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Buying a loco, even if you won't use it?


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Having just watched a Class 70 roll past the window, I was wondering how many people buy locos that they don't really intend on using and whether it's a waste of money?

 

I have a growing like towards the 70 and with it's modern tooling, quite the contender to buy.  Will I use it?  Probably a few times round the layout and that's it.  Will it be a waste of money?  I guess it depends how much I buy it for.

I know there are people who buy locos for display, which I can understand.

 

I can't help but think nearly 100% of the "test run only" are these sorts of purchases where someone has thought they wanted it,  ran it for a bit, then decided it wasn't worth it so re-sell.

 

I'm sort of having second thoughts about my 67 (with sound!) but don't think I'll be able to recoup my money at the moment.  I don't want to make that mistake again and so the 70 remains unpurchased thus far.

 

Anyone else have thoughts about this?

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I don't buy "ordinary" locos that I have no intention of using. I have bought some locos (and rolling stock) for projects that never got completed (or never even started), but that doesn't mean I won't return to that idea some day and give it another go if the mojo returns.

 

I have bought a few specials that are really just for the play value, as I can't imagine myself ever having a layout on which they'd be appropriate, but it's nice to see them tail chasing round the oval nonetheless . Things like the APT-E and the new Hornby Rocket, for example. But they're very much a minority of my stock, and it does have to be something really iconic to justify that.

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Yes, I think we all do it.

Blokes buy model trains we don't need or will ever use. Women do the same with shoes.

 

Unless a HST is likely to be running alongside a GER 1900s 0-6-0 and doing so in North Yorkshire, my purchases make little sense either. So you're not alone.


EDITED for grammar/ spelling, not sure which. Did I really just write by instead of buy? Next it'll be there/their/they're and I shall lock myself in a cupboard.

Edited by Derekstuart
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I bought a Heljan Falcon and some MetCamm Pullmans plus a couple of brake seconds, but have never run them so far. The idea was to move forward a few years from my late 50s era; and have a Sheffield Pullman. 

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I tend to buy particular locos (smaller types of kit-built GWR and LMS [ex-LNWR, ex-MR]) to do particular jobs. I have modelling interests in the middle section of the Welsh Marches, and the GWR/LMS penetration of South-West Wales. However, every so often the red haze descends and I go mad - and buy something huge like a GWR 'King Class'! :O

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Most of my stock and locos are "on topic" with a couple of exceptions, Kestrel is way out of era but I loved it since I saw it in a book I had as a child, and my APT-E has never been on the track yet.  I have no intention of parting with either though!

 

Andi

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I have one type of operating session; prototypical and ‘isn’t that just beautiful’...

 

My layout is an imaginary mining village in a real, but actually completely unpopulated, South Wales valley.  My period is 1948-1958, and all locos here would have been allocated to Tondu shed, 86F.  So, my locos are models of actual prototypes allox TDU/86F in that period, with two exceptions, an NCB W4 and a BR Standard Class 3MT 2-6-2T from Barry.  I buy locos to run a timetable based on the real WTT of 1960 for Abergwynfi, also in Tondu’s territory.  So, I know the classes and quantity of locos needed to run the timetable, but must take into account that locos are taken out of service every 10 working days for about 48 hours for boiler washout, so I must have spares suitable for all types of work on the branch.  That and no more; so the upcoming Bachmann 94xx should be the last loco purchase. 
 

Ever.
 

It won’t be, though.  Trigger’s Broom, an Airfix large prairie on it’s 3rd chassis and currently with a Hornby tooled body which is, I think, it’s fourth, but I’ve had it since 1979(!), could do with replacing and Philou of this parish gave me a Will’s 1854 which needs a new Southeastern chassis.  And I’d like a shot at Tondu’s esoterica, a 44xx and 3100, a 1938 Collett large prairie with a no.4 boiler and 5’3” driving wheels, only 5 built, bit of a thug.  These locos are associated with the Porthcawl branch, though, and were probably pretty rare up in he mountains.  And the W4 needs a deputy. 
 

And then there’s the vague plan to operate the layout with 1965 stock; 121, 08, 14, and 37.  But no more locos after that, honest...  all right, a Rule 1 Hymek for parcels or the odd excursion.  And if anyone comes up with a 116 or 120...

 

I can’t imagine myself buying a loco that is not needed to work the timetable in some form, though, and the same goes for stock.  As far as I have been able to manage, passenger stock is prototypical as well, but some compromises are allowed here, pending Comet improvements. Goods, mineral, and NPCCS can be anything I like so long as it’s correct for period.  I have plenty, but new types and/or liveries will show up from time to time.  The budget is tight and does not allow for siding lurkers or shelf queens; everyone must work for their living. 
 

The NPCCS element is pure rule 1, and because I like NPCCS of this period, as is the loco diagram for it.  The backstory is that one of the industries attracted to the area in the postwar period by government grants is a distribution centre for a Mail Order Catalogue firm, Commonwealth and Mainland Ltd, which is not modelled.  It is rail connected to the branch, but only in one direction so trains have to come up to the terminus to run around.  The job is part of a complex Barry diagram which might see me finish off my Nu-Cast Taff A one day, bit now worked by the Standard 3MT.  
 

All my locos get used on the layout because that’s my way of doing things, but if it’s not yours and you buy locos for other reasons than me, then you will have no censure from the mean inner city streets; it’s your money so don’t let me or anyone else tell you how to spend it or how to go about your modelling. 

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Such has been the pace of new model introductions over the past couple of decades that I really can't think of anything else I need to complete my individual collections, although I'd have to find a way to afford a Class 120 DMU - however even that would have to be one of the nine centre headcode units, I used to see them all the time down in the sou' west so one of the more numerous marker-light units would never do.

 

The one loco I have with absolutely no need for is a Deltic - I've always admired the things (who didn't?) and, prompted by the MLI mag on the class, decided before visiting a large exhibition a few years back that in the unlikely event that I could find a decent Bachmann early version 55020 Nimbus on sale for £70 or less, so I could recreate 55003 Meld seen and photographed near Swindon on a Paddington - Cardiff special in October 1975 and already had the nameplates for, I'd have it..........took me less than 15 minutes, £2 under budget! Sometimes Fate decrees that you're meant to have something :good: !

 

Right now I'm hours away from taking delivery of a Heljan 1366 pannier tank from Rails - like The Johnster's 94xx, anticipated to be my own last-ever loco purchase. Yeah, right........been here before recently, more than once!!

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3 hours ago, Neil Phillips said:

Right now I'm hours away from taking delivery of a Heljan 1366 pannier tank from Rails - like The Johnster's 94xx, anticipated to be my own last-ever loco purchase. Yeah, right........been here before recently, more than once!!

 

File that alongside diet starts monday!

 

Mike.

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Rule one applies.  Many layouts featured in magazines, and at shows (remember them?) Show the absolute correct locos, coaches and wagons for the visualised layout. A good way to replicate s real scene indeed. Respected modellers in books recommend the "stick to what you are modelling". When watching Jon Snows railway, where he set out to create a train of restored carriages, from 1860 to 1960, I was forced to admire his mixed trains, but after consideration - why not? 

 

As said above if you can afford it, store it then do what you are happy to do.

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I think it’s fair enough! I’ve tried to be good these days now the prices are higher so there’s less impulse buying but sometimes there’s just a good loco/livery combination that you like or brings back real life memories so why not! The trains generally go up in value so they seem to be better than money sitting in the bank!

 

There’s a very similar discussion in car circles that regularly crops up with ‘garage queens’, I’ve an almost box-fresh lime green Focus RS that lives in the garage most of the time, costs a small fortune to keep it going and I do less than a thousand miles a year but would I sell? No chance!

 

 

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I model three periods

- BR blue 

- late BR sectors / shadow franchise 

- EWS

therefore theres 2/3 being unused at any point , and some stuff that I don’t have a layout for ( intercity 47 and swallow coaches ), however with prices continually going up I’m glad I have them incase I ever have space for a big round Roundy

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Can't imagine that I will - so far everything I've bought is intended to go on my layout, which is intended to be built some time. But I could see myself buying a loco and intending to build another layout too (where will I put that? don't ask awkward questions!) where it would be suitable, at least without stretching imagination too far.

 

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I have quite a few locos which I bought just because I wanted them - and some of them are even not running on my layout as the radius in the non scenic areas doesn't allow it.

Doesn't matter, as long as I like the locos. So I display one of them in my office, and from time to time I change over to another one. Actual on display is Hornby class 66731 - of course the right choice on a day with Covid19 announcements...

Edited by Vecchio
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4 hours ago, Phil Parker said:

If you like it, and can afford it, buy the loco. I don't see what the problem is.

Yes, if you've got something you like and you like having it then all's good, whatever you do or don't do with it.

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I've been 'correcting' my operating fleet since lockdown was imposed the first time round.  As I don't subscribe to the liberal application of Rule One, I have been trimming the edges removing the T&RS that doesn't conform to the operating timetable and timescales of the last couple of years of the Waverley route. 

 

This has seen the departure of many inappropriate DMUs, sundry wagons and coaches plus some locos, both steam and diesel, and the odd shunter.

 

As an indulgence, however, I've rolled back the starting point of my modelled era, by a year to early 1967, meaning that I can 'save' my Death Steam roster of rundown Brits and Black 5s from the fate of Ebay. 

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