I stopped counting cars and just count dresser drawers now. So far I'm up to 3 with more stuff stacking up on shelves. Addictive little buggers they are. Brain
I don't believe there is such a thing as having to many locomotives or train cars. Unless they are of a former era needing MT or other conversions,,, to get rid of the pizza cutter wheels and Rapido couplers. Then it might be worth it to liguidate or donate the old stuff to a unsuspecting fool. Grin! Storage could be a problem. I tried to fit everything I own onto my pike / layout and there just isn't room...not going to happen. I reiterate (In case you missed it the first time) "There is no such thing as too many engines or train cars", I and others have proclaimed. Have fun! .
I can't even begin to guess how many cars I own. I recently had thought of selling off my coal car collection. I counted over 500 BN/BNSF and 50 UP/CMO's. I have way too many cars all different styles and a few different era's. I would say that 90% of them with Micro-Train couplers and wheels under them. My wife and I today joked that if I sold off my collection on Ebay they would make a killing on me. The kids will have to decide what to do woth the train collection when I am gone. That will give them something to do.....lol
I too am in the process of repackaging cars and engines, some 70 power units and around 300 cars. Bob
N-scale 2000 freight cars 200 plus diesels 200 plus steam HO scale 500 freight cars 20 diesels 50 steam F scale (20.3) 55 freight cars (AMS) 14 steam (4 brass) The N scale layout will hold 600 plus cars in the staging yard. The yard at Oroville will hold 840 cars in just the yard and the yard at Partola whe done will hold around 800 cars also. Rodney
I asked my 3 year old grand daughter if she thought there were too many cars on the layout. She pointed to a siding and said there was still more room right there! I can translate that to: "If you can still see track you don't have enough trains!" I'm not sure I agree with that but I sure have too many.
I certainly don't have ENOUGH cars! I am embarking on loosely modeling the C&NW in the 1960's in 10x10 in N-Scale, yet I have only 3 engines and 7 cars to my name. I have a few others, but they are old and not converted to Micro-trains couplers (although there are a few tankers that desperately need converting). None of the engines have correct road names, and some barely fit into the era I'm modeling. My dad has about 25 N-scale cars, and 6 engines. 5 out of the 6 are C&NW, so I guess that's a start. I still don't even know if he'll let me use them on the layout, though xD None of the engines have converted couplers yet, though. So, in total, with all the cars I have, I might be able to fill up two of my yard tracks. There happens to be 5 of them, 2 modeled towns with spurs, an Industrial area with 7 spurs, and 4 track staging... hmm, I'm going to need a lot more cars...
I'm probably close to 500 cars these days. With at least half of them being Rio Grande coal hoppers of one sort or another! Have not bothered to count locomotives, so I have NO idea how many I actually have. And a 2x4 foot layout just isn't big enough!! Not enough wall to display stuff either. Gotta stop buying/trading, or thin collection. Either one ain't gonna happen!!
The thing is that a lot of modelers have way more power units than freight and passenger. Sort of a visual of 20 locos lashed up pulling 10 cars with 6 more locos in the mix as mid train helpers with 6 more behind the caboose as pushers. Now I tend strongly toward F units and all powered. Those are run as 3 or 4 unit lash-ups. I also run most of my other diesels as at least two units for power. Just figuring on the cars needed at the industries, as either empties or delivered loads, I'm going to need around 300 or more cars just to populate the new layout and provide lots of activity for the locals in switching. Plus those locals will be bringing in more cars to exchange so that adds some more to the total. Then there are the run through freights coming from the east or west and off the Oregon Trunk. Most of those will be at least 50 to 60 cars behind either big steam or 4 unit Fs. If I follow prototype that means about 250 more cars for those run through trains. So right now I have about 600 cars which will pretty much fill my running needs. Logging operations are separate since they will be used in captive service between the woods and the sawmills. As of this time my logging fleet numbers about 100 cars with about 40 more in camp cars or other logging related cars. I have enough passenger cars to run 6 trains on the main and two on the branchlines and the Oregon Trunk or about 80 cars in all some being mail and express. So other than for some cars that I build and the few I find that fit my era I probably won't add more than about 10-12 freight cars per year to the total. The only exception is my foray into some Burlington stuff and picking up some of the new MT heavyweights as they come out. I have pretty much a complete set of both Empire Builder and North Coast Limited and they are more of a collectors thing than actually running them. I need to add maybe one or two cars to each and will be done. I only need 2 to 4 cars from each road to run in the SP&S Streamliner with the rest being SP&S.
Wow, now I don't feel so bad. I probably have 100 cars (50% are C&O coal) and about 20 engines. I was worrying I have been spending too much
I have about 400 passeneger cars and maybe an equal amount of freight cars. Like Russell Straw says, "the freight cars are scenery for the passenger trains" I think I have about 60 locomotives. Randy
I have 6 DCC-equipped engines, 3-4 more that will be upgraded to DCC, and probably 5-6 more good runners that I no longer have a need for and will be unloaded soon. The freight car fleet is around 80, with about 40 more that aren't appropriate for the era and so will be sold off. I'm building my layout in stages, so the number of engines and freight cars on hand is only slightly more than what I need now, and pretty close to what my needs will be next year. If the layout gets to the size I'm dreaming, I could see a need for at least 20-25 engines and 175-200 freight cars on the layout, plus an additional 20% or so to mix in for variety. Also have about 15 passenger cars, nearly all of which need new trucks/couplers (not currently modeling any passenger operations). I could eventually see a need for up to 40 passenger cars. Jim
I have been buying N scale trains for 30 years. Bought Atlas 90 ton hoppers when they were $1.75 (discounted) Atlas engines were $40-45.00. Managed to accumulate a lot of stuff mostly hoppers because as we all know one can never have too many hopper cars. But I never counted it. All I knew was I had less than the other guys in the club. Moving into a new house necessitated getting all the stuff together. It was a real eye opener. I didn't realize the amount of stuff I had. So I decided to forgo any new purchases and to do with what I had unless, of course, someone actually made some PRR steam. So now I see that boxcars are up to $32.00 and gons going for $25.00 and even when discounted they still require a chunk of change and I'm glad I was able to put the brakes on when I did.
At one time I had over 250 cars and 25 locos and no layout to run any of them on. I have since reduced my rolling stock, both locos and cars to a more managable amount. However, since then I have probablly bought another 25 cars or so. My ideal goal would be to have my entire roster able to fit into my display case and carrying case, which would total about 150-160 pieces. I still have some more liquidation to do.
