Do you have regrets about buying too much stuff?

I could have bought fewer items for my layout and still been happy with it. It took me almost a year of designing the layout to get everything on it I wanted or had purchased. I only have a few vehicles I don't want to use and a couple other items like the pedestrian bridge I did not use. We all have grand ideas for our layouts before reality circles the pile of boxes we have excitedly acquired!!

Yes!  20 years ago, I sold my HO and bought a Railing NYC Mohawk.  Then, I bought WAY TOO MUCH STUFF over the next few years.  So much, I sold most of it, keeping a few locomotives ,  6464 size freight cars, and 4 sets of passenger cars.  My too wide (4 feet x 51 feet)  layout is still  only about ½ scenicked. Trevor Marshall has an essay online titled "Achievable Layouts"in his Port Rowan in 1:64 blog.  I would read it before starting a new layout.  Lessons I learned are,

buy only what you need, have a specific focus, and only begin a project you can realistically finish.  Also, buy only what you really like, as you will likely lose most of your money if you want to ever sell it. 

That's a nice looking train room, not to mention layout, Turtle.  Am I buying too much ?   Absolutely not.  While I can, I do.  Because there may come a day when I cannot.  And if push comes to shove some items can be sold off.  

I remember reading an article about a guy who had no layout, but in anticipation of having one ,bought buildings, kits, rolling stock and engines, lots of everything! For over 10 years he did this, with everything still in boxes! Finally the time came to finally have a layout! Every weekend he and his friends opened boxes, it was like Christmas every weekend, stuff he had forgotten about suddenly was there and he had a use for it! A great deal of fun discovering things and finally using them the way he pictured them over the years! I am in that situation and look forward to weekend Christmas openings some day soon! Though I 've slowed down on buying, I still go to York, with a vision in my head! I follow this forum with an eye to using what I learn here some day! Silly, maybe, but better to have a dream than not! 

Lately every day. 

First, nice train room and layout. For me I am better then I was when it comes to buying or maybe I just slowed down in my old age. I have more then I can use but yet when something new comes along that I do not have I buy it. Size of my layout will never accommodate all that I have. Maybe I just have to get into a habit of changing out more often to use more...................Paul

No, everything I bought I've wanted and has a purpose.

Sometimes but then I get over it. Have done the same with other collections. Just wish I had more room for a bigger layout but grateful for what I have.

Yes I do, but still like looking at what I have amassed.  Sooner or later I will start to sell, but right now I do enjoy all of what I have.

Not yet.

Pete

I'd wager that most of us have more trains than we can fit on our layouts. I think there is a little bit of the collector in all of us, whether we like to admit it or not.

I am amazed at some of the collections I have seen photos of  published in the magazines plus on the forum.  I have a long way to go.  Your budget and other activities are controlling factors - sometimes. Why I always use cash - no credit cards.

With only a 39" x 80" layout, it's not hard to get more trains than will fit!  LOL

Plus my tastes have changed from postwar/MPC semi-scale to real tin tinplate. I will no doubt lose some of the postwar/MPC stuff, but not all of it as some of it came from my father that he had as a boy.

In the meantime, train buying has slowed way down as I wait and save for nice prewar tin to compliment my Marx postwar tin.

Yes...I was acquiring for a friend, when I attended shows, a number of Pennsylvania roadname items.  Friend retired, doesn't have the money, and has lost interest, so I need to sell off these off, as I have no interest in it.   Unfortunately, I tired of spending all day in shows, setting up and selling little, so the sell-off is not happening fast.

The engines and rolling stock I've purchased over the last forty years certainly exceed the capacity of my layout but I really enjoy swapping out engines and rolling stock to operate different consists.  I have virtually everything on shelves so its an easy matter to to replace one engine or car with another.  Diversity is the name of the game.

If I had to do it all over again I would have about 1/3 of what I have now.  I was introduced to train collecting around 1979. At that point in time I just started my career and my interest in collecting grew from the hobby that occupied my childhood years.  About 15 years ago my interest shifted to operating and building a layout that is now nearly complete.  Four train consists run on that layout, add a few for changes and that is all that is ever needed. At the last two train shows I spent a total of zero and $40 on odds and ends. The fun now, is not on buying but on operating.

ZERO regrets........but I did realize about a year ago I had enough......more than enough. Dad passed away last July and I had to clean out his house. He was not a pack rat or even close. But he was a wood worker and author and thus had LOTS of wood power tools and lots of books. Made me realize I had enough stuff. But I enjoy all of it.

I made an effort to thin out the collection a bit over the Fall and reshape my collecting direction. But by Christmas, I had managed to acquire as much, if not more, than I had sold off.

I'm done now though. 

Seriously. 

No. Seriously.

paul 2 posted:

First, nice train room and layout. For me I am better then I was when it comes to buying or maybe I just slowed down in my old age. I have more then I can use but yet when something new comes along that I do not have I buy it. Size of my layout will never accommodate all that I have. Maybe I just have to get into a habit of changing out more often to use more...................Paul

Like any hobby it has it's hard side. For me it is being overstocked (equivalent  to loss of money), the constant cleaning that is required, storing boxes, and the wiring. It still portends, for me anyhow, to be mostly sunshine and fun for me. I absolutely love the sounds, lights, and realism of modern engines. Still love those trains. 

Only having space for a 9x6 layout I have a lot more trains than will fit at one time, but I enjoy swapping them out and running different trains. I also have more MTH buildings and 1/43 autos than I have space for. Every few months I will swap out the buildings in my "downtown" area. This lets me use all the buildings and changes the look of the layout. Also, just by swapping out vehicles I can change the era of my railroad from the 50's to the 60's or 70's. For me, rearranging the look and time of the layout and creating new scenes is almost as much fun as actually running the trains.

Yes, I've often wished I had less "stuff".....then something else comes along that I've "Got to have".

I don't even have a ton of O Gauge "stuff". The "stuff" I have is plenty of LGB (G), HO, N, etc locos, rolling stock and other various odds and ends sitting around.

No, never enough.  It's funny, when I think, ok, I'm not going to buy anything else, I will see something else that I can't live without.

Yes.

Going to a train show this weekend.

OK, MAYBE!

Regrets?  Only in that I will end up selling off a lot of stuff that I will not be able to build before I run out of time............so I've already started selling. 

Going to a train show this weekend.

Where!?!

C W Burfle posted:

Going to a train show this weekend.

 

Where!?!

Greenberg Show, Wilmington MA Sat & Sun!

Absolutely. Will I stop? NO

Yes, but only in that I've changed focus and interests several times. First I narrowed my road names down to a few specific ones from the early days when I bought whatever caught my eye. Then I became less interested in scale equipment and more in toy train layouts. If I could purge everything now I'd run only tinplate. My problem is I'm not much of a purger. 

Yes I always have more than I could ever use. I have walls of shelves ( I'm still adding ) but no layout at present. you say 25 boxcars I counted freight cars last night ( and I have more coming in and this does not count the ones still packed away ( or the 40 some I have for a garage sale the weekend of the 25th I think it is) and I have on the walls 45 and 28 passenger cars with a couple not out because makes train to long to fit on shelves. 

Didn't buy a big enough house is my only regret.

Bogie

I don't want to have something in common with most of my collection---NIB!! LOL

Hers one for you I also have 3 trains sets  never been opened. lol Just haven't had a place to use/display them yet. and 2 that's been opened to look at but never been used. 

Absolutely because getting rid of the excess has been a chore.  I don't expect top dollar for 20 year old conventional stuff but when someone basically nothing because they are going to flip it elsewhere I draw the line.  It just means I am paying for past mistakes in time and effort.  

My only true regret on train purchases is the money I spent on G gauge. Still have lots of track & switches but only one  LGB steam engine , a motorized truck that is cool plus a doodle bug that I kitbashed which I will keep.  With our weather, tree leaves and twigs keeping the track clear is a chore. I should have put the $$ in to old Standard gauge.  Got rid of a Bachmann shay and Heisler for pennies on the dollar.

No matter how much space one has it is easy to outgrow it.  Even at 2k sq ft I now have so much stash I must bleed it off asap.

Check OGR for sale thread.  Gotta dump 2 and 3 rail stuff, 26"  TT,  round house, buildings  022 switches, a hundred unneeded pass/freight cars, paints, 19 transformers/powerpacks,  entire collection of MR mag,   decals.  It's crazy around here.

My biggest mistake was acquiring buildings that were non RR and too big.    Stuff like residential houses or the slew of cube shaped stores turned out to be litter.

The older I get the less "stuff" I want/need --- starting to feel closed in --- sounds crazy

Now that the kids are leaving my wife and I are trying to emptying this place out

Looking around I'm the biggest problem --- new train policy in my life --- for every train box that comes in to my house 3 boxes go out --- perfect

Maybe this will help to keep things under control --- fingers crossed 

Thx

Yes, I do have way too many trains and if I did it over again i would try to stay with mostly postwar Lionel items and just a few modern trains. 

Over the last 3 years I have sold off most of the MPC stuff that I bought in the 70s,80s and 90s and my post war is on display on the shelves.

Mikey

No. What's "too much" anyway?  Remember, "He who dies with the most Lionel  stuff, wins!"