Did You Ever Buy An Engine You Didn't Need Because It Was A Good Deal?

Interesting looking support system for layout in the background. Steel legs? Do you build on tables? Would like seeing more photos show what it's made of and its framework, etc. Thanks

The interesting part of this thread to me is the idea of differentiating a "need" from a good deal. None of us ever really needs an engine any more than we "need" a layout. Every single railroad oriented item we buy is based upon our love of trains.

 

By that definition, I need every engine. In this hobby, our "wants" become so powerful that we translate them into "needs." Hey, I need a GS-4 number 4449 because I rode that loco. I "need" about 30 UP reefers to get pulled by my Vision Big Boy. LOL

 

i had a visitor to the layout tell me he owned 600 engines. I can tell you pretty safely his "needs" are in another galaxy.

This is so often a temptation.  I've gone so far as to "make an offer" on the famous auction site, which was thankfully declined.

 

Like I said, I am often tempted but so far I have been successful in resisting...

I guess,to paraphrase a famous program,we have to fight the addiction one train at a time!

pretty much every engine I have???....

 

When Bachmann came out with ET&WNC # 14 with sound, I really wanted one. I resisted the temptation until I found a screaming deal on one off ePay. There were problems with this:

• 14 was shipped (along with # 10) to the White Pass & Yukon in Alaska a year before my layout takes place.
• None of the ET&WNC's ten-wheelers still had their green and gold, "50th anniversary" paint by the year I model
• I wanted to model only specific rolling stock that was on the RR in the year I model (I cheated by later making a model of coach # 23, the only ET&WNC coach I ever saw in person, as that was also off the property before WW2)
• My layout is really small and after I did my first op session, I realized I really don't need the three wartime black engines I already had as two locomotives are enough to handle an op session. The green-gold # 14 was really redundant

But again, I really wanted a green-gold ET&WNC engine anyway. I had 9, 11 and 12 represented in wartime black already. But the ePay listing for a 14 popped up and it was a screaming deal for a sound-equipped On30 ten-wheeler

 

I'll almost certainly keep 14 around, on my storage 'yard' under the layout, just in case. Who knows, maybe I'll have a 1930s-themed op session someday!

Yes.  However; I still have to like the item.  I purchased a Premier MTH Wabash Heritage Diesel at TCA for $350.  I love the heritage units and it was a good deal.  Thus, I passed on some other items and purchased this diesel.

I hafta admit being guilty of doing just that.  So, I ended up with a few engines that would never see operation on my layout.  Part of the problem was that, at first I hadn't decided that 1950 would be "the year" for the setting of my layout.  So I did buy a few engines, at first, that did not appear until after that date.  Case in point was the FM Trainmaster:  That engine didn't make it to the rails until 1953;  two or three years after my self imposed setting. 

 

But I've been able to move a couple of these "down the road" to their next owners and I didn't get hurt too badly on the deal.  (Didn't make anything on those deals, either!)

 

Paul Fischer

I bought a reissue of a 2018 blue Boys Train with the whistle tender, a conventional classics GP-7 Milwaukee Road diesle, and a US Army steam switcher with a lighted back up light, smoke and headlight, haven't run any of them until last night, since I bought them. I should try them out and put them on the OGR board for what I paid for them. I could use the  space!