From toy to scale and back

I found that something my grandchildren liked to do was push an engine back and forth with a hand. You can do that with many of the Lionel postwar engines and a few feet of straight track.

Retlaw posted:

I'm considering selling off the scale items since they really aren't "bringing me happiness" and having fun with the "toys."  Oh, I'll probably keep a PRR K4 and set of matching passenger cars, but can't really see a reason to just store the rest of them --  I figure someone should be enjoying them.

You might want to think about that a little longer.  I also started with "toy" nonscale trains, then moved up to 3rs.  But every now and then the Postwar bug bites me again, and I get the PW locomotives down from the shelves and haul some PW cars out of their boxes, and have fun watching the trains go around.

If I'd sold the nonscale trains, I wouldn't have that option.

Yes, don't do anything too soon that you will regret.

I am primarily a scale guy but I still have my postwar Lionel from when I was a kid. I do run it once in a while. I would never sell my non scale trains nor would I sell my scale trains. The scale trains took me years to collect and I could never replace them these days. My advice is like what was written above. Wait and see. 

After four decades in this hobby I have been to many corners of it, from garden railways, to fine scale rivet counting to 100 year old antiques, etc. Right now I am really enjoying the traditional toy sized 0 gauge trains on a rather small basement layout. Not too much realism but good fun with a splash of tin plate buildings to spur the imagination.

I have touch scale some ( williams scale GG1 x 4 ) and even have some scale freight and passenger cars, but I can't get rid of them even with the thinking of my layout when I build it will basically be post war and pre war. To me theres nothing like the tin plate cars, especially the ones to me look like there at least semi scale. ( 810 - 820 cars and there counter part 2810 - 2820 ) 

You never know you may want to keep the scale and make a permanent layout that the grandkids can enjoy all year but wide enough turns to run the scale trains. I know in traditional O gauge track goes to O-72 and I think Menards has taken it to  O-96. It still gives you the feel of when we were growing up but with wider curves than we ever thought about as a kid, it was either O-27 or O-31 curves for most of us, depending on what we used. 

The pendulum swings back and forth. Early 1980's I was fascinated by postwar layout the superintendent had in the building I lived in. We would run them once a week on two 4x8's and I got my interest up when we went to Greenburgs in Philly mid 80's. Then quite abruptly,  he sold all the traditional Lionel trains and layout in one shot to a neighborhood collector and transitioned to S scale (two rail). I missed the trains he sold! So, attending Westchester toy and train show and st Vincent's de Paul shows started my adventure in traditional Sized Lionel.  Couple of layouts later I discovered  O scale 2 rail in a smaller place  and sold most of my 3 rail. Made a harbor front O scale switching layout. Scratch built several rail marine items. There were tentative plans to move to France at that time, so I dismantled the O scale layout, but decided I loved living here (USA). In that period of time, I went to YORK with a neighbor. Ohh oh! came home with accessories track and transformers. Built a cool 3 rail layout. My  O scale was kept, stored and made a future project to be continued. Then it happened again, sold the 3 rail layout and accessories and trains to a buddy of mine but regretted it.  I used to go to his house to run my former owned trains! Lol. 

Historically I sold my trains to buy others. I stayed in O size throughout many transitions.

After some mindful meditative self evaluation,  I found that I had  finished right back where I originally started, Several times. Hmmmm,   I m rebuilding the last 3 rail traditional layout over again. Here we go again! Go figure, it's mostly  about the enjoyment of the  rebuild process.

What I learned:  selling off or redistributing what you have for something else,  it just might come back to you! Lol. One can make up their mind to be flexible enough to change it again.

leroof

I was happy with the appearance of "traditional" O-gauge, but I wanted steam locos that would run smoothly at scale speeds.  In 1996 our O-27 layout was destroyed by a flood.  I was active with a few hi-rail modular groups at the time, so I started buying scale-sized 3-rail trains.  I had the firm intention of building a small modular layout of my own.  Ten years of apartment living made that difficult.

Since about 2007, I've regained an appreciation of traditional-sized trains, and also realized that you need a lot of space to create a credible transition-era mainline railroad with O72 curves.  (About 8' x 17' I estimate, and that's just for a double-oval.)  Meanwhile, traditionally-sized LionChief Plus and RailKing with PS2/PS3 will run smoothly on sharp "toy train" curves, which potentially allow a lot more variety.  As you've discovered, traditional trains are more approachable and family friendly than high-end, scale detailed trains.  For better or worse, your collection and operations won't be limited to a particular era or locale.

I would let your budget and available space be your guide.  If LionChief Plus, or even RailKing with PS2 existed in 1996, I doubt I would have ever gone to scale-sized trains.  Determined to escape northern winters, I now live in the Land of No Basements.  A metal building for the layout would require extra land, and would also need to be conditioned year-round.  So unless I hit the lottery, I'll probably never have room for an O72 layout.  For me it's starting to look like scale-sized trains was a false path.  YMMV.

Leroof posted:

The pendulum swings back and forth. Early 1980's I was fascinated by postwar layout the superintendent had in the building I lived in. We would run them once a week on two 4x8's and I got my interest up when we went to Greenburgs in Philly mid 80's. Then quite abruptly,  he sold all the traditional Lionel trains and layout in one shot to a neighborhood collector and transitioned to S scale (two rail). I missed the trains he sold! So, attending Westchester toy and train show and st Vincent's de Paul shows started my adventure in traditional Sized Lionel.  Couple of layouts later I discovered  O scale 2 rail in a smaller place  and sold most of my 3 rail. Made a harbor front O scale switching layout. Scratch built several rail marine items. There were tentative plans to move to France at that time, so I dismantled the O scale layout, but decided I loved living here (USA). In that period of time, I went to YORK with a neighbor. Ohh oh! came home with accessories track and transformers. Built a cool 3 rail layout. My  O scale was kept, stored and made a future project to be continued. Then it happened again, sold the 3 rail layout and accessories and trains to a buddy of mine but regretted it.  I used to go to his house to run my former owned trains! Lol. 

Historically I sold my trains to buy others. I stayed in O size throughout many transitions.

After some mindful meditative self evaluation,  I found that I had  finished right back where I originally started, Several times. Hmmmm,   I m rebuilding the last 3 rail traditional layout over again. Here we go again! Go figure, it's mostly  about the enjoyment of the  rebuild process.

What I learned:  selling off or redistributing what you have for something else,  it just might come back to you! Lol. One can make up their mind to be flexible enough to change it again.

leroof

Leroof, you are the opposite of me regarding selling, since I've never sold anything. LOL. It is very practical to sell what no longer interests one, to have money to buy what one really wants. 

I am very sentimentally attached to all the trains I have, even the junk, which might be good for parts. Arnold

Hi Arnold, I am attatched to your PW trains too! Lol.

Glad you never sold anything. Quite amazing, not too many people I know can say that.

The pendulum swings and luckily I have regained some of the actual sold items. Most of my 3  rail was overmanufactured and easily obtainable. 

Leroof.

I here ya! I am thinning out the herd to go to more prewar.  The 800 series freight cars, 253e 254e, 255e, 260e and 700 series passenger cars are sure ahead of their time.

Besides Pre-war looks good on a scale layout! 

I run traditional stuff at home on my 3-by-8-foot layout and scale stuff on the club layout. I appreciate both. You’ve obviously have a desire for both, so why pit one against the other?

I started with Lionels when I was a kid, then was lured into H0 because it was "scale and serious model railroading" through my teens - BUT: I always missed the operating cars and accessories and tried to fit the ones made by TYCO onto my layout. I finally got tired of regauging wheels and couplers that always need that "giant hand from the sky" to open or close. Fortunately, I had kept my Lionels.

Years later, I again weakened and bought scale from Williams and K-Line, but wasn't happy with them because they just didn't look good with my traditional trains (not to mention the annoyance of dealing with control features on the K-Line engines that didn't work well - probably my fault due to a lack of understanding of the technology). I sold them and finally built my Postwar & MPC layout and have been a happy Lionel Lad ever since (with just a few conventionally operated and traditional-sized pieces from MTH and Williams).

Just run what you really enjoy most.

Don’t pack up those scale models...put  ‘em out to play with. Life’s too short, so

enjoy both....you & those babies!!

I'm going through the same thing right now. 

I have a modest sized basement layout (9x16), but it's big enough to run any scale piece of equipment I like. 

However, this past Christmas I ran two conventional loops with a Proto 1 Railking Daylight and a Lionel 2344 Conventional Classic set with a ZW-L...what fun that was. 

What I'm going to do now is build a second level with two circles (one 0-81 and one 0-72) that will be dedicated to conventional running only. This way I can run any Prewar, Postwar, LTI, early MTH, etc and still have my scale, command equipped fleet below. 

Hopefully that'll be the best of both worlds. 

Pierre, we have so many things in common.  In addition to New York apartment life, St Vincent DePauls' in Elmont? If so I was hitting them early 90's

I go back and forth and have most of my life.  At the very least you already have one clear good thought and that is if you do decide to purge the scale stuff, at least keep what was your favorite loco and cars.  You will kick yourself in a couple of years if you get back into it and realize you long for the good old days.  Nothing wrong with keeping or selling either way is fine.  Who knows, you may find that in a few years your grandkids decide they like the scale looking trains, you just never know lol!