Maryland" 2-8-0 is a Lake Superior and Ishpeming 2-8-0 locomotive with a New York Central tender behind it all with Western Maryland markings hung on it. Funny, I have ridden behind it, but I can not remember if it looks anything like the Bachpersonn SPECTRUM 2-8-0 My little brother bought me some Evans Box cars, a LL B&M Gp-38(?) and a LL ATSF caboose. As it was a gift, I still keep it. I acquired some Austrian rail diesel busses many years back for a bashing project that I never did because something better for it came along. I do have some Deutschbahn electric stuff that was thrown in with a trade. I have the Lionel O-27 Warner Brothers train set with an Atlantic, track, transformer and Warner Brothers Cartoon Character cars. GF bought me some extra Lionel O-27 cars for it. I bought the initial set when the Warner Brothers Store was going out of business, so I paid something like seventy-five dollars for the thing. It listed at two-hundred-twenty-something at one point. GF has some AMTRAK stuff, but she likes that because she rode it a few times. She has nineteenth century equipment, as well, because she likes the colorful stuff. I have a two foot by four foot nineteenth century pike that follows no real prototype or decade. All that I want the observer to do is look at it and he knows that it is nineteenth century. I run anything on it from the 1850s to the mid 1890s. The scenery is all from that era including a Wells Fargo Waggon and horse drawn fire equipment.
