What the heck, we may as well cover all the bases! When: You model a terminal road to justify every road in the US on your layout.... You stretch eras by 1, then 2, then 10 years to accomodate certain locos..... You build removable scenes so you can backdate or update the layout from 1920 to 2007.... You post a sign saying that "Its my layout, I can do what I want!" or "First criticism and you are outta here fella!" And?........
You leave a consist running all weekend, the first time purposefully, the next time forgetfully. You time laps while refusing to touch the throttle. Your bad runners are yard queens. You never take a loco off the layout except for maintenance. You never take one branch because the switch in that direction is iffy. Many of your trains have never been switched. You like Uni-mate couplers. Many of your Kato engines have that dry bearing screetch. Some of your Atlas engines have the same screetch. The siderods have fallen off some of your steamers. You never clean the track. You cheat on timeframes to run locos 10 years out of your era. You've added electrical pickups on the real bumper of a Bachmann Docksider 0-4-0T to make it run better. You've had a train run into a beer bottle left on the track. You build auxiliarly tenders to help your Atlas 0-4-0 shifter run. Your recognize an early Atlas FA-1 runs at exactly the same speed as an Atlas Light Pacific on DC power, so make cheater boxcars, until the Light Pacifics burn up. You try to kitbash a DD40X into a Baldwin Centipede (oops, that goes into the completely nuts thread). You can fabricate an eccentric rod to keep a Rowa 2-8-8-2 running. You buy a Con-Cor 4-6-4 that's been painted with housepaint because it's a good runner. You spend $20 on a decoder for a $20 loco that really doesn't run well, but is the only 0-6-0 available. You design a trackplan without a crossover, or any complicated trackwork. All this, and more!:tb-biggrin:
You run 40-foot boxcars in the same train as stack cars You have "conversion cars" so you can run cars with Rapido and MT couplers You keep the cheapie Yugoslavian junkers as scenery fodder in a scrapyard What- doesn't everybody have Hershey's, Coke, or Christmas booxcars? The POC freight cars you bought on a whim wind up filling yard tracks You fit the shell off one locomotive onto a similar-looking (but fine-running) chassis You make up some story to justify why your railroad has so many models of locomotives from so many builders (remind you of any real railroads??)
Your Lockheed skybox cars are being pulled by an RS-1. Your 40’ wooden stock cars are being pulled by an Sd 90.
I'm generally a proto guy... When you buy a couple F45's, whether or not the road you model used them, just because they are so darned cool! They are being tested in high-altitude on the D&RGW, as a possible purchase... The GN units being tested will be kept for a while...
Good answers! I think we all have a touch of "run it all itis" which is much nicer than having a touch of the flu.....the medicine for it can cost a lot more, though!
... your railroad has worked out a complicated leasing scheme that includes all other railroad companies and even time warp
..........your standard answer when anyone asks you what you run is "Trains". ...........your layout has generic scenery, around a generic town, with generic locos and rolling stock, running an indifferent schedule, in an unknown time frame. Dave.
Concerning scenery etc., I will try to do exactly this. Because I am running both American and German models on the same layout. There is a German style town, and an American town in the works. For industries it is not that a big difference, so my layout contains lots of industries. So far, it is mostly "neutral plywood".....
Do you find yourself tempted to have white rolling stock and buildings with bar codes? //Hmmm, neat idea, definitely have to put that on the "to do someday list"
You know when you have to buy a large shelving unit from Home Depot to store your spare locos and rolling stock.
