If one had to keep only 110 of both Passenger cars and Freight cars, what era legnth and road names would they be? Yes, this includes Cabooses... Tom
Not realistic unless you basically have a very small layout with a few industries. By the time I would place cars for pick-up or loading at the various sites I would eat up about a third of that number. Six or seven small freight would eat up that number and one of two longer through freight would reduce it to about four trains. Four passenger trains would eat into it considerably. And every freight gets a caboose and again that becomes a number not feasible for my projected operations. I have about 800 freight cars and some are maintenance of way while others are logging and as such are not in regular running. My ratio of cars to locomotives is about 26 to 1 not counting the logging stuff. If I have one area I can reduce it would be in my passenger cars and locomotives.
I only have 40 so far, so I will keep them all. They are all modern era mixed freight cars still in service today.
Here are some of mine. Kato CB&Q Silver Streak Zephyr - 6 cars Kato Orient Express - 7 cars Kato Glacier Express - 6 cars Kato UP Excursion Passenger - 5 cars Con-Cor Pioneer Zephyr - 3 cars FVM Hiawatha - 5 cars Hobbytrain Railjet - 3 cars Athearn White Pass passenger - 2 cars Athearn John Deere - 4 cars MTL Log cars - 4 cars Red Caboose Autoracks - 10 cars MTL Cabooses BN & BNSF - 2 Intermountain BNSF Trinity Hoppers - 10 cars Kato Bethgon Coalporters BN/BNSF - 12 cars
This is made easier by the 'new' plans for the Grey and Grandure. Hmmm. Passenger: All of my bullet train sets - 30ish cars Several 'olde' passenger cars to go with my Model Power 4-4-0 My Hiawatha train set - 8? Question: For the train sets do I have to count ALL of the cars or can I have a pass? Question: If I turn older passenger cars into apartment complexes do they count? Freight: Most of my higher quality modern grain cars - 50 give or take All of my CP bright red bathtub gondolas - 12 I think A mix of my higher quality other freight - boxcars, gondolas, tank cars and such All of my Atlas beer can tank cars - 30ish, (they are small and should count as 2for1) All of my Atlas 70ton ore cars - 30ish, (they are small and should count as 2for1) All of the cars that have been gifts over the past few years - 5 or so from ♥My Love♥ and her family Question: If I keep boxcars for use as storage sheds and restaurants, (remember that steak house chain?), do they count? How about tank cars for um, storage of some liquids? I would sell off / give away: Many of my cheaper / Atlas Trainman grain / covered hoppers All but 3 of my Saskatchewan grain cars My sulfur unit train - 12 cars My Atlas / Trainman 40' CP bright red box cars Quite a few of my flat cars Most of my cabooses Anyway, I think I made the cut.
I used to love going to the Victoria Station restaurant. I was just reminiscing about it a couple of days ago...
Quite a few of these threads lately...sure if you are just starting out or have a very small layout this is easy. For me, 110 cars, including the caboose, and the 10 engines, well, 108 coal hoppers, caboose, 5 locos on the front and 4 locos on the rear with a fuel tender, there, 9 locos and 110 cars...so I now have one train...and a spare loco.
I'd barely scrape out with being able to keep my whole fleet. As for roadnames any of the Pre BN roads counts, I'll work my way to getting Foreign cars eventually.
Considering, I might have a 110 cars total, I would have to say I'd keep them all. Sorry, I just can't help myself. And yes, I do have a small layout, 42" X 72", single train operation.
Why should I worry about this and waste time thinking about it? I'll just keep all of my cars. Now, time to go down to the train room and work on my layout.... Cheerio! Bob Gilmore
Anyone who has dabbled in model railroading has done so with love of his or her layout and equipment. To ask that person what part of their domain to give up....wellll let's just say.....SCREW THAT! We all earned what we have want to enjoy it for as long as we possibly can. I for one will pass from Mother Earth as a railroader.
To all of those that have chosen to participate in a positive manner to these threads, thank you for your input. These threads are meant to generate a little thinking, a little discussion and most of all, just something fun. To those of you who have chosen to participate in a negative manner, seriously, why do you bother? Are you too good to play, have too much money, like to brag too much, don't want to think, aren't capable of thinking, etc.? I won't name names because forum rules forbid personal attacks, but you know who you are. Take your negativity somewhere else. Peope who are interested in these threads don't want to read it. I am sure I will flamed for this, but that is OK.
Dave, While I have not participated, I certainly agree with your sentiment regarding negative participation. It serves no purpose and is not welcome by the majority of the members of TB
Dave and jtomstarr, My irreverent participation in this and other threads of a similar nature is meant in good humor. It is the answer I would give if sitting around a table with a group of friends sharing a favorite beverage. I would not be surprised to find that most the folks whom may be perceived as 'negative' feel the same way. I expect their 'negative' comments were tongue in cheek. With 7200+ posts since 2004 you can be sure I'm not here to cause trouble or be perceived as negative in any way. No, I don't take threads of this nature seriously. I truly interpreted the intent as a 'fluff thread'. You truly wanted onlyserious replies. My bad. You both hereby have my word I will never darken your majestic threads with levity again. For what it is worth in my threads folks are welcome to be upbeat, funny, silly, irreverent and ya, off topic. It is who I am. It is what I do.
However as mentioned in a previous post, these threads only seem to bash those of us with "lots" of equipment. I am not too good to play, nor have too much money. I just have lots of rolling stock because one day, I'll have my dream layout, which will include miles of trackage, and run multiple trains at once. For me, personally, 110 cars is less than 10% of my total rolling stock. So those of us saying that 110 or whatever number isn't reasonable, we are generating discussion. Just because its not the same direction you want, its discussion. So regardless of how much thinking I'd do, I'd lose almost 95% of my rolling stock. Sure if I had a small switching layout, and no plans to ever add to it, 110 is fine. But I run often on NTrak layouts, so even without my dream home layout, I can still run long prototypical length trains. So its quite easy to run multiple trains over 100 cars in length.
Dave and jtomstarr, I for one, am not going to flame you. However, just because I choose to not participate in a totally negative fantasy question, and state such here, does not mean I comply with any of your assumed negative traits. What does "Are you too good to play, have too much money, like to brag too much, don't want to think, aren't capable of thinking, etc.?" have to do with not wishing to answer a negative question that requires negative thought and wastes modeling time? Seriously, why would anybody want to fantasize and comment about what cars they would be FORCED to do WITHOUT?? Or, only having a certain amount of cars permitted to them? Sounds like a totalitarian nightmare to me, and I really would rather not conjecture as to what mechanism might be responsible for limiting me, or any other model railroader, to only a permitted amount of cars, or engines, or anything else. How can anybody construe me or any other model railroader wanting to keep ALL of our cars as being "negative"? Or me stating that I'm going to go work on my layout rather than sit and fantasize about something negative that has no basis in reality (and I hope NEVER has any basis in reality) as a negative comment? In the end, it's YOU who did the flaming, and, as you'll note, I have said NOTHING personal about anybody's character here, as opposed to your decidedly derogatory post. +1 to Grey One, and Ike... R. Gilmore
